How to save money

1.     Many supplier, like for example Hobby Lobby and Michaels, have weekly specials including a 40% coupon that you can use for one specific item. If you plan ahead of time, you can use the 40% off coupon  for the most expensive tools, like the heat gun or a punch. They have weekly sales on specific items like stamps, or certain brands of embellishment, etc. Coupons have to be retrieved from their website and printed. However, some places accept coupons on a smart phone.

2.      Both Hobby Lobby and Michaels have also an area at the very back of the shop, with items at a much reduced price. Michaels has “1$-baskets” close to the check out. They sell online but I found their shipping quite expensive.

3.      Wal-Mart (at least the super-center) is somewhere you may want to check out. They do not have everything but what they have is very cheap. For examples they have patterned paper pads for 5 dollars. The paper (Cölorbook) is quite thin but pretty and you can always reinforce the final layout with inexpensive card stock in the back. Their album and page protectors (from the same brand) are cheaper than other brands but the holes do not match American Craft. They have a lot in the craft section too (gesso, a variety of acrylic paint from Folk Art, stencils…). They also have a ‘On Sale’ area (in the shop close to me is near the paints and garden area) where you may occasionally find good stuff. If they do not have what you are looking for, I would suggest to check online: they typically have a larger choice and the delivery is free if you pick up at the store. FOrexample, aolthough they do not sell American Craft albums in my store, they do have it online.

4.      Marshall and TJMax are a less obvious source but a quite valuable one. It’s like fishing, in the sense that you never know what you can find but whatever it is, it can be as low as 20% of the typical retail price.

5.      Thrift shops: you can find all sort of treasures: ribbons, lace, ink pads, etc…The book section may offer interesting books from which you can rip illustrations, vintage looking printed paper or music sheets.

6.   Many libraries give away for free the books they weed and those are a good sources too.

7.      Dollar store is another place to look at.

8.      Think out of the box: buttons and ribbons are much cheaper at the sewing section at Wal-Mart than in the scrapbooking area of a craft shop. Beads and charms can be obtained by hold jewelry found at a garage sale. Office supplies shops may have nice paper clips, labels, envelops, etc.

9.      Ricycling: Start looking at every-day items with a scrapbooker eye: small doilies can be colored and used as embellishment or for journaling and the larger as stencils. Nice paper from packaging can be used to cut embellishments form with punches. The same for cloths tags, cards and wrapping papers... the packaging of some embellishment is sometimes really pretty and can be recycled to make tags.

10.  Blogs and You-tube channels  may give you tons of hints and information, telling you about alternative sources or recipe to make you own supplies. For examples, color mists (bottles with liquid paint ready to spray, with or without metallic effects) are very popular and fun to play with, but are also very expensive. Online there are several efficient recipe explaining how to home-make them.