Pinterest party attracts about 150 people for arts and crafts

A line wrapped around the bottom of the Bovee University Center for the first Pinterest Party on Tuesday night in the Mackinac and AuSable rooms.

The Central Michigan University Program Board created a free arts and crafts party based on cyber-craze Pinterest.

“This is the perfect event for students because Pinterest is so popular, and they are always pinning things, but they never follow through,” said Nicole Murawski, public relations chair of Program Board.

Pinterest is an interactive website that allows users to "pin" different ideas and categorize them onto boards.

Murawski created the event thinking more scale events would be better for students. The Program Board supplied all the materials to create mittens, headbands, bracelets and coffee mugs.

Sophomore Kaityln Fabus said she is obsessed with Pinterest. The Ovid-Elsie native said she has made a lot of projects, including bulletin boards, canvases and mugs.

“I think I’m pretty crafty,” Fabus said as she sewed a pair of mittens she was making for herself.

Some students were not attending the event for their own personal enjoyment, though. Sophomore Crystal Everett was making gifts for her mother for Christmas.

This was the direct intention of Program Board Vice President Mark Fairbrother.

“The planning of the event was an intent for the holiday season for students to use their own creativity with a strapped college student budget,” Fairbrother said.

Everett said one of the main reasons she was going was because everything provided was free of charge. Also, Everett said she is an avid pinner and when she saw the flyer posted in Anspach Hall, she was very excited.

“I have over 600 pins on some boards. I’m obsessed,” Everett said. “It’s just fun.”

Junior Lauren Brennen said she came to the event because she wanted to take a little break from the stress of finals and do some arts and crafts.

The Port Huron native said she was interested because she doesn’t make most of the things that she sees on Pinterest.

“It’s a free event and that is nice, because I typically don’t have the time or money to do the crafts on my own,” Brennen said.

Murawski planned the event to not have specific leaders at each art and craft station, but people just floating around if students had questions.

There were also instructions on the table of printed pictures and words describing what to do.

“I want students to use their own creativity,” Murawski. “We don’t want to take away from that.”

The event had students there smiling and singing along to the Christmas music that was playing in the background.

“We will definitely do it again,” Fairbrother said. “We base our activities on the interest of the student body.”