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friendship week: vintage craft instructions



We're at the end of Friendship Week, and I thought I'd combine this with a Vintage Craft post...featuring the piece that inspired the look of this entire week: Friendship Bracelets!


vintage craft : bracelet instructions

While looking for some supplies the other day, I happened to find my collection of friendship bracelet instruction books and freebie sheets. These are from when I was, I don't know...maybe 11? My sister remembers making some of these too, and when I showed her, we instantly started reminiscing about them. This kind of thing is the best!

I loved this book so much, even though I can't recall making too many from it. Looking through it now, I can't imagine trying to make the complex designs...there are so many lines of instructions for just a single repeat of the pattern! Still, it was something to aspire to.

vintage craft : bracelet instructions

What follows are the DMC sheets that we would pick up every time we went to Michael's. They were free, and combined with $1 worth of floss, you were good! I left all of them full size, so you can click on them to view them even larger in Flickr.

Also, underneath each photo is a link to see the back. These also take you to Flickr, and by viewing them larger (or downloading), you should be able to read them well enough to follow the instructions, if you so choose.

vintage craft : bracelet instructions
click here to see the back of this instruction sheet.

I kinda really want to make a couple of these for my hair. Like, now. (And how about those Brooke Shields style eyebrows!? I'll skip those.)

vintage craft : bracelet instructions
click here to see the back of this instruction sheet.

It's a totally new concept!

vintage craft : bracelet instructions
click here to see the back of this instruction sheet.

This was supposed to be for making sun/eyeglasses cords, but I'm pretty sure I used the instructions for bracelets too.

vintage craft : bracelet instructions
click here to see the back of this instruction sheet.

These were quite different from anything else I had made, and boy did I make a lot of them! You use plastic canvas as a base, and then wrap it to spell out words and make designs. Such fun!

vintage craft : bracelet instructions

You saw this in the first photo, and it was a tool that I couldn't have lived without. A piece of semi-soft foam, which I could pin the bracelet onto while working. The original pins are still in there. My sister reminded me that we also used to snap the knotted floss into our plastic floss box while working. Good times!

The one thing that was missing was the half-finished bracelets that I'm sure still exist somewhere. I supposed I'll just need to get one started and leave it for another time...

Oh, and Ayla Rose sent me a link to some new friendship projects from DMC. Cute stuff!

I hope you enjoyed Friendship Week!

11 comments:

  1. I've just taken part in a friendship bracelet swap. I could make these forever!

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  2. After we tied the knot to keep the strands together we would put a safety pin through it so that we could take them with us and attach them to anything!

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  3. Heather, I think I remember doing that too, and pinning it to the knee of my jeans!

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  4. Thanks Mollie! Friendship week was great! I'm definitely going to make some! I remember making all kinds of friendship bracelets when I was a young girl!

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  5. Totally used to use the safty pin and pin it to my jeans! Good memories.:)

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  6. I would pin them to my jeans too! :)

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  7. I remember those first two idea pages...so many memories!
    I totally pinned them to my jeans or a pillow. So fun.

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  8. wow, i remember when this was cool the first time.

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  9. I had some of these leaflets too! I used to pin the knot to my jeans, like many others, or use a rubber band to attach it to my bed frame.

    Now I want to make some bracelets.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous9:51 AM

    I can't believe you still have those booklets! I remember buying them in middle school. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I had that same book! How I wish I still had it. The books they have now are very simplistic. It's been great fun teaching my young daughters to make friendship bracelets! They're hooked!

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