You see, I fell in love with the Yelp web site a few day s ago and am addicted! (If you are interested you'll be able to read my full review of all the places I visited at my Yelp site.) That in combination with how much fun I had in CA and the desire to check out AZ store too led me to explore the stores in Mesa yesterday. I recruited my super friend Shannon to accompany me on this journey. Shannon lives in Chandler/Mesa, more importantly can read and understand directions 14x better than I can (at least!), shops at several of the stores I wanted to see, and knows how to find all the best restaurants!
We started the morning with a bagel and a diet Coke at Einstein's. We needed energy to start this adventure. At 10 am we headed over to The Scrapbook Barn. I know, I know you don't know if you can handle the name. I don't get it either. I picked up one piece of Buddha paper and a super cute book that says adore for a special little project for Buffy & Kakes. I know that you are shocked but remember this was only a fact finding mission.
Our next stop was Scrapbooks Etc. I had not been to this store in years and was shocked to see that it had expanded to double the size! If you are looking for scrapbook supplies and only have time to visit one store this would be it for sure! For me I bought a few sheets of skull paper I'd never seen, some red polka dots, a cute bird book and chipboard wings by Maya Roads. For the Buffy and Kakes project I found some cute pink and black paper that is grungy on one side and clean on the other. I'm all about the grunge.
Next, we went to Mystic Paper. While I enjoy visiting scrapbook stores it was nice to be in a paper art store, you can just tell a huge difference. Scrapbook stores are filled with people asking for help choosing coordinating colored papers and paper art store are full of people asking what can I do with a light bulb and a plastic doll head. (Exaggerated on both accounts but you get the picture.) This shop was very cute. I bought one sheet of bird paper, a purple/orange paper, an Halloween rub-ons from the clearance section, and one package of 1" square memory frames. I had been regretting not buying them in CA but didn't want to get carried away because I think Frenzy will be getting them soon.
At this point it was lunchtime, and we noticed an adorable restaurant called Sweet Cakes Cafe just a tiny bit down the street. When we asked the lady at Mystic Paper about the store she lit up so we headed over. This place was too cute! The first thing We noticed was the wall of cookies, bars, and brownies, and Shannon said, "Jeane, I think we might be in trouble here!" But it as the kind of trouble we wanted to be in so we stayed! Our lunch was so yummy it was ridiculous. The portions were huge and the cookies were out of this world! So soft and just perfect! We ordered a peanut butter cookie and a sugar cookie to share even though we knew we would get one with out lunch. We justified this by noticing the lunch size cookies were smaller than the ones in the wall of trouble.
Once we were adventuring again we headed to the now closed but still has their blog up Annalis Scraptique. After looking at the blog again today I notice the closing deal emails but I hate driving to a place only to find it closed.
Our final scrapbook stop was Devine Memories. This was a cute little store. It had some of the coolest bird paper that I'd never seen. I also found a cute tattoo like bird stamp that I had to have. While this is not the biggest scrapbook store it is a very cool stop and their is something to be said for supporting a smaller store like that.
To end the day Shannon took me to The Golden Spoon! Oh, mama! It is fat free, have a medium or large or only 3 WW points, does not taste like diet, frozen yogurt. I wish we had one on this side of town! It was a really fun day! The shopping and eating part was fun but the company was better. It did feel like a little AZ vacation!
I plan to check out a few more stores closer to home today and have class tonight at Frenzy with Rosie! I can't wait.
*Don't forget to click on the Yelp link above to read my full reviews of the shops!
1 comment:
Jeane's mom wrote:
Even though the tea party I was having with Kakes while you were out on this adventure would still be my choice over this activity, you do know that seeing all this does make us all a little jealous that we weren't on this "vacation" with you, don't you?
xoheartp,
MH
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