Crafts For Less

Low Cost Embellishments for your Stamping Projects

While a hobby or craft store is a fantastic place to start looking for embellishments, a great alternative is your local hardware store. (You’ll want to try Lowe’s, Home Depot, and the hardware section of Wal-Mart.) These unique locations stock unique embellishments which make fabulous card making and scrapbook embellishments.

Indeed, your hardware store may be the best kept secret to finding the most inexpensive craft embellishments if you are willing to buy in larger quantities. We found many of the same embellishments in our hardware store, sold in larger quantities, and cheaper than had we purchased them at a craft and hobby store.

Wire is can be purchased in a wide array of colors such as copper, gold, and silver. Wire and hemp string make a great embellishment for scrapbooking since they add real depth of character and can be applied in so many different ways. Hemp is very versatile as well. You can twist wire pieces into perfect little curly cues or wrap them around a pencil. You might also try forming them around cookie cutter shapes to make hearts, bears, stars, or any other cookie cutter shape you have on hand. The limit for these two embellishments is only in your imagination!

Buying several different grits of sandpaper will allow you to test the effects of each one to create different looks of distressed paper and antiquing. Using a sanding sponge can be very helpful and will keep your hand clean and soft. Cut a piece of sandpaper to fit around the sanding sponge and you will have a solid grip while you distress the edges of your scrapbook paper or paper craft project.

Hardware stores have entire rows devoted to a wide array of hinges. You will also find many different textures ranging from classic to modern. You can paint a handful of hinges white at the same time to have on hand. All you need to do is stamp them with your favorite stamp pad to create a coordinated hinge for your projects!

Painting a hinge or other accessory is a great way to get the ideal match to your rubber stamp design. Even small keys or padlocks are cute on cards and can be painted to match the color scheme. Painting them is also a great way to give them a more girlie, chic, or classy look. It all depends on what style you’re trying to create.

Why purchase five feet of chain when your project only requires a few inches? Your local hardware store is usually very helpful at making custom lengths of wire, which can often be purchased for a few pennies. Wire mesh, which can be found with the gutter supplies, looks fantastic on projects. You will probably have no trouble locating white, plastic wire mesh that can be stamped to any color you desire.

A simple trip to the hardware store, with a creative eye, is sure to yield wonderful, inexpensive embellishments that will give your scrapbooking project a fantastic look. Why wait, give it a try today!

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