Finding that PERFECT shade

I've been doing a lot of crafting lately. Between working on friends' baby book pages and and starting my maternity and Landon's book, I've been using a lot of paper. I am sure that I am not the only one that believes that "any shade of blue will due" is complete crap. There is nothing more frustrating than working on a paper craft (scrapbooking, card making, etc.) and not having the right color or, worse yet, only having one when you need two sheets. As many of you know I have decided to take a Leave of Absence with my job as a teacher to stay home with my new sweet bundle of joy. Bonus ... more craft time .... downfall ... my income stopped. So I decided to take what was left in my craft account and stock up on PAPER .... solid color, every shade, many sheets of PAPER!! The problem is that when I live there is a Michaels and a Joanns. These 2 stores are great for the basics but only provide multi packs of basic colors. Recently I scored at Hobby Lobby and online. Before I left for North Carolina my sister suggested I look at www.thepapermillstore.com. I was overwhelmed with paper options but was able to narrow in on what I was hoping was basic 12x12 scrapbook paper. There were a million options but I settled on 12x12 paper made by ColorMates and called "Smooth and Silky". The paper I chose was between 80 and 90lbs. Each pack contained 25 sheets for $7.47. This was the cheapest I've seen. When I returned from vacation there it was on my doorstep and I was EXCITED and a little nervous it wasn't going to be what I wanted. To my surprise it was EXACTLY what I wanted. 

The other place I LOVE to get beautiful shades of 12x12 paper is Hobby Lobby. The closest one to me is 1.5 hours away so when I go it is a planned trip. HL ALWAYS has great sales but the last few times I went their paper wasn't on sale. While in North Carolina I discovered there was a HL close to our beach house AND ..... drum roll please ...... their paper was 50% off .... SUPER SCORE ..... They have the most beautiful shades of every color. I pulled 10 sheets of each color and hauled it to the front. I felt bad for anyone who got in line behind me ... they quickly moved to another line. The cashier stated "I have to count each sheet because of the cameras" and then promptly said "how many of each sheet did you get?" ... hahaha .... In the end my receipt, that showed every single sheet of paper individually on its own individual line, was as tall as me and printed on both sides. The cashier said she had never seen a receipt that long. Me either!

Bye-bye craft account .... hello not needing to go to the store for anything craft related for A LONG time. My other pet peeve is the moment you are working on a project and realize you only need a small piece of a specific color but either don't have a full sheet of it or you really don't wanna waste a full 12x12 sheet for one small piece. I keep all my scraps for this very reason. However, my scraps didn't get used when they were all mixed together. One night I decided to organize them. I bought 12x12 folders at Michaels and sorted the paper by colors. Some colors like orange and yellow went in the same folder. These scraps have been used and have saved me from having to use the expensive full sheets. It's all about saving those pennies!!!