I have always loved the concept of subscription boxes, getting a new surprise every month seemed like such a neat idea. I’ve never signed up for one before though, because there haven’t been any that have really stood out to me. There are plenty of them for kid’s crafts that I have considered now that Evie is older, but I recently discovered Darby Smart which is a subscription box for adult crafts. They have a series of projects that you can choose from, or you can get a monthly DIY box with a surprise project. I was sent a November TO DIY FOR box to review and I had a blast with it!

I was really impressed with the presentation of the box, when you open it you are greeted with a set of instructions for the kit. Everything is really well laid out and you get everything you need for the project, even little paper cups for the paint. The only things I needed to provide were scissors to cut the fabric, and some paper to put down underneath the fabric since the paint bleeds through (but the directions suggest that you could just use the box for this!) There was more than enough materials to make several projects, I still have another large piece of fabric and a ton of fabric paint and fabric tape leftover. I might make another fabric runner or maybe some napkins or placemats.

There was also another special surprise, a full size Julep nail polish with a handwritten note. It was such a great touch and I can’t wait to paint my nails!

The fabric tape was a welcome addition because it cut out the step of sewing the edges. I’m glad they did that because it opens the kit up to everyone, regardless of their crafting ability or access to a sewing machine. I’ve never used fabric tape before, but it was really easy to use and looked really nice for the hems.

The instructions suggested to tape down the stencils, but I like to cut as many corners as possible so I just held the stencil down and was careful when I lifted it off. I’ve never really done any stenciling before but it went pretty quickly and I was able to keep things pretty clean on the front. To be safe I washed and dried the stencil in between using it to make sure there wasn’t any paint on the back of the stencil that might get on the fabric. The back I had more issues with because I pulled it off the paper and wasn’t thinking and repositioned it. So the paint smeared a bit on the back, but you can’t tell from the front so I’m not too worried.

I wanted to keep it pretty simple and I tried to plan it out ahead of time. I knew I wanted to just have the leaves and acorns and I originally intended on using part of the pumpkin in the center. At the last minute I changed my mind and used the leaves from the tree stencil and I’m not sure I made the right choice. I’m not sure they read as leaves without the trees around them. I was debating using some white fabric paint to stencil the pattern I was originally going to use from the pumpkin stencil on top of the leaves. I haven’t decided yet if I will.

Have you tried out Darby Smart? What did you think?