In this project, you will learn how to make a friendship bracelet open up a personalized website for you and a friend. A friendship bracelet is a handmade bracelet that when exchanged with someone else, symbolizes your friendship. When a friendship bracelet is combined with a personalized website for you and your friend to continually update, the bracelet becomes a tangible key to an online world created by friendship. This project will take a lot of time and patience, but upon completion you and you friend will be closer and share a feeling of accomplishment and personalized connection.

Step 1: Step 1: Gather Materials

For this project you will need:

A Friend
A Computer
A Makey Makey Kit (http://www.makeymakey.com/)
Internet Connection
Scissors
A Ruler
Embroidery Floss/Embroidery Thread (http://www.dmc-usa.com/Products/Needlework-Threads...

Step 2: Step 2: Make a Friendship Bracelet

Think about the friend you are making the bracelet for:

What are their favorite colors?
Do they like simple patterns, or would they enjoy something more complex?

Friendship bracelets can be as challenging or as simple as you want them to be. However, even the most complicated patterns are comprised of only four different types of knots. Once you learn these knots, with a little time and patience you can make any pattern you want. Just keep in mind that while you are learning you will not get everything perfect on the first try, so keep something around that will help un-knot any mistakes!

A great website for patterns and tutorials is http://www.braceletbook.com/. On their patterns page http://www.braceletbook.com/patterns.html you can search patterns according to how many colors and strings you want to include, as well as difficulty and patterns that include photos and videos.

The patterns I used for the bracelets pictured above are:

For this project to work properly, you and your friend will each need two friendship bracelets. I suggest making one simple one, and putting more effort into another bracelet.

Here are some suggested patterns according to level of difficulty:

Begginer: Candy Stripe Pattern (forward knot)

Intermediate: Chevron Pattern (forward knot and backward knot)

Difficult: Diamonds and Beyond (forward, backward, backward-forward, and forward-backward knot)

Step 3: Step 3: Make Your Website With Your Friend

Now that you have your friendship bracelets made, it's time to get together with your friend, exchange bracelets (you both need two), and start your Friendship (Bracelet) Website!

I recommend using www.Wix.com as it is easy to setup, edit, and most importantly, it is free.

From the homepage, click: Start Now.

This will take you to a login page, click: Sign Up. You and your friend are going to be sharing the ongoing creation of this website, so choose a password you both can remember.

After you are finished signing up, you will be taken to a page asking what type of website you want to set create, click: Blog.

Next, you will be taken to a page asking which editor you want to use, click: Start with Wix Editor.

From here you chose the template you and your friend are most excited by and click: Edit.

You can customize nearly everything on the template, creating a personalized website for you and your friend.

Once you have finished customizing your website, click: Publish.

Now, go back and open up your Wix Account page https://www.wix.com/my-account/ and add it to your bookmarks on your web browser by going to Bookmarks, then Bookmark This Page.

Step 4: Step 4: Program Quicksilver App

Next, download the Quicksilver App https://qsapp.com/

From the homepage, click: Download.

Once you have downloaded Quicksilver, open the app. You will be shown a window that says: "Quicksilver" is an application downloaded from the internet. Are you sure you want to open it? click: Open.

Now you just jun through the setup option, you don't need to add any of the plugins.

Next, click on the Quicksilver heading in the upper left-hand corner, next to the Mac symbol.

From here, click: Triggers.

Under Custom Triggers you will click the small plus sign + towards the bottom left of the window to add a custom trigger.

A short menu will display two options for your custom trigger, click: Keyboard.

A new window labeled Select an Item will display, type MYACCOUNTWIX.

Select from the auto-populated results the Wix account you just bookmarked, and Open URL should appear in the Action section directly below where you were typing, click: Save.

The custom trigger should appear in an orange line, click on the orange line and a new window will open with Settings, Command and Scope options.

In this new box, under Settings, click in the Shortcut box and type a down arrow from the navigation arrows on your keyboard.

Step 5: Step 5: Connect Your Friendship Bracelet to the Makey Makey and Launch Your Website Account!

Open your Makey Makey kit.

Connect the Makey Makey circuitboard to your computer with the given red USB-MiniUSB cord, if connected correctly, the board should light up momentarily, and a red light on the back should remain lit.

Next, take two of the colored alligator clips, connecting one to the down arrow, and one to any area on the Earth stripe at the bottom of the board.

Roll your friendship bracelets up high on your arm so they are taught against your skin. Attach one alligator clip to each bracelet. If nothing happens, you may have to touch both ends of the alligator clips because they are not touching enough of your skin to active a signal.

Viola! Your Website Account will pop open!

From here you can sign back into your account if you've been logged out, or go directly to edit your site!

Step 6: Step 6: Continue Growing Your Friendship (Bracelet) Website With Your Friend!

Now you and your friend have your own website that you can customize and personalize. As long as you both have two bracelets your website will pop open quickly and easily, making the bracelet a key into a new virtual world completely designed by and for your friendship. You can make posts that you think your friend would enjoy, including pictures, web articles, or even handwritten letters. This is different from Facebook or Instagram because the content you are posting is only meant to be shared with a specific friend or circle of friends, making like and view counts obsolete. Also, no annoying adds!

Hope you enjoy!!