We Make Collective Subscription Review – December 2016

We Make Collective is a UK-based subscription that sends out a materials kit every 2 months.

Each box is themed around a specific craft with a variety of materials and online tutorials to explore the craft on your own. This subscription is different from other craft subscriptions in that you receive a variety of materials instead of everything needed to make a specific item.

December's box was the Jewellery Kit.

My Subscription Addiction paid for this box.(Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)

The Subscription Box: We Make Collective

The Cost: $43.78 every two months (£35.00)

The Products: "We make kits are not designed to make one, three or even ten different items. They’re made to encourage creative freedom and explore each of our individual ideas of design. The kits are packed full of the very latest in DIY and craft materials you might be struggling to get your hands on elsewhere. Each month you will receive a selection of materials that will allow you to learn and develop new skills."

Ships to: Internationally via Royal Mail from Birmingham UK. Free worldwide shipping with subscription.

Check out the Crafting + DIY Subscription Box Directory and make sure to add We Make Collective your subscription list or wishlist!

Here's everything that came in the box. It included lots of supplies as well as tools for making jewelry.

The We Make Collective website is a great resource for tutorials and guidance to go along with this subscription. I'll show you more from the website later in this post!

Everything was thoughtfully packaged with labels matching the box's branding.

This packet was filled with a variety of jewelry findings, all packaged individually so that nothing was tangled or jumbled.

String, chains, beads, clasps, and earring backs, oh my!

All the Jump Rings in the World!

The kit came with TONS of jump rings for making seemingly infinite pieces of jewelry. I can confidently say I'm stocked for life. These rings are great for attaching pendants and clasps to necklaces and dangly bits to earrings. You can make your own with wire, but I like that they included these because I'm not great at making perfectly round rings.

Jewelry Cutters

These wire cutters are used to cut chain and wire when making your own jewelry. They were sharp and made quick work of trimming jewelry chain. The rubber handles made the cutters comfortable to use.

Nice and sharp!

Chain Nose Pliers

Chain nose pliers are used to get a good grip on wire and chain when assembling bits and pieces of DIY jewelry. These seem to be more like hardware store pliers than jewelry pliers though because the serrated surface can easily scratch delicate wire and chain. Chain nose pliers for jewelry making are usually smooth on the inside.

Here's a look at the serrated bits of these pliers.

Round Nose Jewelry Pliers

The kit also included a matching pair of round nose jewelry pliers. These are used to make perfect loops in wire.

These pliers are smooth which means they won't scratch your wire.

0.5MM Copper Wire

This copper wire is good for making your own jump rings or other tiny loops to join jewelry components. I used this wire (and some other supplies from this box) to make a pair of earrings, keep reading!

1MM Copper Wire

The box also included a spool of 1MM copper wire which is great for bending into shapes for jewelry. The wire is malleable enough to bend with tools but sturdy enough to hold a shape like a triangle or circle to hang from an earring. You could even make a thin-banded ring with this wire!

Once you have signed up for We Make Collective, you have an account on their website and access to a box-themed knowledge base and tutorials. I'm pretty new to making jewelry so I liked looking through the jewelry making basics to build up my skill set.

Once I felt more comfortable with the basics, I was excited to look through the Jewelry DIYs and pick a project. I picked the longer drop earrings pictured in the left corner, but I could have chosen any of the projects pictured above.

Here are my finished earrings! I followed the tutorial very closely except that I chose to leave the wooden bead unpainted. I like the natural wood look with the copper tube beads.

Here's a closer look. I used earring hooks, chain, 0.5MM wire, copper tube beads, and wooden beads all found in the box!

Verdict: This is definitely a different kind of craft subscription. If you like to explore new crafts on your own and pick choose what you'd like to make, you would like this subscription. If you want a start to finish craft with no extra materials, this might not be for you. I found the variety of online tutorials and basic guide very helpful and I like the overall aesthetic and taste level of this box. The value here is more in the curation and discovery aspect along with the online resources than the included materials.

What do you think of this month's We Make Collective?