Free Supplies At Home Improvement Centers

Maybe you find yourself at a home improvement center and not by choice. What are you going to do while the person you are with is drooling over tools and other things. Especially if you are stranded there for an hour or more.

You can walk around with a camera phone and take pictures of rugs and things which inspire you. Also you can pick up some free crafting supplies. No! I am not talking about shoplifting. I'm talking about free samples.

There are paint chip samples and many of them are large size and can be cut with a  cutting machine if you have one.  Some stores have wallpaper samples free for the taking. There is also though samples you might have overlooked. I'm talking about the counter-top samples. There are different sizes. I didn't realize that the larger size was the perfect size for my pre-scored card bases or I would have picked up more.


Here is the card I made today using one of the larger ones as a background panel. (click on image to enlarge)

The fairy and the flower background are from the delightful book Fairies Artist Studio. It comes with a CD of images which you can manipulate in Photoshop. I saved the background as a png. Then I had fun playing with different layers so I could customize my fairy. She was saved as a png.

In Studio I traced the fairy and then filled in the wings and boots with color. The dress did not fill in right. Some images just do not trace well. I went and deleted all but the filled in areas and retraced her and selected trace outer edge. Argh! Her wings printed blue instead of the teal color I had selected for fill in Studio. I chalked in her skin and outfit. Then used a color pencil for her hair. I used Stickles in  the waterfall color on her wings. She is pop dotted in the middle and one foot glued down. I wanted her to look like she was actually walking down the stairs.

The floral background was a little more trickier. After tracing and selecting trace outer edge I still had to edit points and do some deleting. I used chalks and color pencil to color it.

Because the samples have a hole in them you are going to have to either cover it with a background or find a creative solution like I did with the ribbon.

There you have my card using creatively a free sample. I hope my granddaughter likes it. Let me know what you think.

Thank you for stopping by. Do come back as I share with you about my failure and successes using DIY glue paint. As well as a card using some of what I made.

Wishing you Happy Frugal crafting till we meet again.