I am a sucker for a grab bag. It must have started when I was little and I'd be on vacation with my family and we'd go into one of those off-the-beaten-path gift shops and there would be a little plain brown lunch bag with a label saying "Grab Bag". Usually it was only 50¢ or so, but that was about all the money I usually carried around back then, so it was a weighty decision. I would agonize over it for hours it seemed. Sometimes I'd pass on it or not have enough money, and to this day will never know what wondrous things were in the bag. Other times I would spend my hard earned 50¢ on that grab bag. I'd open it excitedly, imagining jewel studded tiaras, toys that would entertain me for hours, or the ultimate prize: Candy. Candy is gold to an 8-yr old. I honestly don't remember what was in most of the grab bags I bought as a kid, but it sure wasn't any of the things I had imagined. The only time I didn't feel cheated was when I got a bag of smooth, polished rocks. They were really cool.
Fast forward almost 40 years, and I'm wandering through Goodwill, and see a huge clear plastic bag bulging at the seams, and stuffed with all sorts of things: paper pads, pencils, mini books, toys, ribbon. But that's only what you could see. The inner contents were hidden because the bag was either stapled or taped shut. Sometimes it's possible to shift the contents a little to see what's underneath the top layer, but it still doesn't show everything. I took that one home, and have since purchased many similar bags, and can tell you that I've only been truly happy with about 3 of them. The rest of the unwise purchases had maybe one or two good items, and the rest was blech. But yesterday was different. This bag looked special. I could see a couple things that looked good, and a bunch that I could only partially see. It did seem to be all scrapbooking stuff--not just a hodge podge of totally unrelated things, which immediately justified purchasing it. I didn't even hesitate--just put it in my cart. The little voice in my head was saying "Maybe it's the ONE!" When I got home I couldn't wait to rip into it. I was so happy and so relieved to find that almost every item was brand new in its packaging, and was also something that I would actually use on my cards and scrapbook pages. My favorite things are the sewing pattern rosettes from Studio Calico. Another fun discovery was a little handmade album made with the sweetest papers. I can't imagine why anyone would give it away. If you made that album and you happen to see this and recognize it in the photos, thank you so much! So now of course, next time I see a big grab bag, I will have the pleasant memory in my head of finding one stuffed with crafty goodness, and will end up buying it, forgetting that a good one only turns up about 3% of the time. It's so much fun though!
Fast forward almost 40 years, and I'm wandering through Goodwill, and see a huge clear plastic bag bulging at the seams, and stuffed with all sorts of things: paper pads, pencils, mini books, toys, ribbon. But that's only what you could see. The inner contents were hidden because the bag was either stapled or taped shut. Sometimes it's possible to shift the contents a little to see what's underneath the top layer, but it still doesn't show everything. I took that one home, and have since purchased many similar bags, and can tell you that I've only been truly happy with about 3 of them. The rest of the unwise purchases had maybe one or two good items, and the rest was blech. But yesterday was different. This bag looked special. I could see a couple things that looked good, and a bunch that I could only partially see. It did seem to be all scrapbooking stuff--not just a hodge podge of totally unrelated things, which immediately justified purchasing it. I didn't even hesitate--just put it in my cart. The little voice in my head was saying "Maybe it's the ONE!" When I got home I couldn't wait to rip into it. I was so happy and so relieved to find that almost every item was brand new in its packaging, and was also something that I would actually use on my cards and scrapbook pages. My favorite things are the sewing pattern rosettes from Studio Calico. Another fun discovery was a little handmade album made with the sweetest papers. I can't imagine why anyone would give it away. If you made that album and you happen to see this and recognize it in the photos, thank you so much! So now of course, next time I see a big grab bag, I will have the pleasant memory in my head of finding one stuffed with crafty goodness, and will end up buying it, forgetting that a good one only turns up about 3% of the time. It's so much fun though!