Scrapbooking Tools From Harbor Freight

I'm not a hardware store kind of girl. There, I said it. I enter Home Depot and immediately start yawning because, unless I'm there for something for a specific project, there's really not much there to interest me. Oh, sure, I love tile and hardwood flooring, but after ten minutes of browsing the current offerings I'm back to sitting bored at the end of the plumbing aisle waiting for Darren to finish his shopping.

I always thought that Harbor Freight was worse (because they don't even have a flooring section to keep me amused), but then I started looking around at the tools, and some of them jumped out at me. And then some of them did the strangest thing- they jumped into our shopping basket and somehow made their way into my scrapbooking room.

So, what could a hardware-challenged girl possibly find at Harbor Freight that she can't live without?
My first ever Harbor Freight purchase was this set of files. Remember all the rage about that little $6 Basic Grey file set several years ago? Well, I picked up this whole set of files in all shapes and configurations on sale for $3.99 at my local HF store. Yup, $3.99. And they're metal, so they don't wear out nearly as fast as their BG counterparts.

After that little find, I was suddenly not quite so averse to picking up the Harbor Freight sale papers that magically appeared in our mailbox. That's a huge tip about shopping at HF, by the way- wait for a sale. Sign up for their email and snail mail lists and keep an eye on their coupons (they usually have coupons for specific items instead of dollar amounts off a purchase)- don't pay full price for anything!

My next big score at Harbor Freight was this awesome craft knife set. I've had it for almost three years now, and to this day I use it almost every time I scrapbook. It has an amazing assortment of blades and handles, plus it includes a several paper piercers. Gotta love tools that multitask. The price with a coupon? $3.99.

This past weekend I made yet another scrapbook shopping find at Harbor Freight- a pick set that's vaguely reminiscent of dentist's tools. These should be great for working with some of those teeny tiny pieces I seem to be creating with my Cricut these days. I also see a future for them in helping me position little bitty bits of bling. Plus, they just look wicked cool. Oh, and they were $1.99 with a coupon. :)

Harbor Freight also has a pretty good selection of organizers and tool totes that could be useful for keeping your scrap gear in order. They stock a collapsible rolling crate that I've thought about purchasing to help get my stuff into and out of a crop. But, again, I'm waiting for a coupon or sale on that one. :)

If you want to check for Harbor Freight stores in your area you can go here to their Store Finder and enter your zip code. They have tons of locations, and chances are you have one nearby.

Darren said I'd get bonus points for this post if I could figure out how to use our HF power auger in scrapbooking, so now I'm trying to figure out how to clog the sink using only glitter and tacky glue...