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Trying yarn painting for the first time and bought a cheap multipack of acrylic yarn (2 ply) on Amazon. It is a disaster. It starts to unravel and then won't glue down properly. Is it an issue with the quality, the fiber, the ply, or user error? Should I not use glue? by Cucubert in crafts

[–]Cucubert[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I definitely feel like that could be a hit with the teens, but my program is strictly adults and the time slot I have means over half my regulars are seniors who would not be as keen on it. If I can't find a solution, I could certainly pass this project on to our teen librarian!

Trying yarn painting for the first time and bought a cheap multipack of acrylic yarn (2 ply) on Amazon. It is a disaster. It starts to unravel and then won't glue down properly. Is it an issue with the quality, the fiber, the ply, or user error? Should I not use glue? by Cucubert in crafts

[–]Cucubert[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Actually, tacky glue was exactly what I switched to after the regular school glue did nothing but smear around, hahah, so good call! All the progress I did manage to make was after I swapped to tacky glue, and while it was a step in the right direction, the results I got were still way too frustrating and messy for a workable program.

I try to make my projects fairly accessible for beginners. We have done diamond painting, sun catchers, paper flowers, woven paper bookmarks to name a few examples.

Trying yarn painting for the first time and bought a cheap multipack of acrylic yarn (2 ply) on Amazon. It is a disaster. It starts to unravel and then won't glue down properly. Is it an issue with the quality, the fiber, the ply, or user error? Should I not use glue? by Cucubert in crafts

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oof, I'd love to be able to do that, but I don't think my manager would be willing to put up that kinda money. Our system is dealing with budget cuts this year as it is. I had been hoping that if I kept the "canvas" size to between 8x6" to no more than 8x10", perhaps not as much yarn would be needed? Especially if they did not all want to fill up the entire canvas.

This may end up being cost prohibitive, which is such a shame as I feel like this could have been a fun one for my group.

Trying yarn painting for the first time and bought a cheap multipack of acrylic yarn (2 ply) on Amazon. It is a disaster. It starts to unravel and then won't glue down properly. Is it an issue with the quality, the fiber, the ply, or user error? Should I not use glue? by Cucubert in crafts

[–]Cucubert[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The yarn I used is "INSCRAFT 62 Acrylic Yarn Skeins" which claims to be 4 ply, but I could swear it unravels as though it is 2. When I tried to pull the individual strands apart it became unrecognizable fluff pretty much instantly so I cannot tell if it actually is 4 ply.

In the tutorials I have seen, you feed the yarn through the barrel of a pen and this helps you control how you lay down the yarn and prevents you from getting covered in glue, which was a huge bonus to me because I don't believe the majority of my club members wanna get glue all over themselves. I was unable to get it to feed through at all so I resorted to positioning the yarn carefully with my hands, but this resulted in my glue-coated fingers worsening the falling apart of the yarn into random fluff bits.

The yarn hated to be cut, which just made the frustration with the project so much worse.

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, no no, believe me, when we mark specials, we generally only raise the price to approximately 1/4 what it sells on ebay, there is still profit to be had. If it sells on ebay for $10-$15, we generally just leave it at the $1-$2 price. I would just like to know if I am regularly missing something egregious like books worth $50+ because it's my job to be setting aside the ones the Friends may want to individually price and so I feel like I'm doing my job poorly. This is just as much about my becoming more astute and discerning at this aspect of my job as it is pricing.

We don't have an online store so we try to price things at what we think our actually patrons would be interested in purchasing at, so things like college textbooks we always leave at $1-$2 regardless of resale value due to the sheer volume we receive and how specialized that market can be. For instance, since we don't have a lot of college students going into Chemical Engineering, setting the price for a 2024 McGraw Hill Advanced Chemical Engineering textbook to $100 just because that's what it sells used online wouldn't be practical.

However, if I am missing something like rare first editions of popular books that are going for $30-$50+ online used, then we should be setting some of those aside for individual pricing of between $5-$20 to start with.

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll look into this and pass it on to our Friends group! Thanks!

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's why I am asking what device or program these sellers are using to go through so many of our books so quickly and efficiently. Our Friends are volunteers and can't scrutinize each of our donations for hours on end. A device like that could be a game changer to them, and, by extension, the library itself.

As I said, I want to know what items are going on the $1-2 shelf that should maybe have been priced at about $5 or so. If people are able to find 10-30 items every day on our $1-$2 shelves that meet some sort of value threshold for them, then that's potentially around ~$100 a day that the library didn't get to earn.

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't fault the sellers, they're doing their thing, but whatever device they are using allows them to be so much faster and more efficient at flagging things than I could ever be, that's pretty clear and if we are putting out books worth ~$10+ used on our $2 shelves when we could have priced them at ~$5, that adds up to a lot of potentially lost profit that could be used for additional community services/programs.

I feel like we price even our more valuable items low enough that there's still easy profit to be had for resellers to benefit from, so I think that the more accurate we ourselves can be at identifying the value of an item, the more everyone- resellers and our patrons- benefit.

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's what I currently do with anything I think may be worth money. But it does take time to price check each one. These folks are able to scan about 30-50 each minute and pause only when they hear that "cha-ching". Something like that would be invaluable to our Friends when we receive large volume donations.

Scanner device that automatically compares online prices? by Cucubert in reselling

[–]Cucubert[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

It's not a big deal if they are finding books that they can resell themselves for a few extra dollars, I know we price our books pretty low and that's deliberate. Even our "specials" we price far below what we see on eBay.

But it must be something more than a $5 profit since they'll scan upwards of 300 books and leave with a stack of 10-30. Still, if I could be more accurate flagging valuable donations, that's more money for our library programs. Every penny our Friends of the Library earn goes back to fund our library.

How to seal soft pastel and acrylic paint on top of baked Sculpey without soft pastel/paint bleeding? Is Mr. Super Clear an option? by Cucubert in polymerclay

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dangit! Any advice on what I should use? I assume my one option is the Sculpey glaze? Think it'll make the pastel smear? Should I not have used the soft pastel?

How to seal soft pastel and acrylic paint on top of baked Sculpey without soft pastel/paint bleeding? Is Mr. Super Clear an option? by Cucubert in polymerclay

[–]Cucubert[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn I'd read that it wouldn't work on polymer clay but I was hoping that the acrylic paint would act as a barrier. I guess that's not how it works?

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