Middle School Craft Gets Adult Makeover

Remember making friendship bracelets in middle and elementary school? They were always the simple knot, 2 or three color embroidery floss accessories that took mere minutes to create? Well, I have found a new obsession that takes the idea of the original friendship bracelet and twists it into a current trend with an adult feel!

After babysitting two girls (ages 6 and 9), and teaching them how to create the original bracelets I remembered from my childhood, I went home and googled the craft to see if there had been updates since...uhh...1991!

To my surprise, there are a ton of patterns online...thousands, in fact and there in lied a challenge for me!

I had to learn how to read the patterns first, but after a few youtube videos, it was much more simple than they first appear! (Example below)

So I guess I have been out of the world of friendship bracelets for a long time now but I am back! :D

So, I have tried many patterns from THIS WEBSITE, which you can search by number of colors, number of strings and level of difficulty! Very useful for those just starting out!

So, since this craft had me longing for the old days before text messaging, cell phones or facebook, I sat and actually wrote notes for some old friends who have moved away (either emotionally or physically), and snail mailed them the note with a friendship bracelet to let them know I was thinking of them. I think a little nostalgia is good for everyone! :D

I have gotten a little risky by adding beads and such but take a moment to learn how to read the patterns and you can do any of them. Once you know the patterns, you can add beads wherever you want!

 After about a month or so and wearing several of my own bracelets, I came up with an idea with a layering effect by creating one long bracelet that wraps 2-4 times on itself using different patterns for each layer...it is complicated to work with the long strings at first, but you get used to it.

 I also used nuts instead of regular beads for this one...get creative! Look around the house for things you can thread through to add to your bracelets...let me know what you use!