Got a few new things today

Today we went Christmas shopping. I mostly bought for my mother, and she had me pick out some things for her to get for me.

We went to Joann's and AC Moore. I was very disappointed in both stores. AC Moore is getting more and more like Walmart in terms of scrapbooking quality. I miss being able to buy Spellbinders, and they have now discontinued the Cuttlebug stuff as well.

JoAnn's has also discontinued the Spellbinders, and only had a few old ones left. I did manage to get the small oval and circle sets. I was really glad, since I only had the large ones, and those never seemed to be the right size for a lot of the stamps I had, but I am still really disappointed. Now there is no place around that sells Spellbinders. I also was desperately in need of more tape for my ATG, and neither place has that any more. I was almost completely out of Superfine Detail Gold, and neither place carries anything but large kits of embossing powder, and I have no idea what the quality of those is, but I don't want to spend big money on a big kit of colors I don't need, only to find out that the one vial of gold isn't as fine as I need.

I did manage to get a Memento Tuxedo Black stamp pad. I think that is the one that works the best with Copics.

They also had a Fiskers cutting thing on sale, so I got that too, hoping it will work so I can make the center step cards more easily. It doesn't have the scoring tool, and neither place had one of those, but I have the MS scoring board, so it doesn't matter that much. The Fiskers thing is plastic, and my other 12" one was metal, and much sturdier, but that one had a defective part where you slide the blade down, so maybe sturdiness and metal instead of plastic doesn't mean it was better.

With these chain stores discontinuing so many of the good products we use, it makes me wonder if they even want to carry scrapbooking supplies any more. They both have fewer aisles, and so many fewer products now. There are hardly any flowers like the Prima ones left either. None at Joann's, and only a few leftovers at AC Moore. Are Michael's and Hobby Lobby carrying fewer supplies as well? I only get to those places when we are In NY visiting the kids. If they have cut back too, I will be so disappointed.

I suppose it's good for the LSS, but we don't have any of those, so I guess it will be mail order for me from now on. It used to be so much fun to go to the craft stores, now it's difficult even to find enough to use the coupons for.

I did get another three drawer cube thing for storage at AC Moore with my coupon from there, but there was nothing to use the coupon for at Joann's.

I'm trying not to remember what my mother got for me for my birthday and Christmas, but it was mostly paper stacks, a new VersMark pad, (mine is pretty worn out), a set of Brilliance pads, and some ribbon. No new and beautiful Spellbinders dies or embossing folders.