ACOT Message Board

As I am browsing through our wonderful ACOT shoppe, I had a realization today that made me feel so stupid.  lol  I have been teaching art for 21 years and ordering my class supplies all that time.  I have known for a long time that whenever an art supply company brands and packages certain items that the markup is ridiculous.  For example, disposable, plastic storage cups for paints.  They sell them in packs of 100 1 oz. cups for about $3.50.  Then you have to buy the lids, separately.  If you go to a place like GFS (Gordon Food Service), you can buy the exact same cups for about 1/2 the price.  Same with styrofoam trays (like they package meat in).  These are things I use in my classroom, but it drives me nuts that they must think I am stupid  that it is in the art supply catalog so they must be special and made for art.  NOT!

Well, I realized our dear scrapbook companies are doing the same thing!  Gesso - 3.3 oz. for $8.00!  Folk, you can buy this from the art supply catalog for $8.00 a pint!  As far as I can tell, Gelatos are just like the watercolor sticks/pencils I get from the art supply catalog.  Same with chalks and paints.  It is crazy!  I'm not trying to take away from ACOT's sales, because I love this store, but if you are interested in basic art supplies, pm me and I will let you know if you can get them for less.

I know what you mean.  Since we homeschool, we've come across sort of the same problems.  We'd find a workbook in a homeschooling catalog for $20 and assume it must be a good deal.  Then, we'd walk into Barnes and Noble and see the exact same book for $9.95.  It's crazy how prices are so different across the board!!! 

That was true for the link you gave me to the Elmer's Paper Mache Paste (dickblick.com).  I looked at Amazon thinking it would be cheaper over there.  Wrong!  Twice as much at Amazon!!  So thanks for that link.  It should be here any day now!!

I was contemplating getting 'artsy' and trying new stuff but found I really can't afford to.  I wanted to try Gelatos & Copics but the pricepoiint has thrown me off the idea.  I bought Gesso, watercolor pencils and pastels at Michaels recently on a 50% off sale so that was a start.  But truly I'm not an artist and not ever going to be - especially since I can't afford to even try.
The one thing I wanted to check out the most, but haven't got the gumption to pay for, is the Ranger Dina Wakely acrylics because I saw them on YT and thought the texture looked amazing - but, alas, not paying full price for those.

Thenonna wrote:I was contemplating getting 'artsy' and trying new stuff but found I really can't afford to.  I wanted to try Gelatos & Copics but the pricepoiint has thrown me off the idea.  I bought Gesso, watercolor pencils and pastels at Michaels recently on a 50% off sale so that was a start.  But truly I'm not an artist and not ever going to be - especially since I can't afford to even try.
The one thing I wanted to check out the most, but haven't got the gumption to pay for, is the Ranger Dina Wakely acrylics because I saw them on YT and thought the texture looked amazing - but, alas, not paying full price for those.

I am sending you a pm.

Thanks for the heads up, Laura!  I will bookmark this if I think of something I need!  Thanks for sharing, and keep the ideas coming!

I agree I wanted to get my oldest son into some Art Journaling and expand his art horizons but kits for that and supplies are crazy expensive! I got luck and out local craft store had a bunch on clearance for me to try

I couldn't agree with you more!  Art supplies are over the top!  Even with an economics degree if you saw the mark up on our beautiful 12x12 paper it would just make you cringe.  But behind that mark up are all sorts of other associated costs of business.  Probably the least markup we pay for in our daily lives is food.  I'm not talking about everything in a grocery store....I'm talking about actual food we eat.  Right now it costs us $1500 dollars from conception to plate to grow a single steer or heifer to market weight.  That takes 26 months from conception to plate.  Then we have to tack on another $800-1400 to process the animal depending on cuts we choose.  It still comes out less then half if we purchase beef via a grocery store.  If we sell the beef we have to sell at $6 a lb average minimum.  We usually average $8 lb because it carries the All Natural Label.  Remember too, that over half of the meat in a steer is ground meat and why it looks so pricey in the overall cost per lb/animal.  When you start adding in your other costs of labor, management, transportation, power, water, land costs, taxes we have to sell at that price.

The difference in the two businesses is you need to eat but you don't need to scrap.  The similarities between agriculture and paper crafting is the margins are very small.

Here is another thing to keep in mind.  Over the last 18 months I have watched the press in general regardless of Left or Right labels pushing what is called "Humanely Raised Meat."  Force this country to go to only raising this 'quote/unquote' type of meat then availability of meat will go down drastically and prices go up drastically.  Those buzz words Humanely Raised is a misnomer.  The top 5 Meat producing companies are Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield, and Sysco.  Cargill is the smallest producer, and make the top five due to being a very diverse Agribusiness Company.  Cargill also is the largest buyer and exporter of grain in the country.  They also have a number of feed mills scattered nation wide producing feed rations for farm species.  They provide a number of other services to farmers both grain and animal production.  Of these only one is not a producer of meat.  That is Sysco, they buy meat.  The other four are all involved in what is called Vertical Integrated contracts with farmers.  If they do not make sure those farmers who are under contract raise their animals humanely then they would go out of business.  There are two Vertically Integrated programs in beef.  They are the Akaushi and Tyson.  Beef farmers are very resistant to vertical integration as they have seen decision making of farming taken away from them among just some of the problems faced by farmers in vertical integration.  So Tyson is having a very hard time making inroads into beef production.  It's why I wouldn't let Larry sign with the Akaushi Assoc.

The sales rep for Sysco in our area has been courting us very heavily because they are a national restaurant supply company.  Because we are funneling our own beef into the restaurant Larry was invited up to their test kitchen as they are a Houston Based company.  He took a whole loin from our Lowline/Wagyu cross up to the kitchen to their Chef.  Larry also got to taste all sorts of items that Sysco produces.  Larry had the Chef cut the loin and grill it the way he wanted.  He only added what is called their Pepper Seasoning.  His first taste and he told Larry he would be right back.  The Board of Directors were in a meeting upstairs and the Chef busted in on the meeting and had them come down to the kitchen to taste the loin.  There is one simple thing that separated this meat from all other Wagyu crosses.  Lowlines carry a smaller muscle fiber then any other breed.  Immediately they wanted to know how we produced this meat and where could they buy it.  One can't buy it....there isn't the supply was the only answer Larry could give them and then the why behind it.  We also now contract with another farmer to finish our beef for us.  Their ration consists of pasture, beer and distillers grains from Budweiser.  No, we don't get the cattle drunk.  The cattle's rumen (the first stomach of four) is a fermentation vat to explain it in the easiest terms.  It's why when a cow burps it smells like a brewery.  A couple of cans of beer per animal are poured out in their trough once a day.  They don't rush in to take a drink so the beer goes back to starting to ferment along with the distillers grains continue to ferment.  It's very easy on their digestive tract.

Just an FYI....if you go into a restaurant you are most likely eating products from Sysco as they are the largest restaurant supply company in the country.

Ok...sorry off topic! 

yes, I have found this before. Now, sometimes I'm the type of person that thinks if something is less expensive, it must always equal "cheap" and that's not necessarily the case. Indeed often times it's a markup. not cool! I'm a frugal scrapper, only buying things I know I'll use a lot and get a lot of mileage out of them. It's definitely good to know there are other options for buying things we like! 

lol, Kim!  I was mainly getting at the fact that whenever something is marketed to a "specialty" group, they charge more than when it is marketed to the general public.  The same supplies marketed to scrapbookers are way more expensive than those marketed to artists,  in general. The same supplies marketed to schools are way more expensive than those marketed to the public at say, Walmart.  It is ridiculous!

When I want to clean my stamps, I use generic baby wipes. 120 count for like $1. WalMart or Dollar store. I was just at Hobby Lobby last month and they sell wipes in the stamping dept. 100 count for $7.99! Does the SAME thing as the baby wipes!

blbabe1234 wrote:When I want to clean my stamps, I use generic baby wipes. 120 count for like $1. WalMart or Dollar store. I was just at Hobby Lobby last month and they sell wipes in the stamping dept. 100 count for $7.99! Does the SAME thing as the baby wipes!

Exactly what I am talking about!  

blbabe1234 wrote:When I want to clean my stamps, I use generic baby wipes. 120 count for like $1. WalMart or Dollar store. I was just at Hobby Lobby last month and they sell wipes in the stamping dept. 100 count for $7.99! Does the SAME thing as the baby wipes!

Wow I didn't know they sold stamp wipes - yep I use baby wipes too.  But when I bought archival ink recently, I bought a stamp cleaner...waste of money as it doesn't do any better than wipes.

killarney_rose wrote:I couldn't agree with you more!  Art supplies are over the top!  Even with an economics degree if you saw the mark up on our beautiful 12x12 paper it would just make you cringe.  But behind that mark up are all sorts of other associated costs of business.  Probably the least markup we pay for in our daily lives is food.  I'm not talking about everything in a grocery store....I'm talking about actual food we eat.  Right now it costs us $1500 dollars from conception to plate to grow a single steer or heifer to market weight.  That takes 26 months from conception to plate.  Then we have to tack on another $800-1400 to process the animal depending on cuts we choose.  It still comes out less then half if we purchase beef via a grocery store.  If we sell the beef we have to sell at $6 a lb average minimum.  We usually average $8 lb because it carries the All Natural Label.  Remember too, that over half of the meat in a steer is ground meat and why it looks so pricey in the overall cost per lb/animal.  When you start adding in your other costs of labor, management, transportation, power, water, land costs, taxes we have to sell at that price.

The difference in the two businesses is you need to eat but you don't need to scrap.  The similarities between agriculture and paper crafting is the margins are very small.

Here is another thing to keep in mind.  Over the last 18 months I have watched the press in general regardless of Left or Right labels pushing what is called "Humanely Raised Meat."  Force this country to go to only raising this 'quote/unquote' type of meat then availability of meat will go down drastically and prices go up drastically.  Those buzz words Humanely Raised is a misnomer.  The top 5 Meat producing companies are Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield, and Sysco.  Cargill is the smallest producer, and make the top five due to being a very diverse Agribusiness Company.  Cargill also is the largest buyer and exporter of grain in the country.  They also have a number of feed mills scattered nation wide producing feed rations for farm species.  They provide a number of other services to farmers both grain and animal production.  Of these only one is not a producer of meat.  That is Sysco, they buy meat.  The other four are all involved in what is called Vertical Integrated contracts with farmers.  If they do not make sure those farmers who are under contract raise their animals humanely then they would go out of business.  There are two Vertically Integrated programs in beef.  They are the Akaushi and Tyson.  Beef farmers are very resistant to vertical integration as they have seen decision making of farming taken away from them among just some of the problems faced by farmers in vertical integration.  So Tyson is having a very hard time making inroads into beef production.  It's why I wouldn't let Larry sign with the Akaushi Assoc.

The sales rep for Sysco in our area has been courting us very heavily because they are a national restaurant supply company.  Because we are funneling our own beef into the restaurant Larry was invited up to their test kitchen as they are a Houston Based company.  He took a whole loin from our Lowline/Wagyu cross up to the kitchen to their Chef.  Larry also got to taste all sorts of items that Sysco produces.  Larry had the Chef cut the loin and grill it the way he wanted.  He only added what is called their Pepper Seasoning.  His first taste and he told Larry he would be right back.  The Board of Directors were in a meeting upstairs and the Chef busted in on the meeting and had them come down to the kitchen to taste the loin.  There is one simple thing that separated this meat from all other Wagyu crosses.  Lowlines carry a smaller muscle fiber then any other breed.  Immediately they wanted to know how we produced this meat and where could they buy it.  One can't buy it....there isn't the supply was the only answer Larry could give them and then the why behind it.  We also now contract with another farmer to finish our beef for us.  Their ration consists of pasture, beer and distillers grains from Budweiser.  No, we don't get the cattle drunk.  The cattle's rumen (the first stomach of four) is a fermentation vat to explain it in the easiest terms.  It's why when a cow burps it smells like a brewery.  A couple of cans of beer per animal are poured out in their trough once a day.  They don't rush in to take a drink so the beer goes back to starting to ferment along with the distillers grains continue to ferment.  It's very easy on their digestive tract.

Just an FYI....if you go into a restaurant you are most likely eating products from Sysco as they are the largest restaurant supply company in the country.

Ok...sorry off topic! 

OKAY - WOW!  LOL!! That is actually very interesting, although you lost me a couple of times.  Still working on the cow fermenting Budweiser - Hmmm....

blbabe1234 wrote:When I want to clean my stamps, I use generic baby wipes. 120 count for like $1. WalMart or Dollar store. I was just at Hobby Lobby last month and they sell wipes in the stamping dept. 100 count for $7.99! Does the SAME thing as the baby wipes!

I had no idea they sold special wipes. I just grabbed one of my son's baby wipes and it worked perfectly. THen with the ink that i had on the wipe, i used it to "paint" on the layout lol - it was a neat experiment!  (this is actually a piece of white CS background)

I noticed this a few years ago when I was looking for a divided box for eyelets and brads. The making memories brand in the scrapbooking section was $14.99. A similar but slightly larger box with more compartments was $7.99 in the bead section.

Even better than the individual bead boxes--go to the fishing dept at WalMart! When I first started scrapping, I bought the boxes that looked like a plastic milk carton on it's side. It had a handle and four boxes inside. I bought four of them at only $10 a piece and painted them black (they WERE green)! I had them hanging on the wall in my old scrapbook room, but have them on a a shelf now. Each box is a different color--some colors need two!! I also have one for silver, bronze and gold 

scrappinkar wrote:Even better than the individual bead boxes--go to the fishing dept at WalMart! When I first started scrapping, I bought the boxes that looked like a plastic milk carton on it's side. It had a handle and four boxes inside. I bought four of them at only $10 a piece and painted them black (they WERE green)! I had them hanging on the wall in my old scrapbook room, but have them on a a shelf now. Each box is a different color--some colors need two!! I also have one for silver, bronze and gold 
 

I buy mine in the hardware section at Home Depot. A 3 pack for $9.99