Getting Crafty

For this week’s What I Bought Wednesday (WIBW), I returned to my tried and true dollar store. They get new things nearly every week, and I make it my job to scope out these new things.

I fell in love with brads. Yes, more brads. I can’t resist them it seems. I did use a whole bunch over Christmas so buying even more was justified.

They don’t look very special do they? Well that’s because they are not the easiest things to photograph. They are almost half an inch wide squares with a capital letter etched on them with a sort of filigree design surrounding the letter. They look elegant. Here’s a (hopefully) clearer picture of a letter:

(You’ll just have to take my word for it that they are pretty). These brads would be great for anything that I want to create a monogrammed effect on, perhaps invitation cards or a wedding card. I see this looking especially striking on a dark grey/black/white colour scheme, and I think I have some perfect background papers to go along with it.

Following my brad theme, I picked up these brad frames:

You can’t see it well but each frame has some detail on it. There are six people in my family, and six frames—perfect! These frames would look so cute in a scrapbook about family, perhaps framing our baby pictures or something. The only problem I see with these brads is that there is nothing on the bottom of the frame to keep it from swinging around: there is only the brad at the top. If I want them to stay put I’ll have to get out my adhesives.

What do you think of this week’s stash? Have you bought some neat crafting things that you’d like to share? Don’t be shy, show me what you’ve got!

I’m going to start a new feature here called What I Bought Wednesday (WIBW). I’ll share with you some of my ever growing stash, including what plans I have for the things I have purchased.

This past Saturday, I went to Watertown, NY for some shopping. Even though we have Michaels in Canada, I like to check out the US locations because there are always some things in there that we don’t have. This time around I found a couple of things that I did not see at our Michaels the few times I’ve been there:

These are gift card tins. I love the bright colourful patterns on them (the pairing of green and blue on the bottom tin is my favourite!). These tins also happen to be perfect for housing marble magnets.

I forget where I had heard of clear stamps but until I bought some I didn’t understand how neat they were. The best part about them is that you can see exactly where you are stamping, and after the hassle I had trying to stamp “Merry Christmas” on various cards with individual letter stamps, I really appreciate having clear stamps that would show me exactly where each letter will be ending up in relation to already stamped letters! I don’t have clear alphabet stamps yet but I’ll be on the lookout for them.

I bought the clear acrylic block and it’s very easy to switch the different stamps around: just peel them off their back and stick them on the block. Magic! My best friend is pregnant, and I think I’ll be planning a shower for her in the future and this little figure on the left will come in handy when that time comes. However, it looks like I need a little lesson on applying ink evenly. Apparently you can even apply different colours of ink to different parts of the same stamp, so I have some learning to do.