Arts and Crafts
Helpful Tips & Tricks!

Arts and Crafts are about making things using your own skills, and with your own hands. “Crafters” generally begin enjoying arts and crafts out of interest, though some are thrust into it by circumstances. Many people who have a long convalescence in front of them, or other situations which constrain their travel or movements become involved in various arts and crafts. It's a great way to wile away the hours, and also to create something that can be both beautiful, and useful.

Arts and Crafts projects can be started and completed for a variety of reasons. Many are for gift giving, decorative ideas and helping the environment by the recycling of household items and extras — and then reusing them.

You can also make money by selling some of these items, both online and off. Then through the selling, the world becomes not only a more “artistic,” creative place, it helps generate income, too. Tucson residents have access to some amazing stones, such as turquoise. Take up lapidary, and you just might create and sell some very high dollar pieces of jewelry. Hey – everybody starts somewhere…

Sources for Great Ideas:
• If you find yourself short on great ideas for craft work, or for pursuing the art of crafting, you might try teaming up with the Internet. You can surf the Internet to get free card making, scrap booking, and other craft ideas and templates.

• Friends turn out to be of great help — and a fun source of information and supplies sharing. If you happen to find that some materials you've purchased are not needed on your project, you can exchange and share them among your peer group, you can also share your views and material with others people pursuing the same work by exchanging message boards on Internet scrapping sites. It’s a great way to get some new tools without spending much money.

• Head to your local library for a large variety of arts and crafts topic selections, not only in book form but video, CD, DVD, software, and audio formats.

Tips For Low Budget Crafting:
• When you are getting started, only purchase a few necessities in the beginning stages, rather than buy a lot of fancy gadgets and add to your overhead. For example, save by investing in only one or two decorative pairs of cutting scissors that can be used frequently. Then gradually build up your crafting “toolbox” as time and budget allow.

• The deckle cut, stamp cut, and pinking cut are a few that work well in many layouts.

• Find items around the house that you can trace and then cut. They can work just as well as the patterns that you purchase – and they're free.

• You can also trace such things as cookie cutters, as well as pages out of coloring books for some cute ideas. Join different elements for some unique designs!

Craft Material Storage:
Get organized with some of these craft storage tips:
- You might find old toolboxes and usable containers to store your gear and supplies in at your local recycling center.
- Damaged storage containers ('scratch and dent') that are still good enough to store your items in can sometimes be obtained from retailers, and often at a reduced price
- Look for storage equipment at garage sales, auctions, and flea markets. Don’t forget about Ebay!
- Any empty container can be decorated with anything you can find in the house (like wallpaper or shelf paper scraps) and you have yourself a unique, custom container made just for you.

Tips For Scrap Booking:
If you think printing all the photos on high quality photo paper is an expensive affair, then print out 'rough' pictures on less expensive stock and layout your ideas. This method can save paper, time, and lots of trees.

The photo or picture can also be applied to paper from the scrap material after using a circle cutter or punch on paper. The photo will cover the holes in the piece of paper and the holes or irregularities won't be visible to the viewer.

Unused pictures and templates can also be used for bartering at a local crafts store in your area. Some shopkeepers may give you free or discounted products for giving them your unused pictures and pages so that they can make scrapbook layouts for display. For example, some scrap booking stores offer die-cuts in exchange for pictures.

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