Jewelry making at my Pinterest Party, #MPinterestParty

Disclosure: Michaels craft stores provided me with a gift card to cover the cost of supplies for my party, and with party ware to put out at my party.  Their only request was that I blog about the party.  Any opinions in this post are entirely my own. 

Yesterday I had a bunch of my crafty friends over for a Pinterest Party.  Michaels sponsored our crafty get-together to encourage people to move beyond just pinning a craft on Pinterest and actually sit down and do it.  And how much more enjoyable is it to craft when you’re with friends?

It being a Pinterest Party, I hit my Pinterest boards (and then browsed through others’ boards) to look for a fun project for us to do.  I quickly decided that we should make jewelry because, well, who doesn’t like a new piece of jewelry?

I made some snacky food and invited my friends for an afternoon of crafty fun.  Honestly, I didn’t spend too much time or effort on the food because I knew once we started crafting no one would be eating.  The dip in the vintage blue casserole is my Secret Weapon Spicy Spinach Dip.  It’s my secret weapon because it’s sooo tasty, but it’s also super easy to make.

Those red cups and red napkins?  They’re imprinted with the Michaels logo.  It was so cool to have them to put out at the party!!  We also got some Michaels balloons that we used to decorate the dining room.

We made two easy jewelry projects – a wrapped leather and rhinestone bracelet, and a knotted hemp and glass bead necklace.  Both are relatively quick to make and don’t require expensive materials or advanced plier skills.

The wrapped leather and rhinestone bracelet was from the Mix and Match Wrap Bracelets tutorial at Lil Blue Boo. (photo credit: Lil Blue Boo)

It’s a thin leather cord with rhinestone chain layered on top and wrapped with colorful embroidery floss.  They’re cute worn as singles, but even more awesome worn with other bracelets.

I put all the materials out on a vintage painted tray.  I’m a sucker for vintage trays like this!  I use them as decorations, as party trays, and now as organization for craft supplies.

Look at the pretty embroidery floss colors!

We mostly followed her tutorial, though we used E6000 Craft Glue  to attach findings to the ends of the leather instead of tying them on.  We also used the E6000 to hold the rhinestone chain in place while we wrapped it.

And the finished bracelets!

The other project we made was a hemp twine and glass bead necklace using the Summer Shimmer necklace tutorial from Erban Studios.  (photo credit: Erban Studios)

The only materials we needed were hemp cord, vintage buttons, and a selection of glass beads.  I was a little bit like a kid in a candy store picking out the beads for us to use.

With so many beads to choose from, it was hard to narrow it down!  I ended up with several color palettes – a light green, an icy blue, and a red/purple.  I also got several styles of clear beads to mix in.

The glass beads were absolutely yummy, so I used vintage divided dishes to put them out on the table for people to use.

These necklaces were so fast and so easy to make!  It’s just a matter of tying a loop for the button closure, then knotting and threading beads at intervals, and then tying a button on at the end.  It was the perfect project for getting together with friends, when you want your focus to be on conversation rather than on your project.

These were so much fun to make!  Once I started, I couldn’t quit making them.  I’ve now got one for me and several for my Thoughtful Gift Stash.

Here we are working on our necklaces.

The ice cube trays scattered around the table held everyone’s beads so they didn’t roll off the table.

You can wear them as a long single strand, or loop it twice for a double strand.  Here’s one of the necklaces we made yesterday:

As I was writing this post, one of my friends who came over yesterday told me she wore her new bracelet and necklace to work today and got sooo many compliments!  Do you know how happy that made me?  She also told me that she is now inspire to make a couple of jewelry gifts for her mother and grandmother! 

Thank you Michaels for making our Pinterest Party – and our pretty new handmade jewelry – possible!

If you’re looking for a new twist on the stale Christmas party, make it a Pinterest Party instead!  Michaels offers customizable party supplies like cups, napkins and balloons available online to personalize your event.

And if you’re looking for inspiration, follow the hashtag #MPinterestParty to see how other bloggers made their pins a reality.

Or, check out the Michaels Décor Guide to find tons of ideas and projects to make spreading the holiday cheer throughout your house easy.  Navigate through the online version, download a copy, or pick up one at your local Michaels!