When thinking of my childhood summers, my memories are filled with days down the shore, nights playing man hunt and most importantly, doing any and every craft that I could possibly try to turn into a business by selling them to my family. Between duct tape wallets and rainbow loom jewelry, I always had a new activity to keep myself busy, however my favorite was always making friendship bracelets. As elementary as it may initially seem, this craft is simple and still time consuming enough that it could keep you busy for hours on end.

All you need to make these summer staples is colored embroidery thread, scissors and tape. The more colors you choose, the thicker the bracelet will be and the longer it will take. I always start out by cutting the string about the length of my arm span then folding them each in half and knotting them together. The strings have to be secured, so I tape them to the table I’m working on, or even my leg if I’m outside. Put the colors in the order you want and then you start tying knots. To do this, take the first color, which should be furthest on the left, and make a figure four on the next strand. Then, pull the first strand under the second and tighten it. Repeat that again on the same strand, or else the bracelet starts to turn over on itself. After two knots, move onto the next thread, and continue this until the original strand is all the way on the right. Then, start over with the next color, which was originally the second strand. Continue this until it is the desired length, then tie a big knot of all the strings at the end to finish the bracelet, leaving a little bit of thread on the end to secure it. Tie it on your wrist and you are done! This bracelet can be really cute, but slightly tedious to make, so I started making a simpler one too with the same basic knot. Instead of knotting each individual thread, wrap the first thread around all of the other threads together and make the four shapes to tie a knot. Continue this until you want a new color, then do it with that thread for a cool wrap style. Look on my instagram, summer.solutions, for picture instructions and check out my website resources for more styles.

While you could just stop there, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands recently and thought that a fun quarantine twist would be to include another favorite childhood summer activity, pen-palling. So, I packed up the bracelets I had made along with a little note in an envelope and sent them to some of my friends. I think it is really important to do little things to reach out to one another right now, and this is a fun way to stay connected while taking a break from technology. I loved the nice messages I got from my friends after they received them and really recommend using little things like this to let others know you are thinking about them. Another option for friends who live close to you is to drop it off at their houses, while keeping a safe distance. My brother and I had a lot of fun doing this and waving to some of my friends through the windows.

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