Comments on: Epic Win: Friendship Bracelets

By: Cordelia

Cordelia — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:58:55 +0000

I so enjoy making these. I just recently started up again, i always loved making designs like butterflies and peace signs. my friends absolutely love them

By: . . .

. . . — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 02:23:51 +0000

The kids still make these at the camp I work at . . . I have like a dozen . . .

By: Kirara

Kirara — Sun, 24 May 2009 20:13:03 +0000

duh

By: Kirara

Kirara — Sun, 24 May 2009 20:11:11 +0000

i dont suppose you could send me a pattern of how to make the Celtic ones? my best friend is Irish, and likes a lot of the Celtic stuff anyway…and it would be awesome if i could make her one like that…

By: Cait

Cait — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:00:37 +0000

I still make them! In fact, I just recently started making them! I wear a few everyday, although I always have three on. A pair of rainbow ones tied together (one made by me, the other by my girlfriend), and my bisexual one. SO…good times!

<3 Friendship bracelets!

By: Brad

Brad — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:13:17 +0000

This looks amazing. Thank you very much for posting this.

By: MoJo

MoJo — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:42:01 +0000

These are so awesome! I came across an old pic of me, and you can see that I have a ton of these on. And the comment about pinning them to your pants leg? That is also an EPIC WIN.

By: Jon

Jon — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:28:26 +0000

uhh people still make those

By: Sayalle

Sayalle — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:10:31 +0000

Wow, I think my best friend made one of these for me years ago. Maybe I still have it.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 05:47:33 +0000

Aw, I can only make like 1 pattern. The twisty thin kind. But it still looks sick!

By: Artemis

Artemis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:10:16 +0000

I am lucky enough to work at a summer camp, so I [still] sport friendship bracelets all year long!

By: Colleen

Colleen — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:01:35 +0000

Oh man, I remember these. I loved them so much! I remember getting together with my friends just to MAKE these, and bead buddies. Anyone else remember going out to get ridiculous quantities of plastic beads to make those?

By: zeldageek

zeldageek — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:15:33 +0000

I used to make these for my friends all the time; after seeing this I pulled out my embroidery thread, pinned some to my sock, and started working. It’s like riding a bike.

By: Gâ-L

Gâ-L — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:34:24 +0000

The lil’ sister of my best friend made one to me like… a few months ago ! These little attentions are fantastic. Epic win !

By: ibeadorkable

ibeadorkable — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:09:48 +0000

YES! We would have contests to see who could keep them on the longest. I NEVER won. I was terrified of germs even at 6 or 7 years old so I would cut mine off in like a day or two.

By: ibeadorkable

ibeadorkable — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:07:16 +0000

We worked on them at recess too! And we were so mean, we wouldn’t teach the girls who didn’t know how. We would offer to sell them one instead. But only with certain colors- cuz we would only give some colors to our “BFFs” but when we got in a fight we would demand our friendship bracelets back.

By: fw

fw — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:30:25 +0000

I remember making these as a kid. And I remember whole gaggles of little girls working on friendship bracelets at recess. I bet the schools loved this fad.

By: Sarah L

Sarah L — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:54:03 +0000

They don’t sell fabric at walmart, anymore? Where do you live? Curious, because I live in the mid-west, and every single walmart here has both fabric and embroidery thread (what I used for the bracelets).

By: tink1272

tink1272 — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:47:42 +0000

I used to make these and sell them. I’d take orders and usually have them all done by the end of the day. It was so fun. I just got better and better. I still have all my supplies somewhere. Maybe I should start making them again and selling them on Etsy. If only I could remember how I used to do them in 20 minutes like I used to.

By: Dreamscape

Dreamscape — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:39:01 +0000

I used to make hemp bracelets like these with my best friend as a way to earn money, but it got exhausting, and nobody wanted to buy! Makes me wish I lived wherever this person does, it’s probably a better market

By: shwee

shwee — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:42:11 +0000

actually, my friend and i make these in school. whenever we get bored in class, we work on them. we keep them tied to our purse straps so they’re easy to get to. most of our teachers don’t mind us working on them, since its quiet, not distracting, and it helps keep us focused.

By: Amelia

Amelia — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:03:09 +0000

Wow i still make these. They can stay on for about a year, unless they break and fall off.

By: Ladytink_534

Ladytink_534 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:39:55 +0000

I used to make them and sell them in middle school lol. Pretty profitable business and it always kept me and my friends in ice cream money!

By: C'est Moi

C'est Moi — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:48:11 +0000

Get the Klutz friendship bracelet book. That’s how I learned, and it’s got some awesome patterns in it.

By: TJ

TJ — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:26:15 +0000

Those are so cool! I have always liked Celtic designs. I recently found out I am Irish through my genealogy so they have even more meaning now. (It is also St. Patty’s day, weird!)

By: Amos

Amos — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:47:28 +0000

I’ll give you one

By: Jenn

Jenn — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:42:59 +0000

I still make these as well and I make them really simple. Just take a bunch of floss and twist it and then fold it in half and let the magic happen! I used to wear a blue one, a red and gold one and a red and white one until I had to take them off for prom. I miss these though.

By: rowen

rowen — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:25:27 +0000

I still love friendship braclets and I still make them

By: Ilaeria

Ilaeria — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:31:43 +0000

I don’t have any on me right now, but I used to make loads and sell them. I still make them. A few years ago my friends and their early-teen daughter were living with us, and I taught her how to make them when she was bored one day. I dunno if she still does though. I should make some more!

By: David

David — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:15:09 +0000

I agree as well. I see tons of ads for all kinds of toys made of reusable foam pellets, or “moon sand,” or lego-ish blocks, or those waxy wire things that you can make into shapes and objects. Heck, there are even Lego fruit snacks so you can be creative with your food. Markers that let you blend colors together to make whatever color you want… none of these are the big-name expensive toys of this generation, but then neither were the more creative toys of the last generation, or the one before that and so on. And if anything computers can let kids do a lot more creatively than play pre-programmed video games — they can make and edit their own movies as well as draw or paint with them. As well, many video games now are much more virtual-reality environments, so you can wander around in them and do all kinds of things, or build things and experiment in any number of games. A few weeks back I downloaded and played around with the “World of Goo” demo, the object of which is to use little sticky balls to build stable structures across chasms, or towers to reach other objectives, but they behave according to real physics and so you have to experiment and build them carefully. That’s just plain incredible! And a lot more is like that these days…

By: Elsie

Elsie — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:04:44 +0000

Ah! I loved the Klutz press books! I still have some of the old ones that my brother and I had. I think I have some of them memorized. Between Klutz Press and Bill Nye, I learned everything I need to know.

By: Desi

Desi — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:37:35 +0000

I tried to post these earlier but it didn’t work, so here goes again. I do Celtic ones.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/509/dcp1229bo1qy0.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/1479/knot3sr0.jpg
http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8629/dcp1230yn4.jpg
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/7334/dcp1226oy8.jpg

By: JoyJ

JoyJ — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:56:37 +0000

Oh, I made loads of them! And most of my friends gave two each and I wore them until they almost fell off Had half my arm covered in those friendship bracelets. I even found out how to add some text so I made bracelets with my friends’ names on them…and for one friend I once made a stars-and-stripes one (that was more than one inch wide!). Still I don’t know if he ever wore it. But as a US Navy Lieutenant I bet he is not allowed ‘fancy stuff’ like that
Gotta teach my kids (9 and 7) to make friendship bracelets…

By: sunandshadow

sunandshadow — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:49:57 +0000

They don’t carry fabric at walmart any more either, but Joanne Fabrics, Hancock Fabrics, and Micheal’s Arts and Crafts all currently sell embroidery floss. No reason to be sad just because you have to buy them from a different place…?

By: CraftyChica

CraftyChica — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:23:20 +0000

Yeah.. now they point and laugh at the kids that do this.. They’ll get the last laugh when their number 1 line at work is.. “Would you like fries with that?” hehehehe

By: CraftyChica

CraftyChica — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:19:25 +0000

I’d like to see pics of those!! I know how to make them.. but it takes a lot of patience. Not my thing to sit around tying knots all day, but I do still work with those seed beads and make my own beads with Fimo! Yay for Fimo! XD

By: p-chan

p-chan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:10:45 +0000

They don’t even sell the floss at wal*mart anymore. That makes me very sad, I used that stuff all the time. My little pony customs, bracelets, sewing…sigh.

By: sweetmotherofmars

sweetmotherofmars — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:27:25 +0000

Very nice work!

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:08:02 +0000

I agree completely. I have a four year old boy, and trust me, there is no lack of imagination when it comes to him and his friends. “Kids today have no imagination/respect/etc” annoys me to no end.

By: Jules

Jules — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:19:35 +0000

Rad!

The third one is my favorite.

By: Olivia

Olivia — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 14:01:53 +0000

That is SO cool!

By: sunandshadow

sunandshadow — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:47:03 +0000

Haha I just made one of these last month and my friend made fun of me for doing something so oldskool. Joke’s on him now. ^_^

http://home.comcast.net/~wickeddelight/redandsilverzigzag.jpg
This is an 8-strand bracelet. The leftmost strand is knotted twice around the 2nd strand, twice around the 3rd strand, etc. until it becomes the new rightmost strand. Then the same is done with the new leftmost strand. After doing some number of rows to make the zig, flip the bracelet over and do the same thing to make the zag. Omitting the flip step will result in a standard rectangular bracelet with diagonal stripes.

By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:16:18 +0000

“Theme that we’re starting to recognize amongst our epic wins are that toys for children in the past required imagination and creation, versus the video games and action figures of modern times.”

This, I’m afraid, is complete foolishness. Every generation always complains that the next one has lost all its good, moral, salt-of-the-earth qualities.

I was born in ‘79, so I was around 10 when friendship bracelets were popular. Yet we didn’t spend all our time weaving bracelets and, I dunno, dipping candles and crafting handmade soap. We also spent a lot of time playing with action figures and video games, and a lot of that play was centered around imaginary, creative scenarios that we made up ourselves. Were there some nights that I stayed up too late mindlessly playing Wing Commander and feeling (despite the fact that I’d never had a drink) hungover? Sure. But that doesn’t mean that video games completely sap kids’ creativity.

Nostalgia’s fun and all, but when we say things like the original post here, we’re really just revealing our own lack of imagination — our own inability to see the younger generation’s unique forms of creativity.

By: bethany actually

bethany actually — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:42:14 +0000

I just made some recently!

By: Siobhan

Siobhan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:34:53 +0000

….Also, does anybody have a link or something to more complicated patterns like the ones posted by “i make these a lot”?

By: Siobhan

Siobhan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:26:13 +0000

I still wear these. I have two at the moment – checkered and stripey. I love them. They last forever too. XD I remember when I was younger everybody used to make them…..then it just kind of faded out.

Either way, they’re still epic win.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:03:50 +0000

I recently rediscovered my Klutz friendship bracelet book and I’ve been making all sorts of bracelets from it. My favorite HAS to be the totem pole style!

By: Nati

Nati — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:53:37 +0000

Aw man I should make some of these again! I had the book with patterns in it from Klutz. Some of them were so complicated!

By: Black Feather

Black Feather — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:37:59 +0000

I still make them occasionally-although my hands are in a lot of pain now so braiding the floss or hemp is difficult. So I do a lot of patterns in glass beads now if I’m not working in leather or paint.

By: Konekochan

Konekochan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:32:32 +0000

those are awesome. i like the 2nd on the best.