An Exciting Discovery!

For those of you who live in normal-land (i.e. not New York City,) there are probably a plethora of craft stores within an easy drive (or at least one). Here in New York, that is not the case. It is a well-documented phenomena within the NYC crafting set that the store options are few and far between. While it's true that you can get anything at any time in the city, you pay the price for that advantage. Any crafting item can usually only be found in specialty stores, for which one pays an arm and a leg for. I'd heard that there were no Michael's or Joanne's or Hobby Lobby's in Manhattan and that is in fact, true. I googled. Even Target is far away (Harlem? Sorry but um, no) and is usually a disaster zone.

Which is why, ladies and gentlemen (ha! like any self-respecting boy would actually read this blog...even Mr Trail Mix doesn't read this blog), you can now fully understand my excitement when on a whim, I went to the Michael's homepage and entered my zip code into the store locator, determined to go to Queens or even Jersey for this hallowed mecca of crafting.

Fact: None of my wedding projects will look anything like the ones in this picture. That's ok, I try :)

Imagine my excitement and surprise when the search revealed a store in Manhattan. But wait, it gets better. The website said the store was located on 100th street. I live on 101st street. That's right, Michael's has opened a mere 1 block and 2 avenues away from my apartment! And I work on 97th street on the same avenue, bonus!

This is doubly exciting because in New York, everything is a schlep. Dragging bags of groceries several blocks to the subway, up and down the subway stairs and then up 5 flights of stairs to my studio is exhausting. The thought of all the crafting materials I hope to purchase would be overwhelming if I had to use public transportation to get everything home. But no, the wedding gods are clearly smiling on me and my crafting ambition, as this new Michaels (the only one in Manhattan, for gosh sakes!) is opening. IN. FIVE. DAYS. Coupons are printed and ready to go, hold me back until Sunday. HOL. LER.

Any other New Yorkers excited about this discovery? For the rest of you, are you are into Michael's as other bloggers I've read about? What's your favorite craft store?