Home Crafts and Finding Supplies
Tips to Save Money and Be More Creative with Craft Supplies
Not everyone has access to a specialised craft shop, or the money to spend on sometimes high prices, but there is a treasure trove of savings and ideas for you to find.
Useful Techniques
Picture Perfect
Digital cameras are a great resource for cardmaking. There are so many photo options and themes to choose from, the possibilities are almost endless. Snaps from holidays and trips often add interest to a card. It's also great fun to search around the house for props and put together still-life scenes to take pictures of. Stickers, embellishments or even desk top publishing programs can add that personal touch.
Techniques from School
Schools are always positive breeding grounds for creativity, and it's often useful to go back to what you've learn't in the classroom when you begin crafting. Two examples of techniques to revisit would be Marbling, and Lino printing.
Different effects can liven up your plain papers using this technique. All you need is some food colouring sprinkled in a washing-up bowl.
Lino Printing is perhaps a more unusual suggestion for cardmakers but could help you produce really different cards. Bigger pictures could be scanned and reproduced to smaller sizes, or you could play around with smaller patterns to create a "stampe"' effect or borders for your cards. Lino printing inks and cutting tools are readily available at most art and craft shops and online stores.
Alternatives to craft shops
The Local Market
Ask around the people you know, and you'd be surprised how few people regulary visit their local market, or know what's there for a keen crafter. However markets are well worth checking out to gain useful advice, save money, and buy items either not seen on the high street, or not usually sold individually basis. Along with the needlework and craft stalls, it's worth looking out for stalls selling books. These stalls, like the one in Chelmsford market, often sell back copies of craft magazines (complete with the free gifts) for a fraction of the price.
Craft fairs
Craft fairs, thousands are held all over the country, of various shapes and sizes, but they tend to fall in to two categories. Craft Fairs held to demonstrate techniques or sell a crafters work, and fairs selling craft products. These can be held anywhere, from school halls, to big exhibiton centres such as the NEC in Birmingham. The Crafts Council of Great Britain has a list of guilds all over the U.K which often hold craft events.
Direct Selling
Another option would be buying from direct selling companies through their parties, or catalogues. Many of these companies are approved by the direct selling organisation and offer a variety of products for cardmaking and scrapbooking. A very useful site called Net-Mums lists many of these crafty businesses, that maybe you'd like to try yourself too.
As you can see crafting is very much what you want to make it, and there's all sorts of possibilities out there to help you lead a happy, crafty life.
