Crafty Bargains

Pound shops are popping up everywhere at the moment. I resisted shopping at them for ages assuming everything was rubbishy tat. Don't get me wrong, the tat quota is high, but I've found some gems, in particular for crafting.

Teflon Sheets

I first bought these Teflon sheets for baking. They are fab, as they are environmentally friendly and they save me the faff of having to cut out baking paper to line my cake tins each time.

My main use for these now though is when I make t-shirts using garment vinyl cut using my Silhouette Cameo.  They allow me to layer designs or apply small transfers without worrying that the iron will catch the edges.  They are a bargain from Poundland, as sell for £10 or more from the vinyl shops.

Ice Scraper

The Silhouette Cameo comes with a sticky mat that holds the paper steady whilst the blade cuts out the design.  Depending on the design, I can be left with lots of tiny waste pieces on my mat.  I experimented with an expired credit card and lots of kitchen implements such as a spatula and many knives, but they either didn't remove the paper or damaged the mat.

I found a video on YouTube and the solution is a car ice scraper!  It works perfectly and is super quick.
Cleaning The Silhouette Cutting Mat

Paper and Card

The Poundland card is great, it's a nice and bright white colour, prints well and cuts really cleanly with the Silhouette Cameo.

They also do a set of metallic adhesive paper that I use for cards, stickers and stencils.

Astonish

I bought a tub of Astonish for the big deep clean I did before the photographs when we were selling our flat.  This stuff is DA BOMB!

It polishes stainless steel and chrome brilliantly, and if the reviews on Amazon are anything to go by, is excellent on AGA stoves.

For crafty purposes, I used it to polish up the metal handles on my dressing table upcycle project.  I also needed to re-sticky one of my silhouette mats.  I expected the cleaning part to be really hard work based on the tutorials online, but a wee dollop of astonish and seconds later, the mat was totally clean (I used remount spray to apply make it sticky again).

If you guys have any bargain finds, I'd love to hear!