There is a Michael's right next to a Half-Price Books in the South Hills of Pittsburgh! I'm headed there tomorrow...and I'm taking a friend to keep me from hyperventilating with excitement.
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
I feel like that every time I go to the US I always find so many things that I can't find here, or that overly expensive. If I lived in the US I would have a bigger shopping problem lol
I went there today and it was wonderful! It's huge, with a large clearance section! I also went to Michael's and got quite a few things for AB's speech therapy.
And on the way there, I stopped at a bargain book place and on the way home, I went to ANOTHER HPB!
If you come here, Aurora, set aside a whole day and I'll take you on a book tour of the suburbs and possibly the city, too.
I need more bookshelves.
__________________
"I never understood why blessings wore disguises. If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." - Sophia Petrillo
No used book stores here, fortunately. Michaels here is in the same shopping center as Target. Kohl's and Staples, with Steak 'n Shake and IHOP nearby. Danger all around.
I love wandering around all those places. I have to go to Target this afternoon as a matter of fact. If Hobby Lobby or Michaels was in the same plaza it might take the rest of the day. I want the shopping center in winds' town to move here.
I would love to visit Mexico. I really want to see the prehistoric ruins, and the monarch butterfly migration. And eat actual Mexican food.
It's always interesting to me to see what things are cheap in what areas. For example, apparently cocoa butter is very hard to get and very expensive in Mexico? But Mexico GROWS chocolate, so why is that?
I'm on a soap making forum, and something that is hilarious to me as a person in the US is all the soap makers in Europe and Australia who are really upset that they can't get Crisco, or that it's very expensive where they are. We US soap makers keep telling them, "seriously. It's nothing special. You see it as a a soap making ingredient a lot b/c here in the US it's cheap and easily available."
We live about 2 hours from the ruins and about 3 hours from the monarch sanctuary, if you ever visit let me know! We have an extra room :D
I don't think I've ever seen cocoa butter in here, I have no idea why. What do you use it for?
Also Crisco is vegetable grease, I think, maybe they are looking for it with the brand and not the actual product, if you know what I mean.
Like Ziploc bags! Ziploc is the brand, but the product is resealable bags.
Des, have I mentioned that you look super pretty today? ;)
Cocoa butter is a great moisturizer. It has the most amazing rich chocolaty scent. I use it to make lip balm, lotion bars (which are basically giant lip balms for your whole body) and lotion. You can also use it to make a harder bar of soap. I use it when I make an all vegetable soap, since I can't use lard in that soap.
Yeah, Crisco is just hydrogenated soybean oil, with maybe a little cottonseed and/or palm in there. A lot of soap making books and websites published in the US use it in their recipes. You can easily substitute soybean oil, canola oil, etc, but a lot of non US soapers REALLY WANT to try Crisco.
I went to our newly built Michaels for the first time yesterday. It was off the chain! I loved it. It did not have as much decorations as Hobby Lobby but had some really cool craft stuff. I was going gaga over their dollar bins!
Got some stuff for the garden stepping stone craft thing we are doing there. Some plastic bead letters we can try to imprint letters in the cement and some pretty mosaic glitter tiles and some mirror mosaic tiles.
Also got some other random stuff. Liked wandering around in there.
