© laffy4k (Flickr) Crayola Lincoln Logs
© laffy4k (Flickr)
Pound shops
Pound shops
Pound shops in the UK can be a good source for very cheap art and craft supplies. Look in children’s sections and stationary departments, as well as areas in the shop specifically set aside for craft supplies.
Pretty notepaper, for instance, can be used as background paper for greetings cards or scrapbook pages. It’s also ideal to make mats for photographs or toppers, or to cut out sections of images if you don’t want to use the whole sheet.
Discount stores
Shops selling discounted items
Shops and stores that specialise in selling discounted items are often good sources of cheap art supplies, selling items, such as painting materials or children’s craft items, such as craft sticks, modelling clay or kids art sets.
Discount stores are also good hunting grounds for such artists materials as canvases for oil or acrylic painting, or the necessary tools and equipment used in art crafts, such as easels and brushes.
Other types of discount stores include charity shops, and these can provide a rich source of crafting materials, especially if you like to recycle items.
Donated clothes can be bought simply for the fabric and used to make quilts, or cheap greetings cards can be bought and cut up to re-purpose the images into new and original toppers.
Markets and online shops
Online shopping and market purchase
Market traders often have access to art and craft supplies that would ordinarily not be available, as they may have the versatility to snap up discontinued lines or surplus stock. They often sell these on at a discounted price.
As shopping online becomes more popular, there is a great variety of art and craft supplies on the Internet. Many online stores ship to customers all over the world, and this gives the purchaser an access to styles and designs not available locally. Online prices will very often have lower than traditional store prices as online traders do not have the same overhead.
