20 Friendship Bracelet Patterns (+Tutorial Videos)

Friendship bracelets are a timeless craft project for kids (and adults) of all ages. Whether you’re just learning each simple knot for the first time or you’re ready to move on to more advanced techniques, you’ll find what you need in these friendship bracelet patterns!

Friendship bracelets were all the rage when I was a kid.

Swapping bracelets with your BFF was so fun and a sure sign of ever-lasting friendship. Now, my daughter has gotten into making her own friendship bracelets too.

Below you will find a ton of friendship bracelet patterns so you can get in on the fun and share it with your kids as well!

First, I just have to say how much I love everything about friendship bracelets:

• What they represent (friendship…awe, so sweet)
• The beautiful colors and patterns
• How fun they are to make
• The super sweet tradition and skill that I can pass down to my own daughter can become a hobby, a gift idea…or even a business.

Making friendship bracelets is the perfect activity for a rainy afternoon, a summer camp, Girl Scouts, a youth group, or even a slumber party.

But don’t save all the fun for a special occasion!

In fact, we just made them for hours during our most recent family road trip. It was a great way to pass the time PLUS – had new bracelets to wear when we arrived!

Ok – now you know how much I love them…let’s move on!

How to Make Friendship Bracelets

Easy Friendship Bracelet Patterns for Beginners

Just like with any other new skill, you want to start with the basics.

In this case, that means perfecting basic friendship bracelets with techniques like a simple braid, backward knot, and forward knot.

Once you have the basics down…go wild!

One of the tricks to making professional-looking bracelets is to tie consistently sized knots and keep the pattern neat and organized.

Below you will find the best beginning friendship bracelet patterns to help you practice your technique.

DIY Fishtail Friendship Bracelet Pattern

Photo Credit: www.youtube.com

This bracelet is great for beginners. It doesn’t require as much thread as some of the other patterns, though you can choose to use up to 6 or 8 strands.

This pattern is created by braiding instead of knotting, which is familiar to most people. The fishtail pattern can look similar to a chevron pattern (my favorite - see below!), but if you look closely, you’ll see the differences.

This fishtail friendship bracelet pattern takes anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes to make, depending on how quickly you braid.

Watch tutorial

Candy Stripe Bracelet Pattern

Photo Credit: www.youtube.com

The candy stripe pattern was the first friendship bracelet design that I ever learned and it’s perfect for beginners.

One of the challenges of making knotted bracelets is keeping track of your threads and staying organized.

The candy stripe pattern is the perfect pattern to master the basics of bracelet making. Here is a simple video tutorial.

Watch tutorial

DIY Chevron Friendship Bracelet Pattern

Photo Credit: www.youtube.com

Obsessed with anything chevron?

It’s such a classic pattern that makes everything look good: backsplash tile, wood flooring, and…friendship bracelets.

Once you master the basic knotting technique and the candy stripe pattern, you will be ready to create a chevron friendship bracelet.

Materials:

• Embroidery thread
• Heart Friendship Bracelet Printable (optional)

We just posted about our Friendship bracelet printable Valentines and thought we’d share how to make heart friendship bracelet to go with them with this tutorial video. They’re a little tricky so we made a pretty thorough video to show you exactly how to do it that should cut out any confusion. Hopefully it solves any confusion you may have! I think they’re pretty cute!

See below for the full tutorial!

What Do You Need To Make DIY Friendship Bracelets?

One reason that friendship bracelets are such a fun craft project for kids of all ages is that you really only need one thing – thread.

You can find embroidery thread online, at any craft store, or even at Walmart, and it comes in pretty much every color under the sun. It’s super cheap, and you can even get starter kits that come with fun color combinations to get started.