Shop Hop Stop #8: Scrapbook Buddies

Look at that cute premade Penguin! :)

The store that somewhat started my love of scrapbooking! If it wasn't for Scrapbook Buddies, I probably would still be cutting letters by hand, and probably given up by now! Tommy bought me the Silhouette Digital Cutter here as my Christmas present one year. Ever since then, I just continued making scrapbook layouts and card making.

The theme was Opryland. It had a cute Western Country Singing themed Photo Op! It was just so adorable! Not to mentioned, their bottle caps were so cute too! I couldn't pick and asked which one was the popular! It turned out that both were head-to-head in votes.

The ladies there were really friendly. Since I had the bottle cap hung onto the wristlet, I showed them what bottle caps I had picked up the the last 2 days. :)

Very cute bottle cap and they even had a horseshoe decoration!

Whenever I come to Scrapbook Buddies, I am always amazed by their premade designs. They were limited in quantity as well. If I find something I like today, and don't buy it, it's really no guarantee that it will still be there next time I shop. Then again, I don't always go shopping weekly.

Until next time...

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop # 7: Snap N' Scrap

Lots of Travel theme! Love it!!

If it wasn't for this Shop Hop, I probably would never knew there's Snap N' Scrap! I live not too far from Snap N' Scrap! With a short drive there, I walked into a store filled with stickers! Yup, LOTS OF STICKERS, stickers of all sorts, all theme. I couldn't believe how much stickers inventory they got!

This store is also a camera store. Tommy and I drove by the store without knowing that it was a scrapbook store! The ladies there were really friendly and we chatted while they were trying to hook my bottle cap onto the chain.

Since there were quite a bit of travel themed items, I decided to pick some of them up as they come in handy for my travel scrapbooks. There 6x6 Make N' Take was really cute too! I learned from the lady that they designed the paper themselves! That's pretty cool. I decided to purchase the additional add on page to compliment the first free Make N' Take.

Cute bottle cap

This store was filled with goodies! The fact that it is so close to my house, I can easily drive there to pick up things that needed for my project!

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #6: Scrapbooking Heaven

Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons!

Day 2, Shop Hop Stop #6 (Last stop of the day)

By the time we got to Scrapbooking Heaven, I was tired. I actually had enough shopping and couldn't shop anymore. The store was big, with a lot of scrapbook layouts around the store for inspirations! I loved one of the layouts so much, I took very detailed mental notes in my mind and drew down the layout on a piece of paper when I got home!

There were some products that I wanted to buy, but decided to hold back as I am not sure if I had the time to pick up on new skills to use those products. They had a good selection of ribbons by the wall. I liked some of the ribbons and decided to buy it.

They had some travel tags and thought how useful they could be for my travel scrapbooks, I decided to buy a couple of them so I could make use of them in the future. I picked up a 6x6 Make N' Take and a bottle cap as well.

Wizard of Oz bottle cap, Themed Destination: Emerald City

Well, that's all for now on my day 2 journey around the Huntington Beach area! Continue to follow my journey of shop hopping, day 3!

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #5: Perfect Day Scrapbooking

Banner outside of the shop

After our stop at Once Upon a Memory, Tommy and I decided to grab something to eat before continuing my shopping journey! While we were driving on Beach Blvd to see if there's anything we should eat, we drove by Monkey House Cafe. The name caught our eyes and Tommy decided to check the yelp review to see what others say. It had high reviews and Tommy and I decided to stop there for lunch. It surely was a delicious lunch! :)

After lunch, we drove to Perfect Day Scrapbooking. The store was relatively small compared to the other stores I had been. The depth was long, but the narrow. It was packed with alot of goodies in the store! I was getting overload looking around the store!

The themed destination was Las Vegas. The store was decorated with a lot Vegas theme. They had a blackjack table with a guy dealing hands to customers. They had a roulette game at the register to have a chance to win a gift. That was pretty cool!

I ended up getting some cute papers and embellishments from there. The Asian style theme cardstock papers were so cute and adorable! I just had to get it. Someday, I will visit Japan with Tommy. :)

My bag of goodies

I loved the glittery foam letters. I used quite a bit of it for my scrapbook projects after I bought them home. The butterflies crystal embellishments were really adorable! I decided to get them in clear gems. It would just be easier to put the embellishment on any types of project I do. (It's still in the drawer right now!)

Just like the other stores, I bought a bottle cap to add onto my collection. I got a free 6x6 Make N Take. I decided to not buy any of the add on pages. I was pretty surprised to see they had alot of add on pages for the Make N' Take. They even had a cover for it!

Back side of the cardstock papers

One of the few choices of bottle cap

Although the store was small, it was packed with alot of products! It was unbelievable. The prices were decent. The Vegas theme was really cool. I liked how they put the whole thing together. If I had another friend to Shop Hop with me, I am pretty sure we would had a lot of fun at this store.

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #4: Once Upon A Memory

After visiting Scrapbook Garden, Tommy and I then drove to the next stop. Our stop #4 was Once Upon A Memory. The themed destination at this store was Huntington Beach.

Photo-Op opportunity!

When I first walked inside the store, the store seemed big with alot of papers and embellishments around the store. The store was neat and nicely organized. I had no intention of buying papers, so I walked around the store to look for embellishments that I don't normally find at my home store.

I took my time to look around the store. I found some ribbons that I felt I would make use of it. I decided to try a yard of each of the ribbons I picked. I also bought 2 butterflies. The butterflies were made with mesh like materials. I got a free 6x6 Make n' Take and purchased the second page of Make n' Take to go with the first page. Again, I also purchased the bottle cap.

My goodies! :)

Close up picture of the bottle cap

I enjoyed shopping at this store. The staffs were friendly and wouldn't mind spending some time behind the register to chat with their customers. When I first entered the store, there were a group of Shop Hoppers shopping there. I was a bit surprised to overhear from some shoppers that they were on their 9th stop. I was only on my 4th stop! :/

Come back soon to follow my journey of my Shop Hop experience.

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #3: Scrapbook Garden

July 30, 2011- Shop Hop Day 2, Stop #3

We decided to head to Huntington Beach for the day! My excuse to my lovely boyfriend was, "Let's do visit several scrapbook shops around the area and we hang out at the beach afterwards!" FAILED

He took me to Huntington Beach, but no beach. I was honestly trying to spend some time by the beach with him. He was my driver after all, that's the least I could do to show my appreciation and don't make myself like a demanding-high maintenance- gets what she want-type of girlfriend. It was such a beautiful day to not have gone to the beach to spend couple hours!

When we drove into the plaza, I noticed there was a Closing Sale on the window. My first thought that came to my mind was if I had went to the wrong place. I checked the passport and check my phone if I entered the wrong address. No, I was correct. I went into the store and noticed there were many people cropping. There were not many things left since most were all sold. I went up to the store owner to ask her if she could stamp my passport and get a bottle cap.

I spent few minutes chatted with her to understand why she decided to close down. With the economy, it was just difficult to sustain business and I felt really bad. I wished her the best.

Business is hard work. At times, it looks like it's easy to make a lot of money in a short period of time, but let's not forget that there's a lot of overhead that the people don't see other than the business owner. The amount of stress they go through is crazy. I feel business owners are very strong people.

Bottle cap I got from Scrapbook Garden. Themed Destination: PISA

The themed destination at Scrapbook Garden was Pisa. She even had a Photo-Op with a big cutout of the Leaning Tower of Pisa! It was pretty cool. It brought back memories when Tommy and I went to visit the Leaning Tower and climbing up to the top to see the beautiful view!

Check back soon for Shop Hop Stop #4! :)

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #2: Pages from the Heart

My love for pearls and rhinestones! :)

My second Shop Hop stop was Pages from the Heart. It was just a walking distance away! I didn't know there was another scrapbook store around the area until Shop Hop event came up.

The store, however was a bit difficult to find, mainly due to the fact that I was using google map on my iPhone and it was not calibrated correctly! It pinpointed me the back side of the building! I was smart enough to continue walking down the street and yes, destination found! The store is located right across from one of my favorite bakeries, Merengue.

Anyway, my first impression of the store was busy, busy, busy! It was filled with people! I must had waited in line for at least 30 minutes before reaching to the front to pay! Boy, did my boyfriend got pissed off! I guess people in front of me must had big purchases to hold up the line. The store seems new, as if they just moved in not too long ago. I took my time walking around the store to see what I liked. My eyes have a tendency of following shiny things and I followed to it!

5 packs of rhinestones, and 3 packs of pearls

I bought a bunch of rhinestones and pearls from Kaiser Crafts. I bought 5 packs of rhinestones and 3 packs of pearls. I picked up colors that I normally use, such as blue, green and white. I seemed to make a lot of pages using those colors. Since I have a 20% discount, I decided to stock up. I also picked up some different color rhinestones and pearls because I know that they will come in handy when I am working on a project.

The theme destination at Pages from the Heart was New York, NY. With the rhinestones and pearls stock up, I got a free 6x6 Make N' Take. They even had an instruction of how to put the Make N' Take together! I also picked up a bottle cap for the necklace. They had 3 different bottle cap designs! I stood there at the register for quite a bit of time to decide which one I wanted. I picked one with the Statue of Liberty on it.

With the purchase, they even gave me a New York sticker sheet! That's pretty cool!

That ended my Day 1 of Shop Hopping. Come back to my blog and read on where I went on my Day 2!

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.

Shop Hop Stop #1: Scrap N Yap

Scrap N' Yap located in Monrovia

My home store is Scrap N' Yap. It would be totally wrong if I didn't kick off my fist Shop Hop experience with them! :)

As I wrote in my last post, the theme for this year's Shop Hop is "Destinations around the World." Scrap N' Yap's destination was Southern France!

I loved the decor they put up around the stores. I absolutely loved the lavender plants that were put on the top of the shelves. It was so France! :) Next time I go to France, I must visit the lavender field in Providence. (Yes, lavender is one of my favorite flowers)

Cute Photo Op Station

My goodies!

Since it was my first stop, I was quite conservative on my spending. I love anything that sparkled! I couldn't help but picked up more sparkles there! I also picked up 2 cat eye chalk inks and lace ribbon.

The sparklers were really adorable! I ended up returning to the store after the Shop Hop ended to buy more of them! They were big. I used them as the center for the flowers. It just made the flowers prettier!

With $10 purchase, I received a free 6x6 make and take. I really should take a close up picture of it! With $20 purchase, I would receive a free bottlecap. Since I didn't buy enough, I decided to buy a bottlecap to build my bottlecap necklace.

Sorry for the dark picture. I know it is a bit difficult to see! I should not have taken pictures with my phone, or take pictures with a hardwood floor as background.

Sorry for taking so long to post my blog. I had been extremely busy the last several months working on my Europe scrapbook. It is now completed and am planning to take a break from my usual travel scrapbook project. I should have some more time on my hand to keep up with my Scrap and Treasure blog, my Travel blog and a possibility of cardmaking. Well, on top of that, I am thinking of picking up a new language on my personal leisure time, of course. I have my hands full!

*Note: My blog is not sponsored by anyone. It is a shopping experience that I like to share to you and like to share the products I purchased.