Bracelets :)

I make bracelets. I might have mentioned that in my very first post but I don't know how many of you actually know that. They aren't super fancy. They are really just a bunch of strings tied in a bunch of knots. They are more of friendship bracelet I guess. I make patterns and some with some neat pictures.

Now I shall show you some of them (sorry if the picture aren't the best).

 Those are regular pattern friendship bracelets. They are the ones I tend to stick to just because you can memorize the pattern and don't have to have the design with you all the time. It can be harder to find a pattern with exactly what you want especially if it has a TV show theme or something like that.

This is a alpha pattern bracelet. They take longer than the normal pattern friendship bracelet and tend to use more string. You can pretty much make one of these as long as you have a grid picture of what you want. I don't do these ones as much. I want to but once I start making one it tends to take longer and then I go to doing regular pattern ones again.

These are kumihimo bracelets. You need a kumihimo disk (if you want to know what it looks like just search it in Google images) to make these ones. For these I feel like the patterns are can be a lot of the same so I don't make many of those either. 

I also make key chains! It tends to be easier to make a key chain with an alpha pattern but a regular pattern would work too. Sometimes with the alpha patterns they are either too short or too long. It's okay if its to short because you can just add more rows. If it's too long...you can't really fix that. Plus they can be rather wide. But they are still worth making because you can just use it as a bookmark. Or if you glue on a magnet to the back of it you can use it as a magnet. 

Okay, now I'm going to rant a little bit. A while back I saw one style of bracelets in particular that was being sold in stores (yes, the ones to the right). Then I figured out how to make it. They use a different kind of string but if I had that string I could make the exact same thing. Now I'm seeing regular chevron pattern bracelets being sold. Seriously? That is so lame! You can buy a like nine feet of string for 30 cents and you can make that same bracelet. I don't know why this bugs me so much. It's probably because I know how easy it is to make those. You can make cooler bracelets than what is being sold at the stores and you would probably save money (depending on how large you made your bracelet). You could make two of the bracelets in my first picture for the same bracelet at the store. Okay, this may seem silly to you but it really does bug me. Rant over.

How do I find the patterns and what not? Well I found two websites that have thousands of designs for each style on them (friendship-bracelets.net and braceletbook.com in case you were wondering). They also have tutorials. So if you are bored watching TV you can make bracelets while watching you favorite TV show (that's what I do). 

I have made some cooler designs (especially in the alpha pattern) but I gave those to my friends. They are a great way to show your appreciation to your friends.

I hope this was somewhat interesting and gave you an idea of something to do if you are really bored over the summer. Stay classy and don't forget to have fun this summer!