Where to Shop For Bargains

• I shop at a hardware store for my foam mounting tape. It comes in a giant wheel about 12" across and costs less than 2 rolls at a stamp store. If you like it thicker, buy weather stripping. It comes in a variety of widths and thicknesses. -- Gail
  
  
• Look at everything in the $1$ store with new eyes... a package of three FOIL gift boxes makes nice heavy foiled cardstock, especially if it's like the package I found, with both lids and bottoms of fancy embossed foil. Those spools of wide foil ribbon are usefull as well. Packages of colored tissue paper... mylar and laser ribbons... bright laser gift bags you can stamp "as-is" or take apart for the paper. Embellishments galore...tinsel, confetti, glitter... metallic colored cords. Don't overlook regular wrapping papers either as some can be over-dyed or used as backgrounds for paste papers for your layering. Look for fat pillar candles to decorate with stamping too. In the office or kids stuff, find plastic stencils and templates to use for dry embossing your papers. (A nice effect is to stamp a small image, turn it over and center it within a geometric shaped plastic stencil like a square, and dry emboss the area making a raised area where the stamp is). With all the money we save, we can afford to buy grab bags of rubber from our "list-mom-Sara" and some of her truly luxurious exotic papers! -- Raven
  
  
• A stamping friend of mine found a liquidation store and we check it out about once a month. Don't always find paper/stamping stuff but when we do it's well worth it. The last time we got an 8 foot long roll of kraft paper.......split it between our stamping group and we will be able to make bags for the next 5 years. We also found sticker paper for almost nothing. Found 4x6 wooden frames for 50 cents each. -- Marco
  
  
• If you want FRUGAL you've come to the right place... I use a lot of glycerin... Thinned with a little water = clear embossing ink. Used to thin acrylic paints with maybe a bit of water if it's too thick = pigment ink. A bit used to thicken liquid clothing dye = permanent ink. Always... be sure to clean your stamps well, as the inks with acrylic or metallics will be hard to clean if they dry on the stamps. Keep a damp, thin sponge in a dish to rest your stamps on until you are finished and can clean them thoroughly. Again, you can experiment with just about anything... I have a lot of regular art supplies around, so I look for ways to integrate them into my stamping. Maybe some of you bake and happen to have paste concentrated food colorings... thinned with water, you have great dye inks! (Ever hear of stamping on marshmallows?!) Once, desperate for a deep brown, I mixed instant coffee and sugar with a tiny bit of hot water, mixed it till the sugar was totally dissolved (nuked it now and then to help it along) and used that for embossing ink! -- Raven
  
  
• I do a lot of wallpaper stuff and I find that the transfer tapes work really well... I use a less expensive one from office supply stores... it's just 3M or Scotch Transfer tape... but it is the same thing you might get from the craft based market, Peel 'n Stick or one of those whose names I can't think of at the moment! :-) Be certain you score your fold lines heavily so that there is as little stress on your glued areas as possible. That will help a lot no matter which adhesive you use. -- Raven
  
  
• A few ideas that you might be able to ponder on and come up with something for nice, but inexpensive, masculine gifts... Decorate some boxes that are just the right size to store floppy disks... These could be cardboard, plastic from the dollar store or paper mache craft boxes. Stamp up a set of masculine-themed note cards and put them in a decorated box. (Guys have to send cards sometimes, too.) Make a whole set of various sized of picture frames for him from foamcore or matboard for him to frame his sports pictures... Make some small ones to frame some of his favorite sports cards and school pictures from friends. Hope this inspires some ideas of your own! -- Raven
  
  
• Cheri mentioned embossing with the regular Bic pen. If you try one of the *erasable* pens (Eraser-mate by Papermate or one of the others), you can write a whole paragraph and emboss it. A short line, like a signature will take the powder even better. -- Raven
  
  
• I use a dab of nail polish when I want a little highlight or a shiny spot here and there...the new glitter polishes, I use the same way as I would glitter glue. Fancy ones make a nice background on a small layering piece. I often coat it with one of those thick clear glazes to smooth the surface more and make it sparkle better. -- Raven
  
  
• Want another one? Take an old felt tip pen apart and wash out the "wick" and tip. Soak it in a mixture of half glycerin and half water and put it back together for an embossable marker! -- Raven
  
  

Do you have a frugal stamping tip that you would like to add to this webpage? Then send an email to Dana Marshall at dana.marshall@danawheels.net.

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