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For the Makers is a monthly DIY accessories subscription kit.  Each month you receive chic materials to complete four projects along with tutorials on how to complete them. I  bought a 3-month subscription, gosh, back in April on Fab.com and June was the first box I received.

For the Makers ships via USPS and arrived in a small’ish plain brown box.  I wasn’t even 100% sure what it was until I read the label.  My For the Makers box shipped from New Jersey and got to me (in MI) in about 4 days.

Like a few other boxes out there, For the Makers ships a box in a box.  While I am a sucker for adorable packaging, I’m just not sure how necessary this is – not just for For The Makers, but for any of the boxes?  But I do try and reuse ALL the boxes when I can and this is a great size, so maybe it’s a good thing?

It’s hard to tell the size of the box from this picture, but I’d describe it as bigger than a Birchbox, but smaller than say, a Citrus Lane box.

I had no idea at all what I was going to see when I opened the box.  I’d never seen any reviews on For the Makers (probably because I never looked) and hadn’t spent much time on their website checking out old projects. I basically redeemed my voucher and then just waited for the box to show up!  I loved the colors I saw on the first look and was curious to see what on earth I’d be creating.

The June For the Makers box was the “Tradewinds Collection” and was described as tassels, raffia and a touch of shine.  Here are the four projects that were included:

Brigitte Earrings:

I forgot to take pictures of the materials for each of the individual projects, but luckily For the Makers has them on their site.  The box came with everything pictured with the exception of the pliers and the scissors.  And umm, I wish I would have looked at this picture on their site because I totally threw that piece of paper away!  Oops.

I won’t give you the step-by-step details on how to make these earrings (you can go here if you want to see more), but it’s fair to say I failed at this one.  Attaching the jewel was easy, as was making the tassels, but trying to get that little ring through the raffia?  Not so easy. I gave up and may or may not reattempt!  And this is only one earring. I was so annoyed I couldn’t get it to work (and didn’t want to further chip my nails) that I didn’t start the other one!

Paola Push Pins:

I saw the materials for this and thought, now this is something I can handle!

And I was correct!  I totally nailed this one.  All it involved was gluing the stones onto the flat tacks, but I was feeling quite good after this one was completed.  The glue took longer to dry than I expected though.  I guess I was thinking it was superglue like?  It’s not.

Sophia Headband:

I wasn’t overly thrilled by the actual headband in the box, but I was excited to make it.  I’ve mentioned it before, but headbands give me a headache.  And a headband like this would totally hurt!  Still it is cute and I plan on sending to one of my friend’s daughters.

I thought this was going to be SO hard, but actually was the easiest project in the box.  Behind the push pins of course.  All you had to so was wrap the raffia around the headband, which secured the the crystal. I glued the edges of the raffia down to make sure it stayed and that was that!

~Bibi Gem Cuff:

This was the first project I attempted and while I saw that I needed pliers I thought they were just “suggested” and I figured I could use scissors or something instead. WRONG.  If they say you need pliers, go get some pliers ;).

I thought I did a pretty good job with this one, but I realized that it doesn’t look much like the final picture on the For the Makers site.  Still, I made it so I’m proud.  However, I am going to try and disassemble it because I should NOT have the open ends of those little clasp things showing. I don’t know what I was thinking?

I didn’t do a cost breakdown on this box because I have no idea where I’d find all that information. It’d involve a big field trip to some craft stores and I’m not up for that!  Boxes are $29/month (I think I paid $21.67/month on Fab.com when they had the deal though) and I feel like I got my money’s worth.  Will I wear everything?  No.  But I did enjoy making everything and it made me realize I am much less crafty than I think!

Do you subscribe to For the Makers?  What’d you think of the Tradewinds Collection?  If you are interested in subscribing or want to learn more, click here.