If you enjoy making things yourself, you know the value of developing good sources for your materials.

Two words: THRIFT.  STORES.

While you may not find exactly what you’re looking for every time, you can certainly pick up items you know you’ll use at some point and develop a nice sized stash!

I’m always on the lookout for yarn, buttons, material and sewing notions.  My hubby looks for them, too! 🙂  Over time, I have amassed a very nice “inventory” of items that are ready to use for whatever project I may want to undertake.  From time to time, I divide my stash and share it with my daughter!

Buttons and fun things

Rickrack, bias tape, ribbons, lace, etc.

Threads

Fabrics

Embroidery floss

Yarn

Yarn

More yarn 😉

I probably have more than I can use, but darn it, I’m gonna try my best to work my way through it!

Looking at the photos above, my mind boggles at the amount of money I would have had to spend, buying these items new.  The truth is, I couldn’t have afforded it.

By buying a little at a time, in thrift stores, I have accumulated a nice variety of supplies that are on hand and ready to use, at a small fraction of the cost of new.

BENEFITS:

• Low cost crafting supplies
• Unique, vintage and hard to find supplies
• Supplies for gifts at your fingertips
• Enough extra to share

I have to give my best educated guess at the cost and savings, since this was an accumulation over time.  I didn’t take pictures of everything, but an estimate of my available supplies is around $900.00 and an estimate of my actual cost is around $250.00.

MONEY SAVED: $650.00!!

🙂