IT wasn’t until some elementary schools banned Silly Bandz, those colorful plastic bracelets that are the latest fad among the pencil-box set, that Ramona Sidlo, who is 30, wanted them for herself.

“I thought, ‘This is nuts that a rubber band is causing so much hype,’ ” she said. “If kids are going crazy over these, I have to have them.”

For the uninitiated, Silly Bandz are rubber bands, often in neon colors, that are shaped like everyday objects: a guitar, a baseball bat, a princess. Unlike the beige round elastics stashed in your desk drawer, these are meant to be worn on the wrist, and they snap back into their original silicon-molded shape  a turtle, perhaps, or a dinosaur or tiara  when you take them off. Children like to collect them by the Ziploc bag, and some principals have banished them, saying they’re a distraction.

Image Silly Bandz have captured the attention of young children. Credit... Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Ms. Sidlo, who lives in Brooklyn and runs a creative consulting company called threeNYC, now wears three on her left wrist  a palm tree, the number 3 and a monkey  along with a Rolex watch and several other bracelets, including one with a Tiffany silver heart charm, an evil eye, and one with purple beads.