Fashion Shop & Swap | Denim & Donuts

Welcome to Monday, everyone. For years and years my girlfriends and I have been tossing around the idea of trading fashion accessories and clothes. Let’s face it, we all get tired of the things that we see everyday in our closets. But so many of them remain in awesome condition. Why not trade with your friends for a handful of fun “new” items that you can incorporate into your wardrobe? It’s like going shopping for free! So I decided it was time! I put together a quick an easy way for you to do this with your own friends. I hope it inspires you to finally shop and swap with your girlfriends and create brand new looks for yourself. STEP ONE | INVITE YOUR FRIENDS: I highly recommend keeping your first shop & swap small. If it goes great and you can handle more people, great! Do that the next time. I am envisioning inviting four or five girls to my first one. Once you have invited them, let them know what to look for in their closets. For this party, I am keeping it to accessories. It is most helpful if they tell you ahead of time how many items they are bringing. This will help you plan how much space you will need. If your friends are close, I would recommend having them drop a bag of goodies to swap a day or so ahead of time. Just so much easier to have time to lay things out nicely instead of crazily digging through bags when everyone arrives. You will want to have a little shopping bag for each girl as well. Nothing fancy, but a cute paper tote for them to take their new items home in. STEP TWO | SET THE SCENE: I wanted to keep this as simple as possible. I feel like if it is simple and not too overwhelming, then there’s a stronger likelihood that you or a friend will actually host a get together like this. My Michaels Makers challenge this month was to use the new Michaels craft trend of 2015, denim, so this version is a Denim & Donuts themed party. You could of course amp it up with an evening Clothing and Cocktails party as one of my readers did. Have you seen the new line of denim products at Michaels? Seriously so cute. It’s called Make Market and you can see darling examples here. I thought that a morning get together would keep things simple. Put out some yummy donuts, coffee, juice and shop. No big fuss. Now here is the deal! If you and your friends are not the same size, that is ok! You don’t have to include clothing items. You certainly can. If you do, I suggest having all of the accessories in one room and the clothing in another. For this party, I imagined swapping jewelry, scarves and handbags.   I stumbled upon the cutest set of denim washi tape so I wrapped each of my cake stands in the tape and added little denim labels to each straw with a dab of hot glue. Would be cute for any party. I picked up these little chalkboards at and was able to write “Baubles” “Scarves” and “Handbags” on each. Shop your own house for cute baskets or bins to display things. Remember, it’s all about how you present the items to be swapped. You want to make it look as much like a boutique as possible. Much more fun to shop that way!   Having your friends drop the items they wish to trade a day or so early also lets you really create a nice display. I grabbed one of my white serving platters an a couple of cute dishes I had laying around. A platter of jewelry is tough to turn down! STEP THREE | KEEP THINGS FAIR: Now here is where you can get creative. You want to make things fair. What I mean is that if someone brings five items, then they should leave with five items. And I think it’s more fair if it’s an even trade. So if they bring one handbag, they leave with a new handbag. Trading a scarf for a handbag . . . well, someone is losing out in the swap. Of course this is entirely up to you. I placed a mason jar next to each group. You’ll soon see why! Michaels has this really cute denim pocket banner right now. I cut it apart and prepped a pocket for each girl. So if Jessica dropped off a scarf and a handbag, then I placed a scarf and handbag stick in her pocket {those chalkboard signs were also scooped up at Michael’s}. You can either add more sticks if they bring more than one scarf, or you could write “3” on the scarf stick if they brought three. Are you with me? It’s really not hard. It’s essentially giving each girl shopping currency based on what they brought to the party. So now they can “spend” their sticks when they pick up a new item by placing it in the mason jar. Instead of sticks, you could use tickets. It’s really up to you. But I encourage you to keep it fair with a system like this. STEP FOUR | HAVE FUN: The whole idea is just to have fun and go home with some new cute pieces and handoff the ones you are tired of! And if you want to add clothing into the mix, great! Just be sure you have an open bedroom or bathroom for your girlfriends to use in case they want to try things on. And if you want to keep it simple, stick to accessories and handbags. Enjoy shopping & swapping for free! If you throw a party like this I would love to hear about it! And Michaels Makers readers are getting the inside scoop on an upcoming craft contest that will send one lucky participant on the trip of a lifetime to Paris. Check back on my blog March 2 to get all the details on how to enter!!! Found at Michaels: denim pocket banner, fabric squares, chalkboard sticks, chalkboard stand, denim tags used on straws, and washi tape. Proud to be a part of the Michaels Makers program. See more projects from the Makers below.