Canvases, Pads & Paper: Paper & Boards

I am an avid scrap-booker and love creating homemade crafts, so I know that buying supplies from art supply retail stores can be quite expensive. This should give you some good ideas for ways to save on art supplies while still maintaining your creative edge.

• With a little imagination, you can find many ways to use that abundant collection of old magazines which are currently hidden beneath your bed. Making sayings or quotes made out of cutting out different sized colored letters is my lovable technique. A cool, retro effect can be achieved by combining letters cut from the cover page, various ads, and article titles.

If you have any old magazines laying around you may find ideas or pictures and graphic designs to make a collage or scrapbook. I also like to use the pages from fashion spreads as background pages for my scrapbooks. They are always really themed and have little to no writing on them. In case they happen to have some writing to show, the same can always be wrapped up in the garb of either a depiction or drawing pattern.

B: When creating your scrap books, you can use internet search engines to find appropriate graphics to include. For example, when I started my daughter’s scrapbook, I searched Google images for terms like "baby girl", "it’s a girl", and etc. By doing a little searching and looking around I was able to find materials to use and saved a lot.

To get the terms related to the project you are doing, Search for different search engines images tool. Plenty of results which you can print out and use in your projects will be found by you. I’d suggest you only use these graphics for personal purposes though, since some may have copyrights on them. This should not be an issue at all if they are employed only for your own personal crafts.

The lack of a printer should not stop you as they are readily available for your use at your local library or school for a small fee. It’s still much cheaper than buying stickers and designs from art supply stores.

3. If you are running a bit low on glue, it’s a little-known fact that you can make some yourself! Once you figure out how much glue you will need, mix together one part flour to one part water. A pasty substance is the ultimate goal; mix it up until it gets to this consistency.

This type of homemade glue should be used immediately after mixing, otherwise it will become moldy if left out. It’s good for paper projects and should be left out to dry completely after it’s used.

You can always add glitter for a nice touch even if you do have glue and use it as paint to decorate stuff.

• There are a lot of cool crafts out there which call for some type of modeling clay. The ingredients that you’ve probably already got can make it right in your kitchen instead of splurging on the stuff at the store. Use 1 cup flour, a tablespoon oil, 2 tablespoons cream of tarter, 1/2 cup salt, and 1 cup water. Cook all of the ingredients for approximately three minutes after mixing them together in a big pan. It should be stored after cooling in a container that is airtight, kept in the fridge, until it is needed for use. If the container is not an air tight container you may lose your clay because it will dry up.

If you take a few minutes to observe what it around you, you may find some supplies you can use. With scissors and markers, a pizza box can be cut up to make a big wall collage, dry pasta can be painted and glued on as a decoration paper plates can be masks.

When you’re crafting, look around the house using not only your eyes, but your imagination. The options are endless!

Below are the cool bargains on slightly used and new Canvases, Pads & Paper: Paper & Boards: