Some money saving tips

I love to repurpose things and save some money at the same time! :)  One item I found at the Dollar Store was these large yellow sponges in the car washing section.

I cut the large sponge into small pieces and have quite a few small sponges to use with my different stamping inks to distress the edges. MUCH cheaper than buying the yellow round sponges and cutting them up into only 4 pieces. All these sponges pictured below (24 pieces) were from one large sponge.

To use the sponges, just pinch the sponge together on one end and dip it into your inkpad and flick or sponge the color along the edges of your image or cardstock. You can't beat 24 sponges for only $1!

Another idea is to use wood stamp blocks to create your own ink blending tools. I have two Ranger blending tools made by Tim Holtz and love them, but wanted a few more so I could use multiple colors at one time without having to stop and change the foam pieces out all the time. The blue side of the foam is what sticks to the velcro on the block. These tools can also be used with the Ranger felt pieces with alcohol inks.

So I used some blocks that left over from when I unmounted my wood stamps and stapled the scratchy side of some velcro to the bottom of the blocks.

I'm not too worried if the block isn't the same size as the foam pads, they still work fine. And I don't use the handle part of the Ranger tool, so this made sense to me to just use the stamp blocks without creating a handle. The velcro was sticky backed, and I just used the staples from the staple gun to reinforce the velcro on the block. And to not waste any of the velcro, I actually pieced it together on a few of the blocks.

Works great and is a neat way to repurpose the blocks I was no longer needing. The cost for this project was just one pack of the industrial strength sticky velcro for $3.29 regular price at my local Hobby Lobby (and I used a 40% off coupon, so I saved even more).

Hope you can use these ideas to repurpose and reuse your supplies around the house!