Stuff I bought at Paper Source

Warning: this is one of my periodic, slightly excessive I-went-shopping-and-here's-everything-I-bought posts. Just so you know. (It could be worse, much worse - at least I don't get around to doing this every time I go shopping!)

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Just last night, this postcard came in the mail:

But as it happens, I already knew that the Paper Source store in Houston was opening, and in fact is already open, and I went there yesterday. I knew it was coming - the store, that is, not the postcard - because I still get their catalogs in the mail (despite the fact that I really don't think I've ordered from them in some time) and I noticed a while back that Houston was listed in the "coming soon" list - which I was ridiculously excited about. I probably would have been even more excited, except that I have been in a Paper Source store before - the one in Dallas, back in December - so I did know what to expect. That was enough to keep me from going completely ballistic, I guess.

The Houston store is actually not as big as the Dallas store, I don't think - the Dallas store is in a mall and the Houston store is right on the street on Westheimer, which might be more expensive real estate - but it's got the stuff it needs to have and it's really adorable. It's a brand-new building (just west of Crate and Barrel, for any local people who happen to be reading) and it's tall and narrow and made to look fairly convincingly like a brownstone. (Hmm, I wonder if the classroom is upstairs, actually - I didn't think of that before. If it's downstairs I sure didn't see it!)

So this is what I bought:

really cool paper:
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Purple-Silver-Paisley-Fine-Paper/300_621/103320.html - this looks woven, almost like it's a fabric
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Pixel-Wrapping-Paper/3650.040/459889.html - the picture does not do this justice. I am a color junkie and this is so right up my alley.
plus a paper sampler (sort of like this one):
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Paper-Scrap-Bag-Warm-Colors/3325.020/39999844.html The one I got is heavy on bright pinks and yellows, colors that are really appealing to me these days!

a Halloween stamp:
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Happy-Halloween-Rubber-Stamp/2901.015/805840.html

red embossing powder:
http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/item/Zing-Opaque-Rouge-Embossing-Powder/2902.011/718813271233.html (that doesn't seem to be exactly the same color I got, though, unless the picture is bad - mine is bright bright red)

plus some useful but somewhat more mundane stuff that I won't link, like Staz-On stamp cleaner and a Versamark pen. (Really I restrained myself admirably, on the whole!)

I have no idea what I'm doing with either one of the papers but I'll think of something! The Halloween stuff was because I seem to be going on an early Halloween bender - which might be okay because I need to start making some skull jewelry if I really intend to sell some this year like I said I was going to. The red embossing powder is just because it appealed to me and I am just starting to experiment with embossing and so practically anything I buy is going to be new to me.

I remembered - after thinking about it for a minute - why I found Paper Source in the first place, long before I got interested in papercrafts in any kind of half-serious way. It was the heart cards. I don't know if I saw a link somewhere or maybe saw them in a magazine, but somehow I found out about them and ordered some heart cards and some envelopes. I sent them the first year with just "Happy Valentine's Day" handwritten on them, and then I sent them again some later year with this stamped on them. It was the first stamp that I ever colored. I've ordered various other things from them since them, but that was where I started.

(The official grand opening is not until July 24th, incidentally. Just in case you're interested in going.)