HOW TO Spend Less On Your Craft Projects (Part II)

I couldn't help it....had to get back on here to offer some other advise that I thought about for How To Spend Less....before I forgot it!

If you are going to paint furniture and other small items, you're not going to want to buy quarts of paint in every color that you're going to use. The solution, of course, is acrylic paints that come in little two ounce bottles. You can buy these at any craft store like Michael's or JoAnn Fabrics....but they go on sale constantly....usually for 50 cents a bottle, so wait for the sale.

But what about your "little" paint brushes? Please believe me when I say....quality does matter when it comes to small artist brushes....so this is one area where you don't want to scrimp! DO NOT go to the dollar store and buy a package of paint brushes and expect that you're going to be able to get good results with them....it ain't gonna happen! Been there...done that! It only took me having to re-do an item twice because of a cheap brush, for me to learn my lesson (you would think that I would have learned it with the first time of having messed things up with that #@%#! brush). That doesn't mean that you can't get good brushes at a sale price....but they're still going to cost you.

Also....I use those little foam brushes for all kinds of things....DO NOT buy these at your craft supply store! You are paying premium dollar for them at those stores. My hardware store has packages of these on sale all the time...usually ten foam brushes in a package...for $1.00 or less (a few times with a coupon from this same store for .01!). AND, you can also buy these at your dollar store....a foam brush is a foam brush, so don't pay premium money for these.

Now....I've also found a web site that I keep my eye on for sales....and they have some pretty good ones depending on what you're looking for (including paint). Check out this nifty little site.... talk about some good prices for crafters! Should get your ideas flowing just by browsing what they have to offer. It's not the greatest looking web site, but I care more about saving money than the appearance of their site!

See the problem with me, is I'm not an artist! I know...I know...I pretend to be....but my skills are very limited! So I have to rely on other options to make my objects look the way I want. That could mean stenciling....it could be through tracing an image onto a furniture piece and then painting in the colors (sort of like paint by number)....or it could be through "pasting" (is that spelled right?) an image that I like onto my craft piece, which is also called decoupage.

If you're a natural artist, you can just freehand everything. If you're like me....you have to take the long way around ...but it still gets the job done!