#michael's

So, since we still had stuff on our list, we decided to zip over to the city anyway and hit up Artist & Craftsman. If you haven't heard of this business, it's an employee-owned chain that has very decent prices and a great array of high-quality art supplies. They host lessons, demos, and gatherings, the company makes a point to buy historic buildings and refurbish them instead of maintaining a unified look across stores, and the staff wear name tags but not uniforms. When you walk into the brightly-painted store, there are handmade signs and little drawings by the staff on every surface.

I crouched by their Posca display, working down my list, and one of the she/theys behind the counter said, "We really like your newest piece!" (Most of the staff there knows who I am and follow me online.) "Oh," I replied, "the ferret on the resin?" "Yeah yeah, that was awesome, what a great idea. And you can do so much with resin." "Absolutely!" And I went on to talk about the collaboration aspects and materials. They mentioned some local places like a secondhand craft store that would be a great place to source objects. Echo and I grabbed most of our list and a new addition: crackle paste. The cashier and I had a great conversation exchanging ideas on how to use it in our respective projects (for me, mixed media paintings, and in their case, dioramas). I left the store feeling at ease and excited about our new supplies.

Like yeah, technically still DIY, dosent change the fact that you BOUGHT IT FROM FUCKING SHEIN -

Genuinely, go to a Michael's- go to any craft store-

"Oh Michael's is to expensive for me!!" They genuinely are selling pony beads, pretty much all other bead types, yarn (knitting and crochet types) string, fabric, synthetic fur, ribbons of like 10 different sizes, hot glue guns, Styrofoam peices, and more,

"Oh i need a shirt to customize or jeans or a bag -" have you ever heard of a thrift store???