Today's tip is a two-fer. Since both tips are kind of small, I decided to put them together so you get two tips for the price of one!
My first tip is a pretty simple one. Saving plastic canvas scraps. Maybe this seems like a no brainer for you, but it's such an important tip that I figured I'd better mention it. I mean, there might be someone out there who hadn't thought of this and might thank me later!
If you work with plastic canvas with any frequency, you soon realize that it can be a wasteful craft. You take a large sheet of PC, cut out the small piece you need for your pattern, and then you're left with half a sheet of PC. What do you do with it? Do you throw it away, or do you save it? If you save it, then what? Just throw it in a pile? That could get messy pretty quickly.
To make my PC go further, I save most of my scraps. I like having a wide variety of pieces because you never know what size you're going to need, and this saves you from having to cut up a new sheet. Here's what my scraps look like.
I keep it in one of my plastic drawers. This is wide enough to hold all but the biggest pieces, and deep enough so I can keep quite a few scraps indeed. As you can see, I keep all kinds of scraps. The big pieces are on top, and the smaller ones are on the bottom.
I don't keep every single scrap. I used to, but then I realized that I actually never use the tiny scraps. As a rough rule, I tend to only keep pieces that are the size of my palm or bigger. It's painful, but you do have to throw some pieces away to make sorting through your scraps easier.
I actually end up using my scraps about half of the time when I'm working with PC. They're especially useful for magnets and coasters, but any time you're working on a small piece is a great time to poke through your scraps.
So that was tip #1. Like I said, probably not much of a revelation, but it's so important to me that I thought I'd better mention it. The next tip is another way to save money, but this time it's about how I buy PC in the store. I'm a huge penny pincher, and trust me when I say I've searched for the absolute cheapest way to buy PC, and now I want to share that with you!
For starters, I want to say that this tip will probably change with time, and it may also be different depending on where you live. As far as I can tell, these prices are at least consistent across the USA.
I always buy my PC in bundle packs.
I get my regular sheets (10.5x13.5 inches) at JoAnn Fabrics. They sell packs of 12 for $5.99 regularly. However, if you can find a 60% off coupon, which I get about once a month in the mail, you can get it for $2.40! That ends up being about 20 cents a sheet, which is the very cheapest I've seen PC anywhere, by about half actually. I try to stock up as much as possible. It's sad to say, but PC isn't very popular and there's that chance that stores may stop carrying it. I currently have about 4 unopened packages of PC, and lots of loose sheets. I should be good for a while.
I also frequently use Ultra Stiff (12x18 inch) PC in my designs. The best place I've been able to find to buy this is at Walmart. At least in my local Walmart, they carry a 3-pack for $3.47, which is about $1.15 a piece. You could technically get it a little cheaper at JoAnn if you take in a 50% off coupon, but they only sell their utra stiff PC as single pieces, so you would need one coupon for each piece, which is kind of a pain. So I just buy it at Walmart.
So there you go, folks. The cheapest way I've seen to buy PC! Do any of you have a better source for PC? Can you buy it in super bulk somewhere for even less? I'd sure love to know if any of you know!
I find scraps as especially good for jewelry and small embellishments! I keep mine in a clear bin too, but also inside a large shoebox so I can easily move them. Great tip!
ReplyDeleteAlexandra
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