help with getting better stuff?

[mean&gay]

i'm trying desperately to reach a point where i can easily pay for things like art with pets and items, but i have no idea how to get to that point. does anyone have any tips on getting pets and items with higher worth easily? i'm not a very patient person, but it seems like i'm gonna have to be patient to get anywhere near my goal ;-;

i've made a weak attempt at paperclipping, but it seems like a very long process. considering doing offsite trading as well, but my trust issues make that difficult haha.

any ideas?

[Shinryu]

How to best get valuable things does depend on how patient you are and what you're open to trying, yeah.
Offsite trading as you've mentioned is one way to do it, but it's completely understandable you'd be worried, so if you don't like the idea, that's perfectly fine.
If you do want to try - it'd seem Flight Rising, Eldemore and Wajas are some popular sites for cross-site trades on CS, and if you need help determining exchange prices, there's lots of experienced traders to ask for advice.

Purely on-site, you can of course try your luck with the Free Adoptions board.
First, there's threads from quitting users. A lot of times these people are giving away entire collections, so if you manage to send a trade very fast, you may be able to snag some of the valuable stuff. This does require patience because you have to check the board frequently for new threads, and may have to re-send trades if they get autocancelled. Sometimes it can help not to aim for the most valuable pets, too, since that's what everyone will be going for - it's not a bad idea to weigh your chances.

Entering giveaways is also never a bad idea. You're not guaranteed to win, but hey, getting a shot at winning rares for free? There's no reason not to try if it's a prize you're interested in.

The Pound is a very random, luck-based way of getting rare stuff, but still, if you lower your expectations a bit and make sure to get to the openings right on time, you can still grab stuff to add to your trade fodder, if nothing else.
It takes a ton of luck for the really valuable things to show up (and very fast reactions and more luck to get it), but there's a decent chance for 2010/11 pets to show up still, and free trade fodder is nothing to complain about^^
Get there on time, and click anything with a super old adoption date (like 2008, 09 and early 10) without hesitation*. Even if you don't want it, it's still useful for trades.
Learning pets' rarities improves your chances drastically. You have a huge advantage if you can recognize a rare pet on sight, so it's not a bad idea to spend time memorizing this stuff. It takes dedication, but memory trumps guess work any time.
*Keeping timezones in mind helps as well. Sometimes Pound pets get adopted at a slower rate because less users are online. Keep an eye on what times CS is the least active at (late night in America, lolol), and use that to once again weigh your chances. If the Pound opens while there's over a thousand users online, don't get picky over old pets - they get taken fast and if you refresh too often, you'll waste your chance.
If the Pound moves slowly, however, you can try to risk refreshing a few times.
This group is your friend. Check it before openings (when the timer is set), keep it open in a tab during openings to track the remaining pets.

You can "farm" lower rares quite easily by participating in site events. We have three annual "hunt" events (Easter, Summer Event, Halloween) that are based on finding and exchanging tokens for prizes. A lot of the pets you get that way end up rare, and are pretty much guaranteed to be at least uncommon. So if there's an event and you have time - get as much as you can!
Alternatively, and also noteworthy: Especially at the very beginnings of events, it can be super profitable to trade off your token items directly to other players, instead of getting prize pets.
People are often willing to pay good value pets for quantities of tokens. So keep an eye out for offers like that!
Many people use the first half of the event to just collect tokens as good as they can. All trade-in prizes are available until the end of the event, so there's no rush to grab them, leaving you enough time to gather tokens to trade away/calculate how many you will need for yourself.
Our Easter event is next month already c:

Trying to trade up your fodder for more valuable things, however, does take time and patience, there's no way around that. If you don't get lucky and grab rare things from free adopts, then working for them is the only option.
Good luck!

[arabella !!]

Here is a helpful thread: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10403