Cheap Crafts

 It won't be long (!) and summer will be winding down, giving way to falling leaves, pumpkins and cooler nights. Sights and sounds of changing seasons are inspiration for quieter and slower times. If you craft at all, now is the time to start looking for cheap or free crafting supplies and ideas. A few to get you started: 

Yarn is sometimes sold at thrift stores for a good price, although you'd be lucky to get enough of any one color or type to do more than a small project. Look at garage sales before they're over for the year. Then think about alternatives to yarn. Plarn (strips of plastic bags), "yarn" made from t-shirts cut in spirals and unusual thing like rope, twine and light weight wire make very interesting items. 

Cheapest crafting is done by using or reusing thing we already have. Historically, common folk made quilts from worn out clothing. You didn't buy material for it.  The middle layer was sometimes an old blanket or pieces of cloth sewn together. Backing was often patchwork just like the front. You used what you had.

Patchwork was also used to make curtains, tablecloths and even clothing. 

Another cheap craft made on the same order was rugs. Knitted, crocheted, latch hooked, woven or braided, rugs were made from rags - odds and ends of leftover clothing or household linens too small to use for anything else. Sewn together to make a continuous length, then worked into rugs, it's a truly frugal craft. 

Today you might supplement your own saved material for these by finding cheap items at garage sales or thrift stores. 

Then there is plastic canvas needlepoint. Plastic canvas is very inexpensive and you can use whatever yarn will suit your project. It takes small bits of yarn for the most part and you can make some neat things with it. 

Crafts that some people spend money on can be a lot cheaper if you can "think outside the box." Years ago, my husband made me a paper quilling tool from an old toothbrush handle. All you need is something to hold the paper. Take a look at the tools and you will see. As for the quilling paper? Magazine and catalog pages are much more interesting. If you want solid colors or something different, pay attention to your junk mail. 

There are more, but those are the ones I gravitate to. Cheap, frugal, whatever... I don't spend much money if any at all for them and I spend many happy hours creating some pretty cool things.