Could your office supplies make you into a millionaire??
Office supplies + creativity = cash
Ok, I’ll be very honest. Probably not. However, let me tell you about loom bands.
If you have a child, know a child or basically have eyes, you will be aware of this year’s massive toy phenomenon. Loom bands. They are everywhere. Children aged about 4–12 up and down the country (and in many other countries) are spending hours twisting these little bands into bracelets, rings and more intricate designs. They might use a loom board, their fingers or a couple of pencils.
These ubitiquous little rubber bands are being sold everywhere. Not just in toy shops. Your local convenience store, petrol filling station or corner shop will probably have a small selection on sale to tempt your little ones into nagging you senseless when you pop in to buy a pint of milk. On Amazon, the top 30 best selling toys are ALL loom band related.
Anyone who’s anyone has been seen wearing a loom bracelet — Prince William and the Duchess of Cornwall have been pictured wearing them. As have Harry Styles and David Beckham.
Even the “big kids” are getting in on the act. My 4 year old son was insistent he wanted a Spider-Man made from loom bands. It was beyond his tender years to do it himself. So I was tasked with doing one for him. Armed with my trusty loom board, the correct coloured bands and a Youtube tutorial, I packed the kids off to bed, grabbed a glass of wine (just to help with my creative flow you understand?) and set to work. Almost 3 hours and 8 attempts later, I came up with something that might’ve passed for Spider-man. In a certain light. From a distance. Without my glasses on. Anyway, the boy was pleased.
One adult, with either considerably more creativity than me or possibly having drunk less wine, took looming to a new level after they created a loom band dress using 24,000 bands. They then put it on eBay where it sold for a whopping £170,000!
They are an unlikely pastime for adults and the absolute antithesis to the usual popular pastimes of our youngsters — tablets with flappy bird and Minecraft on them. So how did they come about?
Well, Rainbow Loom was invented in 2011 by Cheong Choon Ng, a Malaysian-born former seatbelt technology developer from Michigan, who noticed his daughters weaving elastic bands over their fingers to make bracelets.
Yes. That well known office supply found in almost every home or office — the elastic band. Ng tried it, but his own fingers were too big, so he built himself a “loom” — a technology known to the clothing trade since at least the 15th Century — using pins and a wooden slab. His daughters were impressed with the more intricate patterns this allowed.
Ng developed a plastic version and set up a business manufacturing them, investing $10,000. He got a toyshop to stock his product and, after it sold out within a few hours, other stores took an interest. It spread from there and looms and bands can now be seen in schools and homes around the UK and US.
Rubber bands are hardly new. London businessman Stephen Perry took out the first patent in 1845, the stated use being to bind papers and letters. Children have long used them to make catapults and bored office workers sometimes bind them together to make bouncy balls.
So the next time you’re a bit bored in the office, have a look around your workspace and see whether you can come up with the next phenomenon from one of the office supplies lying around on your desk. Post-It origami maybe? Paper clip necklaces? Nope. I’ll leave it to one of you……
This article originally appeared in: http://www.theofficesuppliessupermarket.com/articles/could-your-office-supplies-make-you-into-a-millionaire
