Saturday, January 2, 2010

After Holiday Shopping


The holidays are over, the New Year's resolutions have been made, so now it is time to focus on what you want to create this coming year. After holiday sales are a great way to pick up many of the items that you will want to use for upcoming craft projects. Crafting components are sold during the Christmas shopping season with packaging that is designed for holiday marketing. Here is where you can pick up wonderful bargains, because these items are packaged for holiday shopping they need to be clearanced out. Most retailers do not want to carry over inventory so they deeply discount these items. Even though many of the ideas are in holiday packaging they can still be used throughout the year. For instance red, silver, gold and white ribbon can be used year round. So holiday packaged ribbon can be picked up for just a few cents per roll. Metallic colored pipe cleaners have many uses especially if you like making vintage styled paper crafts. Narrow tinsel looks great on Easter projects as well as adding a little sparkle to Fourth of July decorations. If you are into card making, look for beautiful contemporary foiled, embossed or textured papers. Decoupage artists and altered art artists can find lots of interesting papers and trims for their crafting projects. Go shopping with an open mind, you will be surprised at the wonderful bargains you can find this time of year to help you have on hand those items that will be harder to find through out the rest of the year. Artists and designers who sell crafts may want to stock up on seasonal picks as well as this year's ornaments that can be altered and refashioned for craft show projects next fall.


Here is a recap of some of these ideas:

  • Ribbons, solid colors and metallic 
  • Wrapping Paper, anything that is contemporary enough to be used for other holidays 
  • Tinsel 
  • Floral Picks 
  • Basic Shaped Ornaments such as stars and hearts 
  • Pipe Cleaners 
  • Glitter 
  • Paper Mache boxes that can be recovered
  • Boxes of vintage inspired cards for decoupage projects 
  • Package embellishments that can be altered
  • Look for any item that can be modified to fit your crafting style. 

Hopefully this article has given you a few things to think about. So get out there and go shopping! Let me know what you find, I am always looking for a great bargain.


3 comments:

Melinda said...

Great ideas! I've been known to use things for a specific holiday for other holidays that's the fun part of it all! I'm not one that sticks to a certain set of directions and or recipes.
Change things up it make life fun!

Melinda

Anonymous said...

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Leslie said...

I just bought orange xmas tree ornaments with the thought of Halloween in mind. I see a jar full of jackolantern faced ornies. Yeaaaaa.