I joked to my mom yesterday that my bargain shopping paid for the upgrade to leather seats in my new car. It's probably more true than a joke- I am a major bargain hunter and rarely pay full retail for anything. I said this as we were entering a junky liquidation shop to poke around and satisfy my sense of curiosity since I hadn't been there before. Mom assured me it was worthless, but I had to see for myself. We were both pleasantly surprised to discover they'd gotten an entire shipment of cardmaking and scrapbooking supplies in that were selling for $1 each or 12 for $9. I came home with a haul worth about $200 retail that I got for $9.54 with tax.
Here's what I got:
100 A2 scallop rectangles in confetti white
100 sheets of dark gray 6x9 cardstock (to be used for layering)
40 sheets of red 8.5 by 11 (sold in packs at big box craft stores)
40 sheets of burgundy 8.5 by 11
25 sheets of yellow 8.5 by 11 (sold individually at big box craft stores for 59 cents each)
25 sheets of brown textured 8.5 by 11
25 sheets of evergreen textured 12 by 12
25 sheets of cream textured 12 by 12
25 sheets of white and grey diamond print 12 by 12
25 sheets of brown 12 by 12
25 sheets of pale blue 12 by 12
1 roll of about 25 sheets of Karen Neuburger flower stickers (meant to be sold individually at an LSS)
The cards below use some of the stickers. I made a dozen of these cards and used up four sheets of the stickers. The cards also make use of bargain cardstock from Tuesday Morning. I figured that this set of 12 cards cost 60 cents to make, or 5 cents per card.
I used a modification of a technique that OWH shared last year. The technique was to stamp a branch, glue paper flowers to it, and emboss the whole thing. Instead, I stamped a sentiment, used stickers all over the card front, embossed it, and layered it with coordinating cardstock.
I'm pointing out the bargains I found not to make you jealous, but to encourage you to use your resources well and not be discouraged if you've seen your crafty budget shrink in recent years. With the advent of digi stamps and numerous websites offering freebies, there's almost an unlimited supply of images and sentiments available to anyone with a printer. With careful shopping, you can find papers to compliment your projects. If you have any friends who also enjoy paper crafting, you may be able to get them to split packages with you to lower your cost and offer more variety.
Now, for the CANDY! I doubt I'll be able to finish off all these stickers, so I'll be happy to send a few sheets and some card front-sized coordinating colors of cardstock to one lucky reader who leaves a comment on this post with a tip for saving money while crafting. Comments must be submitted by Wednesday at 3:00pm EST (noon for West Coast peeps). US addresses, only, please. Followers will get two entries!
Don't forget about the Mother's Day challenge for OWH. Boxes with half Mother's Day/Mom and half general themes are due by March 20th. See my sidebar for a blinkie with more info.
Cards shipped to OWH in 2012: none thus far, but my box is filling up nicely!
Cards shipped to OWH in 2011: 1695
