We shopped til we dropped

I was hoping to have some art created since this is supposed to be a mixed media and altered book blog.  Unfortunately, I am still not up to par, so I'll show some things I bought while recently out and about.

I should know better than to shop with my shop-aholic friend Kathy, who wanted to go to the new JoAnn's to shop for fabric and ribbon, along with a few embellishments and beads.

Some of you may remember I have a $60.00 (USD) annual craft budget and I had already spent $15.21 (USD, before taxes) back in early January.  Kathy and I had no coupons on this day, so everything had to be on sale, or I paid full price.  My total was $26.92 (USD), including tax.   That means I've spent over $43.00 and it's only mid February.  In my defense, some of that was fabric and (very expensive) ribbon I purchased for Kathy's upcoming birthday. 

One nice thing was, Kathy and I shared a large bag of TH washi tape.  I would never have been able to afford it otherwise.  The tags were already on my desk, because I purchased those at the dollar store earlier in the week.  I fear I went overboard buying those Idea-ology images, but they were already pre-cut, and I knew they would save lots of time when I needed an image quickly, but didn't want to fussy cut it.  

The brads and the "found relatives" were impulse buys, egged on by Kathy, who also bought one of each.

To the right of the thread are some loose brads. Kathy and I split a package of them.

Other than the cookie cutters which I hope to use for art, not baking cookies, everything else was fabric.

Both Kathy and I went ga-ga over the Paris inspired fabric, so I bought a half yard for her and a half yard for me.  I also bought her a 1/4 yard of lace and 2 yards of very expensive trim that was not on sale.

The cat fabric is not my style, but for some reason it called to me, so I bought a half yard, as I did the birds.

I also bought Kathy a half yard of this coffee fabric.  She wants to cut hers into individual pieces/designs for a fabric coffee journal she is making, and I got enough to create a fabric book cover in case I ever get enough pages to fill it.  

Again, I got a bit carried away photographing this fabric, but it's because I'm in love with it.  One nice thing is I think I have enough thread to last the rest of the year, but I may have to fall back on some that is not variegated.

Thanks for taking this trip with me.  I must NOT buy anything else till the end of the year, or I will go over my craft budget.   So, I hope you will encourage me to use what I purchased, rather than just looking at it (and stroking it).