Crafty Savings

Me and my Mum were walking round Hobbycraft the other day, which I'd been itching to get to since Christmas as I love anything crafty. I'm a fan of card making, cross stitch, scrapbooking..anything crafty, even though I don't deem myself particularly creative unless I'm working for hours on end. Anyway, I actually left Hobbycraft empty handed! I love Hobbycraft and all the things in it but I'm always surprised about how expensive it is. And it got me thinking, a lot of craft stores are quite expensive which is a real shame as there's not enough of them around and its no good if the only one near you is expensive. I don't understand it at all. The whole point of crafting, aside from having fun and making something with a personal touch, is that its meant to be cheaper then buying something in a shop. It's all about make doing with what you have or using loads of little things to make a lovely big thing. So why do craft shops like Hobbycraft completely contradict the message they are giving out?

Saying that, there are some things I'd pay extra money for anyway. One of these would be a really good scrapbook album to put my scrapbooking in. For something thats going to hold memories for years to come and thats also going to show your creative side then there's nothing wrong with paying a little extra to make sure it's perfect. The same goes for painting, which I unfortunately don't have much time for anymore, but if you're going to make a proper go of it then I think its acceptable to pay whatever price for the professional paintbrushes, paints etc.

I've always found pound shops are quite good for picking up cheap crafty things like embellishments or stickers. But the main reason of this post is to tell you all about a shop which has surprised me by recently stocking scrapbooking and other crafty items.

TK Maxx!

TK Maxx has always been affordable and when I went and splashed out on a few scrapbook kits everything scrapbook was 70%! Most scrapbook items I've seen in the shop are around £7 or so (I don't think any of them are over £10) and these prices include whole kits with background papers, embellishments, small albums to display your pages etc. You can also find wedding scrapbook kits, travel scrapbook kits and now a large range of scrapbook albums!

Unfortunately, I am unable to show you any images as there are only a small selection available on the TK Maxx website (but much more in store!) but the majority of the stock is from Momenta so visit Momenta.com for an idea of the type of stuff you can find!