Random Treasures

As I said, I love to use random stuff (or FREE!) for my crafting projects and I thought I'd share a few with you guys. I'll get pics up soon so you can see it! What kind of stuff do you reuse?

I love to get paint swatches at home improvement stores. They have a nice finish and many different shades and tones of one color: orange, rust, tangerine, etc.

I have even grabbed thin wood samples (you can cut them with strong sheers or tin snips) and counter top samples (granite and marble laminate). I've used the wood samples to make wood sign posts on cards and I've used the marble-like samples to create a fun frame.

Texture swatches are also great, I love to use the stucco-like pieces for extra dimension and interest. Great for roofs on house cards.

I keep all of the buttons that come on our clothing and use them on cards--this also applies to old clothing that is too worn to pass on; I'll cut the buttons off and throw the garment away.

I also keep all the pretty ribbons from gifts (the outer bows, not bows from the project itself), pieces of twine, and even ribbons that come around towels, blankets, and similar.

I use a lot of beads and baubles that I have hanging around and when a piece of jewelry breaks, I salvage all the pieces I can reuse. (not the fancy stuff obviously!)

I've even used old Fimo clay earrings for projects (this might date me..).

I keep the backs of notepads and legal pads, all thick card stock and chip board pieces I come across.

I keep acetate sheets from stamp and embellishment packaging to use as window sheets.

I have gathered a lot of paper over the years and thin it out periodically--there's no reason to store something I know I won't use. If some of these nice and thick papers are a one-sided design, I use the back for stamping images.

Perhaps this is beyond cheap and therefore embarrassing, but I'll share anyway. When I'm working on a project and I think of a certain stamp or punch in the SU catalog that would be perfect, I'll copy it. With stamps, I use vellum to trace the image and color it using Stampin' Write markers. (This DOESN'T work well on text stamps, at least not for me!) For punch shapes I cut out the example from the catalog, trace it onto chipboard, then trace it onto the paper and cut it out. I also like to blow them up on my printer so I can make different sizes. This is obviously the slow, more labor intensive way of getting the images and shapes, but it's helpful if you have more time than money, you are only making one or two, you just don't have time to wait for an order or you simply don't want to buy a whole stamp set to use only 1 stamp.

Another strategy for saving money with SU products is not real unique or extraordinarily clever but I'll include it anyway: I love SU products and I think they are priced well for the quality and their adorably unique designs, but I don't buy any of the non-Stampin' products, like versamark pads, staz-on, sticky strip, etc., I always buy those at the craft store with a 40-50% off coupon.