Friendship Bracelets Tutorial

The friendship bracelets trend is back in full force and I jumped on the bandwagon this summer, making quite a few.  I noticed quite a few other bloggers making them too and it's fun just to see how everyone makes them just a little bit differently and the color combinations you put together.  I love the look of the friendship bracelets but one thing that I didn't like was that I felt like after I tied it on, I was kind of committed to wearing them for at least a week before I got sick of it and tried to un-knot it or cut it off.  I came up with a super easy way to making them kind of like bangles so that you can actually slip them on and off.  I also came up with a really easy way to use your embroidery floss to spruce up old bangles which you'll find the tutorial at the bottom of this post.

Pretty self explanatory but a few of the essentials to make this project.

• Scissors
• Glue (to be used as the very last step)
• Thin chain - which I used on my middle bracelet above
• Bangles (I used ones I already had or get this stack of 20 bangles for $5) - for the last tutorial
• Embroidery Floss
• Thicker chain to attach to the bracelets

Tutorial 1:
Basically once you are done making your bracelet, take your ends and knot them through your chain.  I try to leave my ends very long so it's easy to slip through the chains.  Double knot it to make sure it's secure.  Cut the ends to a shorter length and with a craft glue, dab a small amount onto the ends and just squish the threads together so that the frayed ends are glued together.

You'll notice for the middle one with the chain, I attached a clasp to it because I wanted to be able to open it and wrap it on my arm rather than slipping it on like you have to do with the chain.  What I love about this is that the chain or clasp is always going to be heavier than your bracelet so the chain always stays on the bottom and the bracelet doesn't flip.

Tutorial 2:

This one is super easy and fast!  Just take a bangle and start wrapping the embroidery floss around.  For the plain one, I just wrapped it twice in one area and kept the spacing even between the wraps.  If you do it nice and tight, the thread doesn't move.  You don't even need glue for this one because when you start it, keep the beginning trail of thread on the underside of the bangle and just wrap around it which keeps everything in place.  When you are done, just tuck the end into the already wrapped sections (also on the underside).  For the rhinestone bangle I wrapped in between each of the rhinestones but I didn't like it with just one time around so I wrapped the entire thing twice. 

Almost all of the materials that I used in both bracelets were found at a craft store for pretty inexpensive.  The only thing that I bought separately at a jewelry supply store was the toggle clasp for the pink/chain bracelet above.  (And of course the bangles but they were just sitting in my jewelry box.) Overall though I think each bracelet probably cost less than a dollar to make!

Have fun and let me know if you make one! :)

Like this post?  Also check out my "Make your own cocktail rings" post for an easy way to turn old earrings into rings!

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