Coupons – What and Where

I LOVE saving money, it makes my crafting dollars go further 🙂 Because crafting supplies aren’t a life necessity (although it feels like it at times) I try not to pay full price for any of it. Coupons are amazing things and the three big crafting stores in my area have them. But did you know, that each store has it’s own rules for what those coupons can be used on? If not, here’s a quick run through that pertains mostly to paper crafting supplies (Obviously, there are other exclusions, so don’t forget to read through the exclusions yourself 🙂 )

Let’s start with Michael’s. Right now they  have a 30% off Entire Purchase ( I think I need to go to the store tomorrow 😉 ) But not really the entire purchase if you’re buying certain things.

Paper crafting Exclusions: Silhouette, Cricut and Canon BRANDS which means NO accessories or machines by these companies are eligible for the coupon. You need a new blade for your Silhouette? You pay full price for it. True story, this is how I found out about the exclusion without reading the coupon.

Next is JoAnn’s. One of the cool things about their coupons, is they let you use more than one if they’re different types of coupons. For example, you can’t use a 15% off Entire purchase then turn around and use a $5 off entire purchase. BUT, you can use a 30% off one item and a 15% off entire purchase. Fun, right? And when your entire purchase but one item was already on sale, well, you might kind of feel a little like a bandit running off with the loot.

Paper crafting Exclusions: all paper crafting machines, cartridges, dies, printers and accessories. <— that’s the majority of what I’m looking for.

Theirs used to say Cricut Brand, but it doesn’t anymore, so I’m not sure if Cricut brand embossing folders are excluded or not. For this store, I wait for sales, like the embossing folder sale when it’s buy 5 for $10 – that makes them just $2 each – even the larger ones. This may have happened last night when I went in looking for ONE embossing folder.

Last is Hobby Lobby. I ❤ them. They always have a 40% off coupon available for me, and I can use it all six days they’re open (I’m just not supposed to use it more than once in a day) and you can share the coupon with people in line, if you want, because maybe their little one was teething on their iPhone and now it wont turn on and they can’t get to their coupon. But they have some exclusions, too.

Paper crafting exclusions: Cricut PRODUCTS, Gemini Machine, Crafters Companion (I don’t know what this is, but it’s listed with the other paper crafting items), and Silhouette Cameo MACHINE

So even at Hobby Lobby, Cricut products aren’t coupon eligible, which makes me think this limitation comes from the manufacturer, not the stores since it’s consistent across the three stores in my area. However, it looks like Silhouette accessories ARE coupon eligible at Hobby lobby and JoAnn’s.

Maybe one of these days I’ll make a chart so I know which things to buy at which store to maximize my money savings from coupons. But not today. Today, I have some paper calling my name 😀

Thanks for stopping by!

*** obviously coupons can change, so don’t take this as gospel, you can double check the coupons before you use them, just in case.

***Also, I know there are other craft stores, these are just the major players in my neck of the woods, so I have their app on my phone and could look up the current exclusions.

I Wasn’t Chosen

as part of the Silhouette design team. And you know what?

 

They were right.

 

This wasn’t my best work.

 

I had the wrong deadline date in my head (I had the day they let the applicant’s know confused as the deadline) (Numbers are hard guys, don’t judge) 😉 I realized two hours before the deadline that I’d jumbled those dates and rushed to pull everything together. My husband, who had just gone to bed, came back down and helped me. It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t like the examples online that they’d linked to – I’d put things down while putting the document together with the idea that I would go back and edit and make it like the examples. Once we turned it into a PDF, my links no longer worked (which was kind of important) and we didn’t have time to trouble shoot. I basically turned in something a little more than a rough draft, I think I at least caught most of the typos.

I think being on the design team would be a really great opportunity to reach out and explore. To maybe be helpful even, so I want to try again next year. I already have a plan in place to avoid some of these same pit falls – like putting the deadline on my calendar. So until then, more coloring, more paper crafting, maybe some helpful info I can pass a long, but mostly, life as normal and that life includes paper 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Think Spring!

I’m eagerly awaiting spring. While I’m waiting, I’m doing spring projects in the hopes it will somehow hurry things a long 🙂

I used a stamp and die set from Stampendous and used my copics to color it. The hanging flowers, those I cut out by hand, but it’s definitely a place pixscan would come in handy, but I think I need to tweak it a little. The white mat was created in Silhouette by combining a few shapes 🙂

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

 

Need Something to Warm Your Heart?

This might be just what you need.

Our daughter surprised us with this about six months ago. I ❤ it.

Happy Sunday.

Flowers That Won’t Make You Sneeze

This is another time I went a little crazy. I made a dozen roses using the file from Mom’s Garden Gifts found at SVG Cuts. I didn’t like the flat color after cutting things out, so I added details to the leaves and color to the petals. These were going to a friend who’s father-in-law passed away so I inked ten flowers to look like peace roses. I did one red rose, and one white rose.

The vase is also part of the kit, and I stamped fairy images around the bottom and added rhinestones to the band at the top.

I also made a card to go with it. It says:

Peace Roses for comfort

A white rose for the departed

A red rose for the broken hearted

 

 

Mint

There’s this cute little machine full of magic that allows you to MAKE YOUR OWN STAMPS!

So I did.

Luckily, Silhouette is having a sale on supplies and such, so I can stock up on more Mint supplies 😀

A Little More 3D

I really like 3D projects. I’ve been drawing since I was eight and from the very beginning I wanted things to have dimension and shape, I just didn’t know how to do it. And now, what feels like eons later, I can make things with paper that have dimension and shape. I’m kind of in heaven with this machine 😉

 

 

The first  is a purse from the kit Luxury Handbags at SVG Cuts. I used embossing folders to add texture to the green areas. This is an awesome way to give gift cards or small gifts.

The last two are working clocks made out of paper. They’re from the kit Maison de Madeline at SVG Cuts. I was making them for my kids, but the baby showed up while I was working on a third one and I haven’t gotten back to them 😦

The snow princess clock uses snowflakes and a Snow Maiden from the Silhouette Store, but I altered the Snow Maiden. The snowflakes she was blowing blocked the numbers on the clock.

Thanks for looking 🙂

 

 

More Cards

I kind of love cards. They’re these tiny little canvases of sorcery. They can make people laugh, cry (in good ways), comfort them, make them smile, etc. They’re so dog gone versatile. So here are a few more.

1. This was designed in Craft Artist. I loaded the individual components into the Silhouette work space and did a print and cut then assembled it.
2. This one was designed in the Silhouette program. The background of the card is a paper design found in the Silhouette store, as are the frame and flowers. There’s also a saying on the bottom right. This was created using one of the many fonts you can find in the store as well.
3. Bottom left:This card was also designed in the Silhouette program. The gradient paper design is from the Silhouette Store, as is the greeting and the floral design. I modified the flowers so they could be easily printed then I colored them before cutting out the card front.
4. You probably recognize these flowers…I seem to really like them 😉 I used a few embossing folders on this. The brown piece was designed with the Silhouette software. I cut out the flowers and cut them out placing them where I wanted.
5. This digi stamp and back ground are from Mo’s Digital Pencil. I think I found the saying on a stamp somewhere. It was perfect for the person I gave it to 🙂 The back ground is printed. The girl was printed with the lines then I colored her in before cutting her out.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

The Important Things pt 2

After the election there were a lot of confused and scared people. Many of them were younger and don’t remember having another POTUS. I felt bad and mentioned that I just wanted to hug everyone and help them feel better. That weekend, I made these.  I wanted to make quite a few of these little flags, so print and cut wasn’t my best option. Instead, I used a pen and let the Silhouette write these words out for me then I sent it through the Silhouette again and let it cut them out. I did two pages of these then handed them off to my daughter who used a hot glue gun and attached the hugs to the flags right in the circle I provided for her.

It was fun using basic shapes to design the flags, but even better was the chance for some of my kids to try and make a small difference. They took a bag of these to school with instructions to hand them out to people who seemed upset. When they did, they gave out two. One for the person to eat and one for the person to share. One of my girls reported that at the end of the day, someone gave her one of the hugs. It was the perfect ending.

 

 

The Important Things

***EDIT*** Today, January 22, 2017, we lost one of our best pitchers. Yordano Ventura was killed in a car accident in the Dominican Republic. His family, our team, our city, and the world of baseball are mourning the loss of this young man.

Sometimes we need a little extra help getting through life. A little extra help remembering that we are loved, we’re important. Sometimes we just need a hug.

In 2014 we saw our team make it to the world series in, but in game seven, they came up short. This team came back fighting and ready to go in 2015. They were hungry for the win. And they did it. Our city was electrified. Schools closed the day of the parade so families could celebrate. It had been nearly 30 years since we’d had a parade.

I thought about our team and the  attributes that got them to the world series, not once, but two consecutive years. I realized these attributes could be applied to life. I used my Silhouette to design this piece. The words are mine. Instead of cutting the words out, I used a pen to trace the words, then I filled them in by hand. I hope this is something that helps my children remember how important they are.