Hello dear people!
Today I want to share my impressions and some pictures from the two of the American craft stores which are well known around the world, and these are the "Hobby Lobby" and "Michaels".
I went to the branches which are located around the area where I live now - Plano, TX.
The first that I visited was Hobby Lobby at the 4220 Legacy Drive. At 11 am the comparatively large store was almost empty and to me it came completely by surprise, because in Singapore (where we have been living for the last 4.5 years) all the stores are full of people, especially the ones which are related to arts, crafts and DIY.
The next surprising thing was that there were pretty basic products there, most of them were not new and not recently released. In Singapore, the majority of the stores which I attended for restocking my craft supplies were small, but all of them had the newest items from so many worldwide brands.
I did not know that any of the two mentioned above stores carried Graphic 45 papers, for example. I have been dreaming that it would be possible to come to one of the physical craft stores in US and buy some new papers or stamps, instead of ordering them online, but apparently I will still need to do that (at least I will pay now for the local and not the international shipping) :)
I am a big fan of dies from different companies, but in Hobby Lobby only the dies from Spellbinders and Sizzix were available.
The selection of colored cardstocks was good, they had Copics and a good selection of basic fabrics.
You can have a look at some of the items which the store offers at the pictures below.
After Hobby Lobby I headed to Michaels. There are two branches in the area, I visited the one at the 6400 W Plano Parkway #130.
Once again, the same situation with the customers - just a few here and there, no long lines to the cashier (like for example in 'Art Friend' or 'Spotlight' in Singapore).
Michaels had a nice choice of acrylic paints, different brushes, Recollections designer paper and colored cardstocks, huge selection of different stickers, a variety of embroidery threads, art journals, watercolor paper, Spellbinders dies (and other brands dies too), ink pads, décor pieces for home, supplies and tools for polymer clay artists, supplies for beadwork, a selection of tools and supplies for calligraphy and brush lettering etc.
You can get a notion about the store from the pictures below:
I want to visit now some of the smaller craft shops in the area and of course I will take some pics from there too. Just let me know if you want to see more of the posts of this kind.
Have a great by now and thanks for visiting.
