Merry Christmas to Me! I’ve Been Shopping Up a Storm…

I’ve been traveling visiting family since October and I’ll be honest, I’ve been doing a LOT of crafty shopping online. There were some great sales from Black Friday to Cyber Monday to end-of-year warehouse clearances, etc. I’m waiting for Tonic’s Jan 1 sale (they’ll be opening their vault) and then I’m going to give the credit card a well-deserved break. 🙂

I don’t craft for a living, so my shopping was excessive, I admit. Nothing was full price though, so there’s at least that. 🙂 However, not only was this retail therapy but the crafting therapy to come will be welcomed and appreciated. Crafting brings me joy and I love making handmade gifts for family and friends, so I hope that brings them joy as well. Covid hasn’t touched my family directly, but it’s definitely had some indirect consequences. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year, so a little therapy is definitely needed.

Whatever you are feeling, I hope you are able to take some time everyday for yourself to do what brings you joy.

Craft Videos Upcoming…

Since I’m away from home still, everything I purchased is accumulating in my craft room at home. I’ll be returning to quite a mountain of goodies. (Merry Christmas to me!) I will probably publish videos in roughly this order.

Haul Videos

  • Crafty Haul Videos of mystery bags, surprise bundles, etc. – I am always curious about what comes in mystery bags/bundles. I always appreciate other crafters who share their haul videos, so I’d like to add to this resource. When you buy a mystery bag, you often know the retail value of what you’re getting so you can appreciate the steep discount. However, I have my own value system based on what I tend to use more often (e.g. dies vs. stamps), how versatile an item is, etc. Typically each bag has slightly different products, but even knowing what generally comes in these grab bags is useful to me when I make my buying decisions.
  • Unboxing of craft kits – Kits are the same for everyone. Even though I’ll be filming mine after their initial release, I still want to add my thoughts and perspective on the kits in case it’s helpful to others.

FLIP, Tutorials, Project Showcases

  • FLIP videos – I will create Flat, Layered, Interactive and Pop-Up cards from the kits. I’m most excited for the Tonic Kits and for the latest twirling character CC kit, so those will likely come first.
  • Memory books / albums – Some of my Tonic Studios memory book die sets have come in. I purchased some of the more recent ones and I still have some of the older sets coming from Craftstash. Plus, before I left home, I received the Eileen Hull journal notebook, which I haven’t used yet either. I’m so excited! I’ve been getting into giving memory books as presents, so I already have a long list of people I want to give mini albums to this year! 🙂

If you have any of the items below, check this post starting mid-January if you’re curious to see what I make with them. I’ll be back home crafting and posting videos by then. I’ll update this post with links to videos and blog posts as they go up.

Tonic Studios Shopping

I always check the Tonic Studios site for Wednesdie deals for great bundle prices and mystery bag deals. As a kit subscriber, I also get another 10% off, so an even better deal! But for every day pricing that’s really great, I order on Craftstash. They periodically have great Tonic bundles for sale too.

Crafter’s Companion Shopping

I’ve been shopping the Crafter’s Companion website a lot because my Club Inspire discount combined with great bundled deals are an amazing discount. If you’re OK with buying full sets of a collection, you really can save quite a lot. And if you don’t mind waiting a beat after a release, you’ll find the discounts get even better.

However, for every day low prices, I generally order from Craftstash.com for the big UK brands like Tonic Studios and Crafter’s Companion. Finally, for the subscription boxes, it looks like Scrapbook.com is carrying all the latest and greatest so if you want fast shipping to the US, they are a great source.

Craftstash Shopping

Outside of some of the Tonic and CC items above, which I purchased on Craftstash, I’ve also picked up some other goodies…

Besides all of the above, I still have a large order from Scrapbooking Made Simple’s warehouse sale back in July. They did warn us that it would take a while to fulfill the orders because of the sheer volume. But with closures and social distancing, I’m sure that’s slowed things down even more. That’s going to be quite a haul as well. 😀

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