1 Year, 1 Benjamin

Dried, sealed, and ready to go. I know, I know, I'm cutting it close for week 2, but I just barely made it. Still drying. So I was scrolling through Etsy one day looking for marine biology themed items to buy with a birthday gift card from my Aunt and Parrain, and out of nowhere the idea for a lemon shark painting popped into my head.  I ran back to my room, grabbed my sketchbook, and made a very quick sketch of what I was thinking of. The original sketch. I tried to make a cool timelapse video of me painting it, but my phone kept running out of space, so I only have painting the body and doing the shading, and once it finishes processing, I'll make sure to put it here. Once this dries, I will be sealing it and listing it on my Etsy, which can be found here . And now for the money bit. Ok, so the cost for this project was only one bottle of paint, but this is probably the last week that JoAnn's would physically have Christmas stuff in stor...

It's a good thing I already made something last week since I didn't think of starting this blog until week 2. One for the sewing bucket list. So my project for week 1 was assembling a corset that I first thought of about a year and a half ago.  I won't go into a lot of detail here since I did make a dedicated video on it. Long story short, I already had the fabric cut out, but an illness put this project on the backburner since June 2016.  I knew I wanted to go ahead and finish it, mostly to get that fabric out of my stash so I can start to slim that down. What I had: Fabric (Main, lining, and interfacing) Thread Plastic boning Eyelets Busk What I bought: Ribbon, originally $4, had a 50% off one item coupon, paid $2 Cord, originally $8, had a 40% off regular price coupon, paid $4.80 Total cost: $6.80 Week 1 Budget: $1.92 Week 1 Spent: $6.80 Week 1 Leftover: -$4.88 January Budget: $8.33 January Spent: $6.80 January Leftover: $1....

Hello, everyone! I am Sam, and I am a craft supplies hoarder.  I like to consider myself a very crafty person, and over the years, I have dabbled in soap making, candle making, polymer clay work, embroidery, jewelry making, knitting, calligraphy, sewing, painting, etching, and so much more.  I've done a lot of craft work for both personal projects, and also costume, prop, and set making for my dear college theatre group. A repertoire of that caliber results in a ridiculous amount of tools, supplies, and just stuff .  Lately, I've been sitting in this mindset that I have so much stuff sitting around that I should make an effort to use as much of it as I can before I embark on any new endeavors. So here I am, January 10, 2018 (One day before my 23rd birthday, mind you), and I look into my wallet to decide how much I'm going to #TreatYoSelf, and in it, I spot three $1 bills, and one good ol' Benjamin Franklin looking up at me, and the idea for this blog was born....