Ball had coupons in the Sunday paper a couple of weeks (?) ago, $3 off 2 cases. Expiration 7/29/12. They run them quite often through the summer. You can also sign up for their newsletter at their website, though I don't recall them ever mailing or emailing me any. Made pickles last night and discovered I only had a few lids left, plus a dozen (unopened box) rings and lids I bought at Goodwill! Mostly I have WM lids - so time to hit the store to get more RM lids even if I don't buy jars (which I probably will). Too bad no coupon for lids. W@lm@rt is the best place I've found around here for jars and lids, even though their prices keep going up. May be time to hit TSC and see if they've put their stuff on sale yet - seems to me they sold out/pulled stuff from shelves well before Labor Day last year. My grandma used to have a big walkin pantry with a window on 1 side and cabinets/counter/shelves on 2. And the farmhouse used to have an even bigger one (again with a window) with just shelves. Sadly, both houses have been renovated. And I wasn't into canning when we built our new house so have to keep my stuff in basement. Though I always did like to stock up, and asked builder for walk-in pantry with shallow shelves on 3 sides. He said the pantry was too narrow, couldn't do it. But my linen closet in master bath is the same width and they made that deep (stand-in), crazy with 16" shelves, I've got over a foot of wasted space in front of them. But don't want to store jars up there - too humid ;-)

Womacknursery.com has four or five each of the most common Tina and Victorinox knives, 4 & 8 mil tape in clear, green, Etc, as well as Parafilm, shears, rubber strips, and professional production stuf. Being a chemist I bought Parafilm M in a 225 ft by 4 in wide roll from Fischer Scientific many years ago. I cut it cross wise to a 4 in length and match the with to the diameter of the wood I'm wrapping. Since I graft mostly citrus, I use a lot of liquid chlorine bleach and therefore get most use from the stainless Victorinox blades. Sharpen on a hard or extra hard (fine grained) Arkansas novaculite stone. Stones are available at gun/knife shops or shows or RioGrande Jewelry supply Albuequrque. Super fine diamond and syn. corundum (Al2O3) can be be used but cheap ones either fail soon or are not smooth enough to get a razor edge. If you use a Tina carbon steel blade you can use silicon carbide stones available at your hardware store. Dont buy a sorry knife. Use single edge razor blades instead if you have to save $. For other savings You can cut plastic bags to strips and finish with masking tape. No tie needed. For rubber stripes, some people use heavy rubber bands. I use 8mil tape and stretch it instead. You may not need parafilm if you do something else to conserve moisture in the scion or bud wood. But it sure beats wax unless you really know wax.

I use quilt shops because the fabric choices are so much more broad and appropriate to quilting. Where else would you get reproduction fabrics to get the mood as well as the patterns and colors you're looking for? I also use JoAnn's sometimes. Sometimes they've just got what I want, but, generally speaking, I don't think the quality of their fabrics is what quilt shops carry. I have a quilt shop just a couple miles from my house. I quilted long before we moved so close but that was a lucky accident. There are also a number of quilt shops within a 20 mile radius of my house. They're not all the same size and vibrancy. The best one is the farthest away. Two of them either have sewing machine sales & repair in them or are next to it.

in the beginning, when I hadn't caught on to the idea of glass containers or other things, I was cutting off the tops of milk cartons for the shards. I probably have some still with glass in them,..somewhere. lately I have been saving the cool shaped orange juice jugs..but that's for storing home made laundry soaps. they would also make a nice, sturdy..with a handle container, for more broken dishes. now I have to start thinking in terms of many more containers. I scored a source of stained glass that had been ordered from some of the most wonderful companies, for a couple who had done a number of years of work all over the states. they had begun to liquidate their inventory, these past few months and I wasn't searching for any stained glass at that time. I was too late for the tools, saws, grinders and all that but still, after 85% of their glass was sold, I met them and instead of selling the rest..they are setting me up on a payment plan, for the rest of the glass and frames. I'm only barely getting set up on the first glass piece. they understand that I'm not knowing how to do the actual stained glass and they're quite content to know that I'm starting out with GOG and mosaics. I've made a very limited few pieces of mosaics..a few vases and that genie bottle.. they only want to see some happiness happen with their glass and it also saved them much time, expense and all the packing of shipping, when I can drive up to their existing studio, on a beautiful drive and visit, while there.. a certain win-win outcome. she gave me a hug and called me her new "fledgling" and wished me well. They were happy to have had enough supplies to help me on my way~ I don't think I even own a glass cutter, in fact~ it's only been a hammer and nippers for me, for the past 5 years..rather lame but I've been content to smash and dash... I have a window outside to choose.. per "Slow's" request..she said to .. ~~~frame the one and start on a new one..~~~ the 'new' one is drawn and now I need to choose which old frame window I'll work it on.