I’ve been fighting off a soar thought since Friday, but I was determined to finally get to Michael’s today and use my 50 percent off coupon, and I am so glad I did. Not only did I use my coupon (finally), but when I entered the store, I was handed a $5 off coupon if I spent at least $25. Like that is so hard to do, right?

Here’s a little peek inside my bag at just a few items I picked up. The Frankenstein monster and bats packet was only 99 cents. I plan to turn him into a pin and the bats into earrings. I found them on an end cap over at the scrapbooking section.

The chipboard Thanksgiving themed pieces were in the same general area. These I also hope to turn into jewelry projects.

The beads are obviously a fall theme color, amber glass, but I have a non-holiday project planned for them. I purchased a long gold-tone chain a while back that I’ve been wearing “as is” for awhile, but I finally decided it was just too plain Jane, even for conservative me, so I’m going to jazz it up with these beads.

Along with using my coupons, I discovered that they are having a lot of sales throughout the store, especially in their jewelry supply section. Many of the beads were 50% off, so while I sometimes feel their bead prices are too high compared to what you can find through the web, the discounted prices make them much more in line with what I’d normally pay through retailers on the web. For example, the amber beads I purchased (12x12mm square 16 beads total on the strand) were normally $7, which I think is crazy. But, I got them for $3.50, much better.

You’ll notice that though I plan to primarily use the supplies I purchased to make jewelry (for my About.com site), I didn’t just limit myself to the jewelry supply isles. That’s one thing I like about craft stores. You can check out other crafting supplies and experiment.