Lindsey with Thinking Thrifty This Thursday

Good morning. Lindsey again and this week I have been wondering why there are never enough "e's" in my sets of letter stickers. Usually I want to put a title on my layouts. Somehow it seems to look incomplete without one - even if it is just a small one. However, if I want a standout title, I'm going to want some biggish letters.

I like nothing better than peeling off exactly the letters I need from a sheet. They are the right colour, size and font to match the page. When this happens, I am very happy. It's quick and convenient. What I do not like is being left with a lot of letters which I can't seem to use up though.

Echo Park. This & That. "Graceful"
Some Tim Holtz "Typeset" letters and Cuttlebug "Hippy Chick" letters.

I think I mentioned before that, once you get to this stage, it's better to just store each of the letter diecuts or stickers separately. It's more likely that they will get used up - you don't want to be throwing away all those lonely, left-behind consonants. You can paint them or ink them - even heat emboss them - if they need to be a different colour. Why not sprinkle some glitter on the top? Go over them with silvery paint and make them look like metal. Also the thing is that, if you store all the "a's" together, all the "b's" together etc, there's no reason why you shouldn't construct a page title out of mismatched letters. Who says they all have to match? It's fun to make up a quirky, mismatched title with different letters.

Mixture of Echo Park papers and letters from Sizzix and Quickutz.

I do believe that expenditure on ways of cutting out your own alphabets is money well spent. Of course, it takes more time to cut out the individual letters rather than just peeling them off a sheet - but you never run out of "e's" and you are more likely to get the colour, size and style that you really want.

Basically, you can just draw the letters and cut them out - there's nothing cheaper than that. If you aren't happy or confident with that approach you can use alphabet stamps - foam, rubber or acrylic. Stamp these onto card or paper and cut around those.

I have kept one particularly useful size chipboard alphabet intact purely to draw around and use as a template. Alternatively, you can buy plastic stencils and templates such as the ones from Crafters Workshop.

Then I guess, top of the range, would be the alphabet dies. At the moment I have some Sizzix, Cuttlebug, Tim Holtz and Quickutz dies and they are all well used. It's taken many years to accumulate all these but they are a really good investment and they are tough too so the kids can safely use them.

Finally, here's a wee card I've made for a couple of special girlies for the Easter holidays. I was thinking of making a series of these with little ideas inside for special stuff to do when they are off school. This one is a promise to go for icecreams at a lovely place which I know sells gorgeous gluten free concoctions. Inside there are a couple of tickets to that effect. I was thinking that maybe half a dozen of these promising things like a picnic, a trip to the cinema, a trip to the local country park to feed the swans - you get the general idea. I think it will be really exciting for them to open their postbox one morning and find one of these cards.

OK. Better wrap this up now. Hope you've enjoyed the Thrifty Thursdays. I've enjoyed chatting to you.