Paint Dabbers and Other Seattle Purchases

Thought I'd share with you some of the lovely goodies I brought back from Seattle with me.  I thought the Customs officer might give me a bit more of a hard time when I told him all I had bought were craft supplies but he seemed pretty blase about the whole thing. All he said was, "I guess everything is a lot cheaper in the States?"  The answer is yes but there is also so much more selection than we seem to have here in Canada.  Or maybe it's just the fact that we visited several art supply stores during my visit (Dick Blicks, Michaels and Daniel Smith's in Seattle, Ellen Hutson's premises in Issaquah, Akami in Port Townsend) that there was just that much more to choose from.

For example, I picked up 25 new Adirondack paint dabbers from Ellen Hutson.  I could only find sets of 3 colours back home and there were only one or two choices of those, the single colours I wanted weren't available and no sets of 12 or 13 like Ellen has to offer.  Many thanks to Gaal Creative, who wrote this informative blog post, especially since I watched the Tim Holtz video she included about how to use the dabbers, in which Tim shows that he stores his dabbers upside down and talks about what to do if the paint thickens up.  After watching, I spent some time this afternoon making myself a colour chart and putting my dabbers into this easy to carry wooden crate that I picked up at Value Village for $2 yesterday.

Besides paint, I also added to my tape collection:

and my rubber stamp collection

and I got a bunch of new pens, Prismacolor pencil crayons and Copic markers (according to Jane and Teesha, the oval shaped "sketch" type are a better investment than the round "ciao" version (which tend to roll right off the table).  It was an amazing learning experience to shop with Jane and Teesha, who have a wealth of knowledge about art supplies, what does and doesn't work, which brands to choose, which tool to use for which project. I often just followed them around the store and put whatever they picked into my shopping basket. :)

All 3 of us picked up this cute little plastic bag with handles to hold our pens and markers.  Not sure that "Parasite Pals" is exactly the right translation but for $2, it was still a good investment!

Last but not least, for a mere $1.50, I got myself a new pair of earmuffs

similar to the ones Jane Davenport had bought when she found the Seattle weather to be a wee bit chillier than her home in Australia.

(I tried on the pink ones but they just looked silly on me.)  I quite like the instructions that come with the pair I bought:

"1.  Do not wash.  The fur may come off.
2.  Hold with both hands, then put on the head.
3.  Keep out of fire frames.
4.  Keep out of baby.
5.  The color may fade out under the light."

No, I'm not making this up.  What are fire frames???