Onward to a More Organized 2017!

Happy New Year!

I love starting a new planner - I get to indulge in these lovely delusions that somehow, I will be more organized and productive from here on out. This year I'm using a Brownline Daily planner since, sadly, I don't have the time any more to design, print and assemble my own from scratch. However, you can see that I'm trying to make up for the lack in brightly coloured tabs, stickies and pens. I also splurged on Black Friday and bought myself a pack of craft tape and have been extensively decorating my monthly spreads.

I finally understand why crafters like this stuff so much!

Will this result in a more productive year? I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

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! :)

Post Christmas Deals and Finds

I love the unexpected find. I was shopping at Mexx two weekends ago, 6 days before they closed, when my sister came across these among the furniture and fixtures they were selling:

I was so excited!

"What are those?" you ask. Well, let me back up.  Last year, I bought a Detolf cabinet for displaying my crafts (creating a real showcase to match my online one). As much as I like it, it has several problems, one of which is that there is too much space between shelves resulting in wasted space when it comes to arranging my small creations. Because the majority of the cabinet is glass, I wanted to find clear sub shelves to maximize that space. I had never seen any in stores so to be honest, I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. 

Until 2 weeks ago.

These were perfect! And they were only $0.50 each! So I bought 6 (of course) :)

While I'm on the topic of shopping finds, I might as well share the rest of my post Christmas horde. The best time to shop for Christmas decorations is after Christmas as stores are trying to clear their shelves for Valentine's day stuff (and occasionally, Chinese New Year stuff depending on the store). Things can be priced incredibly cheap. Over the past two years, I have found some really great deals and neat stuff on the Christmas clearance shelves. 

Ribbon can normally be pretty pricey so I was delightfully surprised to find these rolls being sold off for $0.25 each at Giant Tiger. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do with all this plaid but I'll think of something.

Lastly, I might as well confess that while I don't normally go for Boxing Day sales, this year, I ended up going to Michaels because I couldn't pass up the price of their paper pads (only $5.00). As you can see, that's not the only thing I got while I was there.

Michaels is a dangerous place...

My unexpected find at Michaels that day were Christmas snaps for making Christmas crackers. That's on my 'to try' list for next year. Now I just need to figure out what to put in them...

Normally, I'm not big on shopping but clearly, that does not apply to craft supplies ;). 

My precious...

During my family vacation to Mainland China, we found out through a friend of a friend of family where we could find some cheap craft supplies. My main goal was beads for my beaded animals. It was a convoluted route (which I don't recommend for the faint of heart) but we found a whole building of craft supply whole sellers. There was a whole floor of stalls which sold only beads. I swear there were over 50 different stands. I was in crafter heaven! There were also pearls, chains, beading lines, etc. It was incredible - I never knew places like this existed! I so wished I lived in China for that reason.

It is times like these that I am very much aware of my magpie-like tendencies. These beads are the newest additions to my collection. Are they not gorgeous? The photos really do not do them justice. If you hold them up to the sunlight, they sparkle like rows and rows of gems. Lovely…

My sister says that it looks like I could open a store here in Canada.

Another friend suggested that I just hang them all in front of my door as a curtain.

I had not planned on buying this many. When I first began selecting colours, I was much more conservative.

Then my mother reminded me that we are not coming back to China any time soon so if I wanted something, I had better get it.

I ended up buying 16 980 beads. 

I love my mother! : D

At least I have no regrets. Nothing worse than thinking, 'Oh shoot! I should have also gotten..."

This supply should last until my next vacation to China. ; P

They are made of glass and you can really feel the weight and coolness of them when you hold them in your hand. There were also crystal beads available in China but I decided to play it safe and not purchase any since I do not know how to gauge the quality of crystal.  These glass beads already add enough sparkle to my projects.