Monday Motivator: Shopping!

A lot of our weekends involving some sort of shopping.  And whether we buy anything or not, we always have a blast.  So this weekend was no different.  We shopped, we had fun... and we totally hit the jackpot.

We finally made it to the art supply store we'd been wanting to go to for a while and were pleasantly surprised by their selection.  They had the vast array of traditional media we expected (which got us to talking about doing some painting), but they also had a lot of stuff we didn't expect to find.  A pretty awesome selection of calligraphy supplies, for instance.  Calligraphy and I became close friends when I was about 12, but ours has been a very on again, off again sort of relationship simply because calligraphy supplies are not all that easy to find.  But with this place around...  *insert maniacal laughter here*

So I grabbed a much needed bottle of ink, a really awesome "calligraphy journal" which features some really pretty papers and a very handy guideline page.  No more tedious ruling for me!  Woohoo!  I also grabbed a couple of calligraphy markers for practice and lazy days and quickie projects.  And maybe also nostalgia.  I had a set of these years ago that I used all the time for signing and addressing cards (I was the official family scribe). 

I was almost equally excited by their selection of polymer clay--something else I have previously been unable to find around here.  I mentioned back in my New Year's post that I intended to make some polymer clay jewelry, and now that I know where I can get my clay, that's far more likely to actually happen. 

Now, that would have been enough right there to make my day.  But we weren't done yet.  We also found a new yarn store, where I picked up the set of size 10 DPNs I needed to finish up Kitty's hat and, from the totally-not-yarn-related-but-still-awesome section of the store, a really freakin' cool tea cup from Tea Forte.  We visited a few antique shops along the way, as well, and added to our vintage glove and apron collections.  We even found a nifty stand on which to display some of our gloves.  It's currently sitting on the dresser and it looks smashing.  now, we just need a cool way to display our aprons...

And then we headed to Big Lots.  If you don't have a Big Lots, that's sad.  They sell close-outs and overstocked merchandise, which means a lot of name-brand stuff super cheap.  I recently bought a bunch of Lion Brand and Gala yarns for $1.50 a skein.  In short, Big Lots = Win.  And they certainly didn't disappoint this time.  They didn't have as much yarn as they've had the last few times I've been, but they had oodles of scrapbooking supplies. 

Now, I'm not really into scrapbooking in and of itself, but the supplies excite me because I do love to make things with paper.  And when I saw all those awesome papers and stickers and stamps and doodads and whatzits, all I could think of was books.  Books, books, books!  These would be great for embellishing my books!  So I grabbed a couple of the packages you see in the photo, which consist of several sheets of paper and a whole bunch of assorted... thingies.  And for each of these packages I paid a whopping $2.00.  I love this place.

And as an added bonus, one of their other locations which we visited the other day, had stamps, and I picked up the most adorable set of clear rubber stamps featuring trees and branches and owls.  They match my blog!  How cool is that?  You'll be seeing them in use as soon as I get an acrylic block and some ink. 

So there you have it.  My new toys are my motivation this week.  What's yours?