Look What Arrived Christmas Eve!

 

Merry Christmas to me! 

 

I took a lot of time debating whether I wanted this cartridge. First it was a question of economics and usefulness. It turned into a question of ethics, both mine and Provo Craft's. I bought the digital cartridge; they took a week to think about it and then took it away. Their customer service/public relations throughout the entire ordeal was lacklustre at best.
In the end, I decided that since I've been "not giving Cricut money" for years now, it would be more beneficial and satisfying for me to get what I wanted. I found someone who was willing to sell and ship to a Canadian address for the same money I would have paid Cricut to ship me the physical cartridge on sale. Yes, in the end they got my money but I'm still claiming a win.
It's mine, all mine......and it's wonderful!

Yard Sale Results

Today, I went back to Scrapping Turtle to pick up whatever was left of my yard sale items and spend my store credit. Of the $20 of product I dropped off, $15.50 sold with only a pack each of paper and journaling cards left over. After wandering the store, I left with these goodies:

 

I needed a new bottle of my favourite glue  and a Distress Ink re-inker in Broken China, which would have more than used up my gift certificate (especially since I got the big glue bottle), but that seemed so boring. I was eyeing up this journaling stamp set when I dropped my stuff off last week and decided to pick it up along with a few sheets of project-specific papers. All in all, it cost me an additional $21.42 for everything. Looking at the picture, it sure doesn't look like much but the majority of my purchases really are good investment pieces and it all makes me very happy!

Yard Sale Haul

One of my favourite LSS's, Scrapping Turtle, holds two yard sales each year where customers can sell their unwanted scrappy items for store credit. Yesterday was their fall sale, which I took full advantage of as both a buyer and a seller. Earlier this week, I sent in a small stash of items, including some unloved paper, stickers, embellies, journaling cards, ribbon, a double copy of a Cricut cartridge and a wrong-sized Xyron refill. If it all sold, I'll be the happy owner of a $20 Scrapping Turtle gift certificate. Not a whole lot, but I sell for cheap to get rid of as much as possible!

Coincidentally, what I picked up at the sale cost me $20. Here's a shot of what I got:

 

Lots more paper, a couple acrylic stamp sets and an embellie pack that I bought solely for the ric rac it contained. Below is a closer shot of the beautiful green, purple, white and pink ric rac:

And here is a shot of the stamp sets. One I bought for being really pretty, the other because I thought it could be useful. There was a really fun Halloween set I debated, but I've already got numerous Halloween stamps that don't get enough love. Also in this shot is some  yellow and white ribbon/lace, metallic leaves and some old fashioned die cuts that were all in the embellie pack, none of which I'm particularly fond of:

When I dropped my stuff off, the owner told me there were a lot of people unloading their Cricut cartridges. I was pretty excited about this, because most of their customers are die-hard manual die-cutters...or so I thought. I got there a little better than an hour after they opened the doors and not a single cartridge was to be found! Disappointing, but not enough to want to be part of the opening rush. The lineup starts somewhere around one hour before the doors open and it is a crazy, mad dash once they do. I've only gone once and that's when I learned the benefits of going an hour or two into the sale.
You see, the first wave of people grab up anything and everything they think looks interesting. Then once they've collected all they want or can carry, they go off to a corner to sort through their stash or simply reject items at the check out. I'm not aggressive or motivated enough to push my way into the crowds, so scavenging through the leftovers after the crowds have slowed and the tables have been restocked is a far more effective strategy for me. Maybe I don't get the cream of the crop, but I've never walked away empty-handed or unhappy!
Later this week, I'll give an update on how I fared in the selling department and what I bought with my gift certificate.