Friendship bracelets are so fun for kids to make and give to their friends as gifts at Christmas! I know I used to love making friendship bracelets for my friends when I was younger (90’s girl group names were a particular favourite!). I must have made dozens of different types over the years, it was always fun to exchange jewellery creations with my friends at school! These beaded word friendship bracelets are just so cute and so easy for kids to make themselves! The beads are so colourful, and I love the words or messages that we included in them with the letter beads. 
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There are a lot of words you can use for your beaded bracelets, choose a short positive word, festive saying phrase or their friend’s names.

What you need:

• Colourful beads (you could make them festive themed)
• Letter beads 
• Cord, string, or even a pipe cleaner would work

Here’s how: 1. Gather your supplies and decide on the words and phrases you want to use for each bracelet. Lay these words out first, as maybe the kids will need help with spelling. Put all the other beads in a bowl (will cause less mess & keep them on the table) 

2. Cut your bead string to the size you need (if you are using stretchy bead string you have a bit of wiggle room-  if not give yourself enough room to tie knots on the end!). Use your child’s wrist as a guide and just made sure that the bracelets are not too snug. 

3. You can tape down one end of your bead string. We find this really helps to make it easier to string their beads, especially for younger kids. If using a pipe cleaner, we suggest using a small ball of blue tac over the ends to cover the sometimes sharp ends (small enough that you can still get beads over!) 

4. Now time to make the bracelets and have fun! You can do a colour pattern or just use random bead colours  it doesn’t matter, the friendship bracelets will look amazing either way!

5. Once you are done making their bracelets you need to tie a knot. You want to tie 3-4 knots to secure each bracelet, pulling on your string snuggly after each knot. Trim the ends, just a bit of string at the end so it doesn’t come loose. If using a pipe cleaner we suggest twisting the pipe cleaner around each other and covering the ends in blobs of some super glue to ensure they are covered and not sharp. (adult supervision required for this step!)

We hope you have so much fun making these friendship bracelets. They will turn out great and such a fun crafty after school activity. The kids will be dying to gift them to their friends, we guarantee. We would love to see your creations and big smiles from the creators and recipients, tag us at #ayearofplayadvent