DIY With Friends and Fam at AR Workshops

It’s Saturday night (or a Tuesday morning or a Thursday night) and you feel like you’ve tapped out the local fun.

Not so- hit up the AR Workshop in Malvern or Gilbertsville and get ready to get CREATIVE.

Celebrate the people in your life with a creative gift, or something personalized and special for your house or office.

AR Workshops offer a whole host of DIY items- to the quality of department store or HomeGoods items, but you make it, personalize it, and take it home.

For Bestie’s Night Out, Rach and I arrived at the Malvern location on King Street in Malvern and were shown to our workspace. We were joined by two others on a date and across the way were two bachelorette parties.

The atmosphere was of a party, but with the underlying feeling of getting ready to get working. We brought wine and cupcakes and shared them with our table.

We had chosen our projects ahead of time- and the list is large and varied- mailboxes, shell boxes, lazy susans, mail slots, cutting boards, wine trays and signs.

There’s also a whole host of workshops with other items at other times- jewelry, afghans, pillows, bags- pretty much anything that can be created, painted, and personalized.

I was making a tray, so my decal was pre-cut, along with several pieces of lumber and the tray handles.  Rachel was making a lazy susan for her kitchen, so her decal was sitting next to a large round of wood with casters to the side.

We began by sanding our wood pieces, then our instructor showed me how to line up the wood and staple gun it together- which made me feel badass! Watch out world, we've got staple guns!

After we smoothed the wood we painted it.
The AR workshop has a variety of colors and finishes to personalize our pieces. 
I chose a light grey and Rach went with the natural look.

We then had to pick out (like with a dental pick) the letters of our decal and apply it to the painted product. 
Once we applied the decal, we smoothed it on and painted in the letters with a contrasting color. 
I went for darker letters over the gray wood.  

We were having such a blast- it was fun to get so creative, but a word of caution- you are dealing with sawdust, paint, finishes, and other materials. 

Don’t what I did and wear nice new pants with a long-sleeved sweater- I got hot really fast, so dress for comfort.

While the paint dried, we had more cupcakes and wine, and then we could carefully peel off the decal- and voila!
There’s my personalized tray!
Now came time to affix the cool antique-looking handles- watch out…I got the drill gun!
Making Dad proud!

As everyone was finishing up, I really enjoyed the selection our group chose- cool cheese boards with the names of fromage painted across, pretty “Welcome to our House’ signs and more.

We greatly enjoyed our DIY night out- creating something unique for my house was empowering, and supporting a local business felt awesome. 

The space was fun and soothing, and the atmosphere was fun and determined.

Check out AR Workshop in Malvern or Gilbertsville and enjoy a fun DIY night out.