Crafting On A Budget
When I graduated from college and got my own apartment, I was living on a pretty tight budget. I had to learn to feed my craft addiction on a budget while living in a small space.
The small space part was easy at first. I became the queen of the plastic bins and tote bags. I kept my latest cross stitch project in a tote bag to take to work. I worked evenings and nights in a hospital lab and there was usually some down time during which I could cross stitch.
The budget part was more challenging. Quality crafting supplies are not cheap. When I was first introduced to rubber stamping, I wanted all of the colors! I began by purchasing one regular stamp pad in Chocolate Chip and eventually tried out the color families using the Stampin’ Spots that Stampin’ Up! used to sell. That was a good way to get a variety of colors on a budget. They haven’t sold the Stampin’ Spots in quite some time. The only way to get them now is in a kit and with a mypaperpumpkin subscription.
Stampin’ Up!’s new annual catalog has a new interesting product in it this year: Uninked Stampin’ Spots!!!
You get a package of 5 uninked stampin’ spots for $9 (US). A single reinker costs $3.25 and you can purchase the larger color families of reinkers as a set of 10 and that saves you $5.
Check out my video about the uninked stampin’ spots:
Needless to say, I like this option for anyone who is just starting out, crafting on a budget or crafting in a small space. I store my stampin’ spots in a wood mount case to keep them all together.
Another reason that I think this is a great way to start is because you can use those reinkers for so many different techniques. I’ll start you off with the Baby Wipe Technique!
Reinker Techniques: The Baby Wipe Technique
To do this technique, you need baby wipes (preferably without a quilted pattern), reinkers, something to hold your baby wipe, a solid image stamp, and card stock.
I used Flourishing Phrases. I just love the giant graphic flower and what fantastic sentiments. It has so many sentiments that it comes in two cases!!! It has great sentiments for the inside and the outside of the card. It also has a coordinating framelits set that you can purchase as a bundle to save 10%.
Here is my video on this technique:
So simple! I love when you can take one of your stamping tools and do lots of different things with it. It stretches your budget because you can get more for your money when you can do more than one thing with your tools and supplies.
I also love the way this card turned out. One single layer. Imagine what you could do if you stepped this up with a mat layer in a coordinating color.
This is a great way to get several colors on one image without crazy equipment!
Ink Storage
I treated myself last summer to the ink storage unit from Stamp-N-Storage. This holds my ink pads, reinkers and markers all in one place. It sits on my craft table directly in front of me so I have easy access to any color I want. I’ve been crafting a long time and I love having all of the colors in the larger ink pad sizes. The stamping possibilities are endless!!! (This is the unit that holds 60 stamp pads, reinkers and markers.) I love this. (Of course, now that my kids have both graduated from college and they are living on their own supporting themselves, I have a more generous crafting budget and plenty of space to store my stuff!) I do have to say that my mother often gives me cash for my birthday and for Christmas and each time she’s done that, I have added a new storage component to my craft room. (I don’t have an unlimited budget and I always stick to the budget that I have!)
Even though I only made one card, my desk still looks like this when I’m done:
Sigh! There’s still the clean up!
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