Amassing the Cardmaking/Scrapbooking Horde

I know that today's post looks more like a kijiji ad than a crafting post but I'm so excited about the stuff I bought at an "indoor garage sale" a few weeks ago (which, incidentally, I found on kijiji) that I just had to share. I've been trolling kijiji for a while with the vague idea of purchasing cheap second hand punches but in reality, more to see what people in Ottawa are selling in terms of crafting supplies. There are a lot of crafters out there who have a lot of stuff but whose lives either no longer have time for crafting or whose interests have moved onto other things. However, the lady who I bought this stash from fit in neither of those categories. She has recently become a Stampin' Up demonstrator and was clearing out her old stock in preparation of starting her business. You can find her website here: www.stampcraftlove.com

I had a great time chatting with her while I was going through her stuff and I got some awesome deals. Word of warning: this post is really just me gushing about supplies. If you don't normally craft then please feel free to skip this post. I may bore you :P.

Like I had mentioned before, I've been on the look out for cheap punches for a while. They're pretty hard to find and tend to be quite popular once they are posted. Although this garage sale ad didn't have any pictures, I decided to give it a try. The sale was by appointment only and I ended up being the 5th person to go. Unfortunately, by then most of the punches had already been bought but I did find this:

Any non-crafter still reading this post is probably thinking: What is that?

This old Sizzix machine came with three sets of letter dies, a handful of other miscellaneous dies, and an extra cutting mat all for just $25! I probably spent most of my time at the sale trying this machine out and contemplating whether or not to get it. Clearly in the end, I went for it. I had been considering purchasing a Cuttlebug but this was way cheaper. I also bought an embossing folder and plan to add many more folders to my collection. I'm going to be cranking out some pretty fancy cards soon. 

I did manage to find a few Martha Stewart punches for $5 each which I couldn't pass up. One was brand new and the other was only gently used. (They are in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.)

My other big purchase was this: 

Yep, count them - 40 punches in a carrying case. I saw this on taobao.com for about $30-40 CAD (It was in ¥, but that was my rough conversion) plus shipping. She was selling it for $12. The punches are not as fancy or as good quality as the Martha Stewart punches so I thought a little harder about this purchase but in the end, I figured that the variety would probably lend itself to some pretty creative uses. (Some of the shapes are a little weird but I will think of something...)

So while I was debating theses potential purchases, my sister was the main one rummaging through all the other bins looking for other interesting nik naks. She was fascinated by this flocking powder which is used to create a velvety texture to card. I have never used it but I'm always up for a new technique.

I got these Stampin Up ink pads for $1 each. The lady was generous enough to let us test out all the colours first. 

She threw in the stamps for free.

These embellishments were just plain cute. We got all of them for just $2. I haven't a clue what I will do with them but stuff this adorable will eventually have a use. 

Last comes the stuff which we got for free, which was a fair bit. 

I loaded a huge box of stuff into my trunk at the end of 1.5 hours (yes, I was there a really long time). I can't wait to play with it all! :)