Frugal Friday - Embellishments

Hi there!  Thanks for stopping by for another Frugal Friday.  I want to thank you all for all your support during this series.  I truly enjoy reading your comments and all the positive feedback. You guys are the best.  If you are new to Frugal Friday, click here for the first post introducing the series.  So far we've covered PAPER, INK, and STAMPS.  Today we are talking about EMBELLISHMENTS.  

I adore embellishments!  You can easily go into a store and drop a ton of money on all sorts of embellishments.  Today I'll show you all of the embellishments I have.

Like I said in the intro to Frugal Friday:

"Treat your supplies like you would your wardrobe. Invest in classic pieces that will never go out of style and accessorize with trendy items."

In this case, embellishments are the accessories.  Accessories add the finishing touch to an outfit, pulling the whole look together.  Well, it's the same with embellishments on a card.  Generally, embellishments are inexpensive, but you still don't want to buy one embellishment in every color or you will go broke.

Here's a look at all the embellishments I currently own.

Ribbon
Ribbon is quite possibly my favorite embellishment.  If I'm making a card that I'm just not happy with, adding  some ribbon changes everything.  I buy pretty much all of my ribbon at Wal-Mart.  The brand they carry is called "Offray".  The majority of the ribbon that I buy is grosgrain or satin.  You can usually get 18 feet of ribbon for $1.98.  I have found it very easy to match their colors with Papertrey Ink and Stampin' Up.  Plus, I don't have one of every color, but I do have a lot of neutrals.

I try not to buy any ribbon that has a design on it.  As you can see, I have some striped ribbon that I bought probably two years ago, that I've barely used.  Lesson learned. Some of the basic ribbon that I couldn't live without would be the sheer cream and white ribbon.  I also use the light blue and light green quite a bit.

I also keep a ziploc bag of scraps.  You just never know when you might need a small piece of ribbon.  Three or four of these spools were given to me by my sister-in-law when she was cleaning out her scrapping stuff.  

Something else she gave me was a whole ziploc bag of embroidery floss.  The bag on the right is the one she gave me.  SCORE!  The bag on the left is what I was previously using, leftover from my childhood when I used to make friendship bracelets.  

I love using floss on my cards and now I have a large variety of colors.  Although, I think these are pretty cheap, like $.60 a color.  They work well on masculine cards when it would be too girlie to use ribbon.

Jewels

Another embellishment that I love are jewels, especially rhinestones and pearls.  This is another inexpensive way to dress up your card.  My favorites are from Kaiser Craft (below on right).  They come in a full spectrum of colors.  I've been seeing these everywhere lately.  They even have them at my local Meijer grocery store.  I think these are usually around $1.99 for 100 rhinestones or 50 pearls.  Each package has 3-4 different sizes.   

I also like the pearls you can get from Micheals that are glued together in one line.  I use them a lot ofor underlining words on a card or I will cut them apart with my x-acto knife and use them individually.  Micheals also has silver pearls that are like this and I love them.  

I have seen a lot of people in the blogging world using really big flourish-y swirls of rhinestones.  While they look really cool, I think they are around $3 for one.  That is a lot of money to spend on something where you'll only get one use out of it.  

Buttons

I think I really fell in love with buttons when I purchased the Papertrey Ink set "Everyday Button Bits".  I think it gives cards that home-spun feel.  My button collection started out with an assortment package I bought at Wal-mart for about $2.  Then I bought a pack of buttons from Papertrey Ink, but wasn't very impressed.  They were lovely buttons, but with a hefty price tag of $6 for one color.  Then, my Mom mentioned that my grandma had a whole coffee tin of buttons that I could have.  SCORE again!  It was full of all kinds of unique and neutral buttons.  

Ask around.  Someone is bound to have a some buttons stashed that they would love to give you.  Also, if you have the right button, just not the right color, you can paint your buttons using nail polish.  I did a whole tutorial on it last year.  Click here to check it out.  Wet-n-Wild nail polish is usually about $.99 and they have a ton of colors to pick from.

Flowers

Another embellishment I have are flowers.  These are a tin of Prima flowers that I bought about two years ago.  That's pretty much the only flowers I have.  Right now, the flowers that are left are the ones I've had difficulty using because of the color or the design on them.  It was a mish mash of different bright colors.  

The next time I buy flowers, I will stick to more neutral looking flowers.  Maybe some white or cream ones that I can sponge any color I want with ink.

Brads & Eyelets

To be honest, I have not used an eyelet in ages.  But, I still have them laying around just in case.  I do use brads all the time.  My favorite are the mini kind.   I have the basic colors everyone should have, which are silver, black, white, and gold.  But I also have a lime green and dark brown which I use quite a lot.  

I do have some jumbo brads with a design on them that I bought a long time ago and I still can't figure out how to use them.  They just don't go with anything.  Lesson learned.

Alphabet Stickers

I like using alpha stickers on my cards.  I don't use them a lot, but I have noticed that I always run out of the same letters.  Alpha stickers are pretty inexpensive, but even so, I don't have very many.  The mistake I made with these are that I bought them too big.  I think the size I bought are more for scrapbook pages and not for cards.  I still use them every now and then, but when I buy more, they will definitely be smaller. 

When I am buying something that comes in a ton of colors and I just can't make up my mind which one to get, I usually go with my favorite color, green.  Just like my wardrobe, I have a lot of green stuff.  I know I can't go wrong here.

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Well, that's it for today.  I hope you all enjoyed a peek into my studio today.  I hope you were able to find something in here that related to you.  Next week we'll be talking about TOOLS.  

Thanks so much!  Have a great weekend!!!