If you went to summer camp, no matter if it was far away or just for the day close to home, did you have a favorite craft project during arts-and-crafts time? There are so many classics to choose from – from tie-dye shirts to woven plastic-thread lanyards. But topping the list are friendship bracelets. Bring some camp craft magic into your home this summer by having your child make an easy beaded friendship bracelet to trade with friends or, even better, you!
Materials
- Pipe cleaners – your choice of color
- Wooden or plastic beads (sized for child’s crafting)
- Scissors
Instructions
Have fun selecting beads for this project. For our bracelets I selected simple, colorful wooden beads from Todd Oldham’s Kid Made Modern line at Target. For a one-stop offer, check out this supply kit.
Select a few beads and slide them onto the pipe cleaner. You don’t want to load the entire pipe cleaner with beads because you’ll be trimming the piece down to the correct size for your child’s wrist. A few beads should be perfect.
With the beads in place, wrap the pipe cleaner around your child’s wrist. Note where the bracelet easily hangs off her wrist so it can be slid on and off. At that size, twist the two pipe cleaner ends together twice to secure the bracelet.
Wrap each pipe cleaner tail around the bracelet. If there’s a lot of excess pipe cleaner, trim a bit of it off with scissors before wrapping. Continue making bracelets until your child has a giant stack to swap with at the next friend meet-up!
