SHOPPING HIGHLIGHTS and living in a burning hell

Wow.  Time flies.  One minute it's beautifully cold and you're wearing a classy sweater to work - the next thing you know, it's a hundred degrees and you're miserably wondering what you did to end up in hell.  Was it the liquor?  The sleeping around?  The haircut you had in the 6th grade?  Why have I been forsaken?!  Oh, I'm still alive.  This isn't hell.  It's Oklahoma City.  Or is it?

So what's up?  Besides burning in hell?  Well, I've done a bit of shopping and I'm here to share a few SHOPPING HIGHLIGHTS with you!

Here's some highlights of recent shopping trips:



Found these nifty stamps (from The Paper Company) at Jo-Ann.  All stamps were on sale, 40% off.  As these were rather inexpensive anyways- really- such a low price I wouldn't have cared paying full price- the discount made them an even better deal!  I think they rang up at 4.19 each package.  And aren't they cool?!  I love the vintage label look of these stamps!  I could do without the 'Friends Forever' stamp, as I stopped acting like a 13 year old girl when I turned 30, but who knows- it might come in handy one day. 

Went to MICHAELS yesterday, for a lunch-hour shopping break.  Holly B. not only drove me, but shared a diet pill.  So we shopped in terrific manic style AND didn't eat.  As I was maniacally tearing through the dollar stamp bins, Holly turned a corner and spotted the above display, hidden behind a tall shelf of horrific budget patterned scrapbooking paper.  Seriously- hidden.  If it were a snake it would NOT have bit me.  Luckily, Holly has the eyes of an eagle on methamphetamines.  Budget stamps from 7Gypsies / Graphic45 / Cosmo Cricket / Hampton Art!!!  Most of the display was empty, however- which lead me to imagine that they either hadn't fully stocked this display yet OR other people had already discovered it and bought all of the best stamps.  As this was at the Michaels that's notorious for not stocking things that the other locations stocked a month ago, I'm leaning towards a stocking issue.

Speaking of this Michaels location's stocking issues- they have finally restocked (most of) the Tim Holtz/Sizzix dies (and embossing folders)!  They've been missing for nearly a year.  Well, except for a single, lonely Tim Holtz 'Baroque' die which seemed to migrate randomly around the store of its own volition.  Yes.  After all of Mr. Holtz's fan-freakin-tabulous dies but this 'Baroque' die had sold, I would spot it in different places all over the store.  One day it was in the SMASH Book display, then it was suddenly hanging from a Distress Ink hook.  Another time, I saw it on top of a pile of fabric bolts in the clearance aisle.  Yesterday, there it was again- in the mixed media jewelry display.  While I considered giving the Baroque die a home of its very own, I saw (and gratefully snatched) the On The Edge 'File Tabs' die.  I'd been wanting this one for FOREVER!  Sorry, Baroque.  I'll get you one day.  I promise.  I'll make an honest die of you.

Now, for something not related to craft, but still something that caught my eye:

A 'bunny rabbit mask.'  Spotted at the new and terrific antique shop near downtown, VERDIGRIS.  This thing is horrifying.  And I want it. 

And now, for something even more horrifying than an antique bunny mask:

This ad, spotted in the back of the newest issue of one of the scrap-mags, which excitedly advertises a new line of LIVE, LAUGH, LOVE albums.  Really?  I was pretty sure the LIVE LAUGH LOVE thing was, if not dead already, definitely near death.  Is it being resurrected?  I was pretty sure this fad was completely extinct when I spotted LIVE LAUGH LOVE signs in heaping piles in the home decor sections at Gordman's and Ross Dress For Less and other classy shopping destinations.  But no.  Just when I think I won't be assaulted by this CRAP any longer-  surprise! 

Trust me, people.  It's not inspiring.  It's insipid.  And worse than that, it's overdone. 

Okay