Ha! There I am, just cruisin’ Craigslist (as I do), minding my own business (as I often don’t do), lookin’ at the craftin’ stuff. To be able to afford a road trip back to Alabama, we are not supposed to be spending any money this month, so it is all window shopping. Just kind of ‘crafting porn’ for me, really. Until I saw a women advertising craft punches on a Craigslist. She had a box of them labelled them as ‘all $30′. Some crafting punches are $30 (or more) new, so I could not figure out if it was the whole box for $30 or not. $30 for each seemed stupidly expensive; $30 for the lot seemed crazily, unbelievably good. I was pretty sure it was not $30 for the lot, so when I emailed to ask, I added a kind chiding “because you know, they are $20-$30 new”.
She responded.
ALL THE PUNCHES for $30.
ALL THE PUNCHES.
Her listing also listed a box of stamps and ink for $40 and a sizzix die cutter plus dies for $40. After one email she agreed to give me the lot for $80.
So, I agreed to go and collect them bright and early on a Saturday morning. As I drove out to Pasedena, full of Craft-anticipation, I was thinking “It’s a pretty good indictment of society that strangers will just meet each each other without fear… especially in a country with guns”. Then I thought “Ugh. This country has guns”. Then I thought “I could get shot”. Then my thinking spiraled, spiraled into: “This advert was way too good to be true. If you wanted to get a woman off Craigslist to kill, wouldn’t you use something like craft stuff? Something 99% likely to attract a woman?”.
Clio told me never to think.
Turns out the woman was very nice, and didhave crafting stuff, and wasn’t looking to store my head in her freezer.
Thus I now own:
All the craft punches
and
All the stamps
and a sizzix die cutter with 3 alphabet dies.
I have to admit, I felt guilty about low balling her. But she said that she had decided just to ‘throw in’ 50 sheets of scrapbooking paper:
and a free scrapbook:
So she obviously did not feel too screwed.
I am so excited! Weirdly, this has put my scrapbooking on hold while I try to find a way to integrate these into my craft studio. I am definitely having storage issues.
Houston friends: you are welcome over at mine any time to paper craft. If you have an occasion coming up and need to make something, just drop me a line. Your children are welcome too – 3 of my best friends in Alabama were 5, 8 and 10 years old respectively and some of our best times were at my house making things.
Now, I am off to work out how to store all this in a practical, but tidy, way.
She also threw in some glitters, and 15 stamp pads.
Remind me how jealous y’all are?
Laura has a bunch of stamps. She used to stamp cards when we lived in Texas but she rarely pulls them out these days. Looks like a nice haul. I remember how expensive the stamps and tools could be!
I think it is well over $1,000 worth of stuff, if new. I am still anemic and a bit messed up: stamping is my sport replacement (for a while!).
steal of a deal! that’s awesome!
on another craigslist/guns-related note – I had an acquaintance who was shot and killed when meeting up with someone for a craigslist transaction. So be very very careful!
Wow Allison, I am so sorry. Thank you for sharing – that will stop me having a false sense of security. I decided on the way to the met-up that I would only ever meet somewhere public (we met at a Sam’s Club). But maybe I will always take my husband with me as he caries a pistol.