Joann's Archives - Scrapbook OBSESSION Blog.com

… what a disappointment!

As you may have heard me complain about before {ahem}, I live near very little scrapbook shopping. Within 1 hour of me, there is a MICHAELS and then whatever I can find once in a while at TUESDAY MORNING, TARGET, WALMART, and ROSS. The best scrapbook shopping I have is a BEVERLY’s CRAFTS 40 minutes away so I get there about once a month if I’m lucky. I did recently find a new little LSS about an hour away so that’s cool at least but, again, only a once-in-a-while thing.

What I’m tryin’ to tell ya’ is that I’m scrappy shopping deprived, people!! {Which is one of the reasons I become a MEMORY WORKS consultant several years ago, when we went from 7 LSS’s within an hour down to one and then NONE}.

So when I was recently out of town ~ a town with a Joann’s ~ pardon me for being a bit twitterpated about it ;) On the scrapbook message boards and from friends in other states, I hear about Joann’s this and Joann’s that. I’ve been to a Joann’s on various other trips and always found that a decent amount of scrapbook papers and embellishments had jumped into my cart and forced me to buy them.

I’m also familiar with JOANN.COM and occasionally shop online in that huge-amous store. They have coupons!!! Yeah, I like me some Joann.com + coupons. I have snapped up some OCTOBER AFTERNOON collection packs for 40% off and plenty o’ WRMK 12×12 D-ring albums for 1/2 off and free shipping. I mean, it just don’t get much better than that.

wrmk album

But I have to say my recent trip to the brick-and-mortar Joann’s was quite, quite disappointing :(

There were 4 kinda’ short aisles of scrapbooking stuff. Most of it I’ve already seen at Michaels. Or it’s already been in my stash. For years. Okay, maybe not YEARS but, like, for a WHILE. Jeez.

All the open stock 12×12 papers were boring and/or old. The paper pads were meh, nothing from any of the popular brands I like, nothing stark-raving new. It was all so boring, I can’t even really remember what there was.

The only thing I was even tempted to buy was an issue of ARTFUL BLOGGING because it had a feature on scrapbooker REBECCA COOPER, who I’ve always liked.

artful blogging

But I didn’t because at that point I was in “man, I’m so disappointed in this store so you can bite me” mode. {Sorry, I get that way sometimes … when you get me all built up and then dash my hopes}. Joann, can we talk?!?! If your scrapbooking section is going to be THAT lame, why even have one? Just let it go and get some more BEADS or something, mmm kay??? I might as well have been at Walmart 15 minutes and one less tank of gas from my house.

So I left Joann’s empty-frickin’-handed. Totally harshed my mellow, dude.

Check out THIS article called, “For Craft Sales, Recession is a Help” from the New York Times. It talks about how, despite the horrible economy and slumping sales in other retail areas, that spending at craft stores, Etsy, and the like has actually gone up. I was so happy to read this because I thought I was crazy to think the same thing; every time I go into Michaels in the past couple months, it’s packed! I always leave there shaking my head, saying, “So much for the recession.” Now, this article explains it. Their theory is that, 1. With less to spend, people are making Christmas gifts this year that are more cost effective, 2., People enjoy the stress release of making handmade things, and appreciate receiving them over “big box” items as well, and 3. That we are starting to prefer good old ‘Made in the USA’ products after all the recent problems with items imported from China. Needless to say, I loved this article! It’s all about some of my favorite things: crafts/scrapbooking, supporting American small and large business owners, and the value of handcrafted items.

HERE is a link to the discussion on 2peas….

What are your thoughts on the article?

Joann’s

Scrapbook Shopping: So I Finally Got to Shop at Joann’s and ….

Is the Recession GOOD for Scrapbooking?