Basic Grey Clearance Warehouse Box Haul Shipment Package

For midyear, Basic Grey had another Warehouse Clearance Box sale. I was lucky enough to grab one of these for Black Friday and whoo boy was excited for another chance as that Black Friday box was pretty epic. I was so stoked as the boxes are loaded with goodies and it’s a saving of $100’s of dollars.

Basic Grey really spoiled me with this haul. I got little snippet journalling cards from the Highline Collection, a set of stamps, alphas, borders, posies, buttons and lots of bling!

Now for the really exciting part, this really blew me away and I was so happy with the items that had been chosen for me. Did I mention that I have no idea what I get? Basic Grey just fill a box up with random goodies, you have no choice in what you get. I love that part of the sale too, as I get a surprise! It makes the unboxing that much more thrilling!

Look at how thick that stack of scrapbooking papers is! I received so many papers from many collections which I’ll picture all below. I received lots of elements stamps which are like $6 each! Amazing! And not only that I got not one, but two card kits! I love card kits, especially for the design ideas, but I was especially excited for the Grand Bazaar card kit as Grand Bazaar is hands down one of my top, favourite ever, Basic Grey collections. I’m too lucky!

So I’ll start with the papers! Three papers from the Mint Julep Collection. I have quite a few papers still left over from the Mint Julep Collection I got on sale at Spotlight, so I’ll probably add these papers to that.

Three papers from the Herbs & Honey Collection. I love that yellow/gold pattern paper.

Two scrapbook papers from the Spice Market Collection.

Four papers from the Second City Collection designed by Kelly Purkey a great source of scrapbooking inspiration and knowledge. I love the colours in the collection and super stoked to have gotten one of the journal card pages.

Two pattern papers from the 25th & Pine collection. I’m going to store these away ready for Christmas. I would like to do some really neat and special layouts for Christmas this year!

I wasn’t as excited for these two papers from the Fresh Cut Collections, but that’s only because I still have about 50 pages from this collection left from when I went nuts on Fresh Cut supplies for my scrapbook journal I was doing. I filled the journal up and I have heaps of supplies left. I’m thinking of making a second journal to use up those papers. It’ll just mean I’ll have a couple gap months between journal 1 and journal 2, but I think that’ll be fine.

Three pattern papers from Carte Postale. As nice as these papers area, they don’t actually inspire me much. I’ll have to have a good think about what I’m going to do with these ones.

Five papers from the Soliel Collection. Really digging the bright colours and love the blue and yellow pattern papers. I can see those two being used as bright backgrounds for a couple of layouts.

One pattern paper from Kelly Purkey’s Mon Ami Collection and one pattern paper from the Capture collection. I think these will be very versatile and useful papers.

Four papers from the RSVP Collection. I think I’ll put these papers together with some mini kits. I’m going to have to crack open the rest of my scrapbooking supplies and put some more kits together. Putting the kits together also helps spur some inspiration and project ideas.

Four pages of the Evergreen Collection another one of Basic Grey’s Christmas Collections. Again these papers will be going away into storage along with the 25th & Pine papers.

Three Basic Grey Grand Bazaar papers. Super happy to get some more of these papers. I want to finish recreating some of Kelly Purkey’s designs from her Craftsy Course – as with everything, it’s about finding the time.

Five papers from the Highline Collection. Again, super stoked about these pattern papers. I actually wanted to get this collection to do some layouts with my crafting friend as I think these patterns would be right up her alley.

I have quite a few Persimmon papers already, getting most of them in a previous Basic Grey sale and also snagging the Collection Kit for around $10 so I’ll probably add these in with those as spares.

I was surprised to get these three papers. Even though there’s only one of each as these are from the more recent collections, I wasn’t expecting to get any papers from these three collections: Adrift, Aurora and Vivienne.

And lastly to finish off the papers, one more from Kelly Purkey’s Mon Ami Collection and one sheet from the Capture Collection. I think this scrapbook page is really awesome as it has lots of elements I’ll be able to cut up and use.

This is the contents of the Herbs & Honey Card Kit: 6 x 6 pattern paper pad, brads, bottle caps, title stickers and a design sheet by Arielle Gordon. There’s enough supplies to make one of each of the cards.

This is the contents of the Grand Bazaar Card Kit: 6 x 6 pattern paper pad, title stickers, foils, envelopes/pockets and a design sheet by Becky Williams. I really like the simple and clean designs. As with the Herbs & Honey Card Kit, there’s enough supplies in the Grand Bazaar kit to make one of each card.

And finally the wowzer. Twelve sets of element stickers including ones from recent collections such as J’Adore and Vivienne. The other collections are: Fresh Cut, Jovial, Clippings, Paper Cottage, RSVP, Highline, Grand Bazaar, Herbs & Honey, Spice Market and Capture.

To summarize, I could not be happier with the selections made by the Basic Grey staff and I’m super grateful that I was able to snag one of these epic deals. I won’t have to get any scrapbooking supplies for years!

Craft Online Package or Haul – Zing Coloured Embossing Powders

I saved up to get some more supplies from http://www.craftonline.com.au to set aside for a few projects I have planned. The Zing embossing powders will be to try techniques learned in a Craftsy course as well as the Basic Grey Hero Arts Grand Bazaar Stamp Small Things. I’ve wanted the stamp set for a while now, actually, and I really wanted to snatch it up from Craft Online as they had it for under $20AUD and I didn’t want them to sell out especially as I was seeing them around for as high as $50AUD! So my thinking was to jump on that cheaper price and I’ll just hoard it until I can tackle the project.

The waterfall pack from Basic Grey in the Capture collection I actually added into the order to top it up to qualify for the free shipping. I’ll use this waterfall pack when creating some more scrapbooking kits in the future. And I wanted some more of the Simple Stories Snap Collection Daily Grind 12 x 12 pattern papers for the Fitness Tracking Journal Binder that I have planned.

Check back for that one as I hope to post a tutorial soon.

Spotlight Shopping Spree or Haul – Craft Haul

Click image for a larger view.

I needed some art & craft supplies for some projects so I went down to the local Spotlight store to pick up the supplies and I ended up spending quite a bit more than I originally budgeted for, but even so I felt it was worth it. I don’t generally spend money on other entertainment like Foxtel or video games (though I did used to be quite the video game nutbar in my teens and early 20’s), I also don’t waste money on makeup, smoking or alcohol at all so I figure it’s okay to have this one splurge area in my life where I tend to funnel all my spare dollars (quite often the not so spare dollars…)

The projects I have planned are:

1. Teaching Ben (age 6) colour theory & acrylic paint mixing

2. Teaching a friend how to sew a simple handbag

3. Making a handbag for another friend

4. Making a cute dress for Alexis (my partner’s best friend’s little girl).

5. Making colour charts for all my acrylic paints for reference when painting

So I think I did quite well to get enough supplies to complete five projects. I did forget to get the cushion inserts and buttons I require to complete the patchwork knitting and crocheting cushions and throw that I’m working on. I’ll have to head back at some point to pick them up.

For project 1, teaching Ben (age 6) colour theory & acrylic paint mixing, I purchased I set of Semco paint brushes, a range of Semco kids acrylic paints: Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Red, Yellow, Sun Gold, Violet, Orange, Emerald Green & White. The Semco range are really cheap. Each tube was around $2.25 and the paint brushes for the set was around $4. I wanted to get two kinds of each of the primary colours and one of each of the complementary colours as well. This is all for educational purposes. 😉

As well as that I bought two canvas panels so when Ben progresses he can put his knowledge to the test with a couple pieces of art. And I bought a large canvas paper pad for Ben and I to study our paints with swatches of colour.

Which I guess leads me into project 5, making colour charts for all my acrylic paints for reference when painting. The Jo Sonja paints I purchased as they are the deep colours to the red, yellow and blue and colours that I don’t own. I believe to have a truly balanced palette I require both light and deep colours. I think this study of colour will also really help with pet portrait paintings. I plan to continue painting different pet portraits, as the saying goes ‘practice makes perfect’.

For project 2 teaching a friend how to sew a simple handbag, I purchased the navy blue pattern fabric with the white dots and the white fabric, pictured underneath the navy blue fabric, which is actually interfacing. I had some left over fabric from when I made her a dress (the first dress I ever made) and so I wanted to teach her how to sew and I found the Kwik Sew Pattern: All Occasions Hand Bags Small & Large Pattern K3684, really good to learn with (as a self-taught sewer) so I thought it would be perfect to teach as I felt really confident with this pattern having made a few bags myself, one in only a couple hours.

Project 3, I plan to make a handbag for another friend using the purple butterfly fabric. Her favourite colour is purple so this fabric is so pretty and perfect. Though as I feel I have mastered the Kwik Sew Pattern: All Occasions Hand Bags Small & Large Pattern K3684, I want to try a different style of handbag. But I’ll see what I can do, otherwise these coordinating fabrics will look amazing as the K3684 handbag.

And for project 4, I plan on making a cute dress for Alexis (my partner’s best friend’s little girl) using the Kwik Sew Sewing Pattern: Precious Meadow Dresses and Pinafores K106 designed by Ellie Mae Designs. So adorable!! I plan on making the short sleeve dress with the yellow fabric as the main and the green fabric as the contrast. This yellow and green fabric were the most expensive and why I ended up going over my budget. 😦

I also have fabric already set aside for the pinafore which is white and has little bees and ladybugs scattered on it. This pattern is going to be a real challenge for me as there are buttons and buttonholes which I have not done before and I’m pretty sure my sewing machine does not have the foot to take care of business for me, so I’m going to have to figure out how to do it on my own.

So those are all the projects I have planned so if you’re interested in any of those please check back as I will be posting blog posts and progress reports for these projects as time passes. I’m hoping to start the K106 toddlers dress around the end of May. I’d say the purple handbag I won’t get time until the end of June and I’m hoping to start painting with Ben every weekend before I have to go to bed (I sleep in the mornings because I’m night shift, haha!)

And if you’re wondering what the little black cylinder is with the orange cylinder around it, that is a groove tube. A type of puzzle maze. My younger brother came with me to Spotlight as my pack mule and he kept throwing items into the basket. We came to an agreement that he would put the rest of the items back and he would just get that, which was $3 on sale.

Hope you enjoy your crafting endeavors and feel free to share your plans and goals for your arts & crafts by commenting below.

Craft Online Package or Haul

I’ve signed up for Newsletters from http://www.craftonline.com.au and every Saturday they do ‘Super Saturday Savers’ where they slash prices on select products for that day. I’m a real sucker for free shipping and they also offer free shipping in Australia when you spend $50 so with combination of free shipping and slashed prices it works out to be amazing value for money.

Each pay I put some money aside for hobby supplies for just such occasions as sales I can’t go past.

Craft Online had this incredible deal where they have put together ten 12×12 inch pattern papers for only $2.99. That’s 30 cents per sheet! So cheap! So I bought four of those packs.

They had a Basic Grey Collection Pack for only $12.99! It’s the Persimmon Collection. Basic Grey Collection Packs in Australia are usually priced between $25 and $35 or higher. So I thought that was a real bargain!

So with that I’m only at around $25.00, not enough to qualify for free shipping.

I needed some more finger daubers for the other Tim Holtz Distress Inks that I have and there was a deal for a packet of 10 daubers for only $6.50. That’s the cheapest I’ve ever seen them especially in such a large pack.

And lastly I ordered the Prima Marketing Comfort Craft Distressing Tool which is 4 tools in 1: soft and hard rasp, metal distressing brush, edge scraper and bone folder fixture. This was the most expensive item at $21.99. But it brought me over the minimum buy for free shipping and is an item I’ve been wanting for a while.

So all up it came to $53.44 and I’m very happy with how much I was able to get for my money. I think they still have some paper packs listed for the $2.99. If you’re interested, click here.