Micheals Craft Heaven.

The other day, I wandered into a Michaels craft store.

The instant I did so, I forgot what I had come in the store for in the first place.

First off, I would like to clarify that I do not have A.D.D. I’ve never had problems with focusing.

But, every single little thing in that store is more amazing than the first.
Let me explain.

I’m one of those people who loves to try everything when it comes to crafts. I love to craft. I love everything about making stuff. I love paper. This means that, while I’m in a Michaels’, I am the most obsessed person in the scrapbooking section. Every single sheet of paper gets looked at. Even the baby paper. And, honestly, the baby papers get the most points for being adorable. I know it’s outrageous. Every time I go, I have to spend a good ten minutes arguing with myself that I don’t need more fancy-pants paper, because I already have a bunch and I don’t use much of it anyway.
You know how the cliché is that all girls love shoes? And how they faun over shoes and have to convince themselves not to buy shoes? Right, well, that’s me, only instead of a red pair of kitten heels, I’m debating over the necessity for red paper with romping kittens on it.

I really don’t get it. I seriously don’t know how it started, but I have massed quite a collection of pretty, high quality inked paper.

Oh, but I haven’t gotten to the best part about Micheals. You see, you can’t only buy the paper. Oh no. You need something to do with the paper. And that’s when the inventing comes in.

Inventing occurs as I continue to wander the isles filled with random crap that I somehow need to own and use and create on. Inventing is not really the right word; I guess the word is pulling things from other places to make one thing to call my own. Now, pretend that’s one word. And the word is not plagiarism.

Mostly, I take my fancy-pants paper and I make books out of it. I have been doing this for years. I have hand-made notebooks everywhere. That’s because my second favorite thing, other than paper, is blank books.

This is weird. I know. But I like to make lists. And keep things organized and separate. So, I need a separate sketchbook for my mixed-media art and my emo art. And then, cat sketches and manga also need their own notebooks. You seen, I may not be A.D.D., but I think I am O.C.D.

But this time I didn’t buy any paper, because when you’re at school you have no time to do anything fun other than sit around and watch romantic British dramas set in the 1800’s.

This is what normally ends up happening. In micheals, I mean, not the whole thing with watching movies. My roommate and I, well, really just me, have gotten into a state where the only thing we want to see is couples getting together after finding out that the male lead, who before hand is figured to be terrible, Is really the most wonderful person ever, and the strong female lead was in love with him all along. It helps if its set in the olden days and lady’s wear big puffy dresses and have a slight accent.

Anyways, I wander the store, trying to push the paper out of my brain. Then, I come to the bead section. I gave up beading in seventh grade when I realized that I never wear any jewelry except the fundamentals (ring, earings, ect.) however, beading helps to feed into another one of my stupid favorite things… miniatures.
Like, 1in to 1 ft scale, hard core, French colonial miniatures for my dollhouse. My dollhouse, which will soon get its own post because EVERYONE needs to see how I take Nerd to a whole new level.

Anyway, I look in the bead section for little square beads which can work for frames for pictures. I like to print out Belle and Boo prints from the website and make them so they fit the scale for my little girls room. I love belle and boo, and If I was living in London/ was rich enough to pay for overseas shipping/ was 4 years old, I would get some of their prints and hang them on my walls.

And then I get into the cheap section, where there are markdowns on everything including children toys which I would love to own, event though I couldn’t justify spending a dollar on sparkly Cinderella pencils. The cheap section of Michaels’ is like a royal palace compared to the dollar store.

The best part of the dollar store, other than everything being a dollar, is that they have weird things from Asian countries with choppy translated text, like, “Hello, My name Dog, Woof Woff! Come on magical Journey!” That, and the totally inappropriately named “perfumes” next to the door, such as “Black Lady” and “Eat me Raw”.

But the Michaels cheap section… is like what every mother should go to for party favors for their childs birthday-party goodie bags. I mean, They have Hello Kitty coloring books and crayons, Tinkerbell paint sets, little princess figurines, and those expanding things, which apparently grow up to 600 times their size (I doubt it too).

Better yet, they have notebooks, so I could make more lists and keep more things ridiculously tidy, and little boxes, and handles and knobs. That’s another weird thing I am in love with. Door pulls. Lord knows why. I just really really like fancy door pulls, like these ones from Anthropologie. If I could have my way, I would change every knob in the house. But then everything would look retarded, so I’m glad I don’t own furniture yet.

They had these single serving casserole dishes which were super cute, and Paula Dean cupcake liners that say “a balanced diet is a muffin in both hands” on the bottom. I don’t know anything about Paula dean other than she had a doughnut sandwich on t.v. Like, a sandwich where, instead of bread, you use doughnuts. And in the middle is another doughnut.

Flip back to me walking down another isle and looking at photo albums and scrapbooks. I used to scrapbook. Diligently. I didn’t really have a choice, when high school scrapbooks cost around $80.oo and I only had a handful of friends anyway. Made my own Yearbook. And it’s the best one I own.

I come to the Sticker isle. Stickers are amazing. Since when did stickers become so amazing? I mean, these aren’t your everyday “Good job!” smiley face stickers. These stickers have embellishments. They have glitter. And bows. And fuzzy stuff. And ribbon and bumpy parts and fun colors. And I want them all. I mean, there are stickers for camping and stickers for graduating elementary school, and for going to parties and for mowing the grass. I mean, there are stickers for everything. But I have no idea how you would ever use them. Unless you were making cards and you didn’t have any Beatrix potter images or something.

I am so amazed by Michaels. I spent an hour, just looking. Totally amazed.
And then I left.

Without buying a thing.

Ah, it’s nice to forget your wallet in the car.