Shopping!

If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will know that I try to buy items made in the USA (or Canada, which is quite close).  I really believe in trying to "shop local" in order to reduce my carbon footprint.  This past week I found two great "made in the USA" deals, and I want to share them with you.  I know that not all of my readers are American, and I'm sorry that this post won't be too useful for my international friends.  But where ever you are on the planet, I hope that you will be able to find some great deals on local products next time you go shopping.

The first item I have to share is  a set of shelves (above).  I found these shelves at Home Depot, and they are made in the USA.  And they were on sale for FOUR DOLLARS for the whole set of four shelves!  I think they are meant for college students who will need extra storage space in their new dorm rooms and apartments.  But these shelves are also great for storing craft supplies.  :)  I don't know how long this deal at Home Depot lasts.  (I couldn't find any info about it on their web site.)  But I'm sure that if you phone your local store, you will be able to find out whether these shelves are still in stock and on sale.

The next item is...a bottle cap embellishment (above)!  Seems like I'm not the only person who is crazy about bottle caps right now, because Archivers is offering a free bottle cap make-n-take through Tuesday, August 23 (WSL).  The bottle cap blanks are from Bottle Cap Inc., a company that makes all its products in the USA.  At Archivers, you get to personalize your bottle cap with stamps, embossing powders, acrylic domes, and split rings--all of your choice.  Not all of the materials offered in the make-n-take are from Bottle Cap Inc., but Archivers carries a wide variety of their products, so you can always pick some up if you decide that you like them.

Since my bottle cap from the make-n-take has a split ring, I plan to use it as a necklace pendant, not a page embellishment.  But, since I love bottle caps so much, I decided to use some on a layout this weekend.  Here is the result (below).

Supplies: patterned paper (all from October Afternoon), white cardstock (Wausau Paper), stickers (all from October Afternoon), journaling spot (reused packaging from October Afternoon Lunchbox/Cherry stickers), bottle caps (Bottle Cap Inc.), pen (Zig), flowers (Petaloo).  This page was created in response to a sketch challenge on the October Afternoon blog.

This layout is called "Our Café," and the journaling reads: "Located across the street from Herzen University, this café became a hangout for the students from our group.  Nearly every weekday, we met there to have lunch or a snack between classes.  My favorite things to order were: cabbage rolls, lemon rolls, personal-sized pizzas, sticky buns with poppy seeds, and chocolate cake rolls (a bit like Ho-Ho's, but ten thousand times richer and tastier!).  The same clerk always worked behind the counter, and I think she enjoyed having me as a regular customer  Whenever they had a new dish, she would let me know.  She was happy that I photographed the café."

You know, I really miss that clerk!  She always had great recommendations, and I enjoyed being a "regular" at her café.  Like I mentioned in the journaling, she seemed really glad that I wanted to photgraph the Café and its food, so that I could remember the place always.

As you can see (above), I reinforced the food-and-drink theme of this page by using bottle caps as embellishments.  To fill the centers of the blank bottle caps, I cut out circles (one inch in diameter) from OA dotted paper and spelled the word "cafe" with mini stickers.  In order to make the mini stickers fit inside the circles, I had to trim the tops and bottoms off the stickers, which is why they look more square than rectangular.

To make the three scalloped strips on the layout, I cut out rows of three circles like this (above) from OA "Root Beer Barrels" paper.  Then I flipped the cutouts over (so that the polka-dotted side of the paper was facing up) and adhered the cutouts to my layout.  The coffee cup, layer cake, and teapot circles were also fussy-cut from "Root Beer Barrels." That paper is so useful--you will be seeing it on many of my future layouts.  The sheet I have is beginning to look like Swiss cheese, since I've fussy cut so many circles from it.  :)  I just love how versatile it is!

As always, thanks for stopping by my blog.  If you go shopping this week, I hope you'll find some great deals, whether you buy shelves, bottle caps, or anything else.