Friendship bracelets are so much more than just pieces of string that you wear on your wrist during the summertime. As someone who attended and now works at a summer camp, my opinion on this subject may be a bit biased, but hear me out.

Not only are these colorful accessories a fashion statement, but to me, they signify summer. I start my summer off with a bare wrist, and by the end, bare skin is replaced with a bunch of colorful string and fun designs.

Making a friendship bracelet for someone means that I care about them enough to want them and the world to see how much I care. By making them something personal that they will wear on their body, anyone who sees it will know that the person wearing it has a friend that cares for them.

It is one thing to buy someone a piece of jewelry like a necklace, ring, or bracelet, and doing this may have a similar effect. Buying someone jewelry shows that you are fond of that person and that you want them to have a constant reminder of you.

However, I think friendship bracelets are extra special and cannot even be compared to other pieces of jewelry. It is often said that the best gifts are homemade, and that is what makes these bracelets more meaningful than any other piece of jewelry.

These bracelets are something you make with your own hands, and depending on the style of the bracelet, they can take hours of work to complete. Before even beginning to construct the bracelet, you need to truly know the person you are making it for by choosing colors that you think they would like.

When someone makes a bracelet for me, it validates that they are truly a friend of mine and I know the value of the bracelet. I know how much energy and time they put into choosing string colors, selecting a design, and creating the bracelet.

As a camp counselor, making friendship bracelets were important to me, but I struggled to find time to make as many as I wanted. No matter how busy my days were, I always tried to spend any free time working on a bracelet because I knew that the campers deserved to know that I cared about them.

Although friendship bracelets are a "camp thing" in my eyes, I love seeing that more and more people are making them, whether for themselves as accessories or to give to their friends. These bracelets scream summer to me, and just seeing them makes me feel excited and happy.

So next time you see someone with a bracelet made of string around their wrist, think beyond the fact that it is an accessory and realize that someone cared enough about them to hand-make them this piece of jewelry. If you do not know how to make one yet, I encourage you to learn, because seeing the smile on someone's face when you gift them with it and the pride as they wear it is irreplaceable.