When I was younger, I went to plenty of summer camps. Not the awesome East Coast kind – months at a time, in the woods, having to make friends with your bunkmates so they didn’t put a skunk in your bed – but just a day camp for a few weeks kind of thing. But still there was the obligatory arts-and-crafts class, where I became a master papier–mâché-er. All the “cool” girls were too busy making friendship bracelets to give their friends, but being the dorky shy girl, I would much rather mâché a replica head to scare my sister than make a bracelet for some non-existent friend.

Which left me where I was before this experiment: totally confounded with the magic that is friendship bracelets. How do they work? How do knots make a pattern?!?! Luckily there are so many helpful websites, none more helpful to me than the purl bee. Molly’s sketchbook not only has easy to follow instructions for complete n00bs like me, but the photos, oh those photos. So simple, step-by-step and well-lit. It made me feel slightly more confident knowing I could just look back to that post and make sure I was doing the right thing.

Amazingly, it came out not as horrible as I imagined it would!

Plus, it’s an airmail pattern, always good.