Me as a kid and a quick weekend craft!

I began my life in business in the 4th grade.

No joke.

It all started with this:

One summer I was visiting my cousins in Virginia and I noticed they were making these really cool things with brightly colored strings. They were friendship bracelets. As a crafty kid, I knew I had to get started immediately. So one summer, I convinced my grandma to let me attack her embroidery floss collection and pick out four special colors to make my first friendship bracelet.

Four colors, turned to eight, which turned to me having an entire collection of colors. It was always a lot of fun when we went out to run errands and made a special stop at the craft store. Usually I could convince her to let me pick out a few new colors every now and then. Of course, I had no idea that 10cents per color was actually pretty cheap.

Once I started earning an allowance, I was able to buy my own colors with my own money. I had quite a selection!

I worked really hard that summer and did a lot of research in the local library about friendship bracelets. I would check out how-to books and think about ways I could mix colors to make them look more interesting or for a specific "personality."

Then it came time for school to start and recess was my oyster. I set up 10 sample bracelets on the lid of my floss box and numbered them 1 through 10. I would take orders and knot away the 30 minutes we got for recess.

Depending on the bracelet, I would charge anywhere from .50 cents to $1.50. It was all about the length and difficulty. I remember making anywhere between $3-$10 dollars per recess and really thinking I was going to make a future living off of this product. Crazy!

As you can see, I stilll have my floss box and a few sample patterns on display. I pretty much refuse to take them down because I think they're pretty adorable.

A big moment of happiness was when my father's co-worker ordered 20 matching bracelets in the "Barracuda #8" style for his competitive  volleyball team. I charged them $4 a piece and made BANK. It was a big deal in my 9-year-old life.

Seeing friendship bracelets come back full-force into mainstream fashion has been so heart warming this spring/summer. It's so perfect! So I wanted to give you a little help if you're looking for a quick-to-learn craft for the weekend or if you have a little lady in your life who might feel the pleasure of making cute presents for her friends (or if she wants to start out in the business world early in life...)!

Here's a crazy demo video with AMAZING designs to give you a little more inspiration:

The Artists Helping Children organization has an amazing How-To section on Friendship Bracelets (with loads of patterns and designs). They are so cool! In fact, the following steps came from their website as I found them the most clear and most helpful in all of internetland! 

Step 1:

(If you do not have any tape at home, you can use the back end of your emboridery floss box or a clipboard to secure the knot/make tension).

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

Step 5:

Step 6:

Step 7:

Step 8:

Step 9:

Step 10:

Step 11:

Step 12:

Repeat Steps 9-12 to complete the full cycle. Keep following the same color and knot pattern until the bracelet meets your desired length!

So fun! There are countless resources and patterns on the web and Youtube, but getting the knots down is crucial, so definitely get started with the knots above!

I hope you have so much fun! In fact, I think I am going to spend my day getting back into my knots and creating a few beauties for summer!

xo,

Liz