Monday, January 9, 2012

Supplies

This post requires a little bit of background information. 1. I grew up on the shores of lake Erie. 2. My sense of geography leaves much to be desired.

My elementary school playground was actually just a guardrail and a cliff away from the lake. At that school there was a project the 5th graders worked on and displayed for the school each year. When asked the students all replied that they got their arts & crafts supplies from Pat Catan's. Well, to my untrained ear the words got smooshed together and I thought that there was another country in the middle of Lake Erie called "Pakitan". Eventually I figured out that Pat Catan's was actually just a rather large arts and crafts store a city away.

I miss Pat Catan's...

Okay, Berkeley has a Dick Blick and there is also a Michael's nearby, but I feel like neither have quite the selection of different art and craft supplies as my home store. Dick Blick seems to be geared more for a professional artist. A tube of paint there is $8 or so, and while I'm sure they are high quality acrylics half of the fun of customizing ponies is that there are so many fun and interesting color combinations.



Michael's carries the cheaper folk art brand paints that many customizers use, but I feel the prices there are not competitive. I bought a few colors to paint my G1>G4 Seashell pony, but I knew the prices were higher than they should be. The same brand in Ohio costs $1/tube for regular paints and $1.49 for metallics. Needless to say I stocked up on some art supplies when I was home visiting my parents.


Now to just start planning the ponies....










2 comments:

  1. I love dickblick, but they don't have the inventory for craft paints like other craft stores. I agree with prices being a bit high, but I personally wait for when Michaels places the paints (and other misc stuff) on sale - which is reasonably often but that's neat that you're able to have access to a store that sells it for cheaper. :) Quick question! Where do you find pony hair for customization? I've been wanting to try my hand at it, but I'm not sure where to get some things. Also, doesn't help that most basic ponies are sold out around my area. >_<

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  2. @pandaraga- I didn't realize Michael's often did sales. Of course as soon as this posted the paints went on sale! But isn't that always the way?

    I believe most customizers order from Dollyhair (http://www.dollyhair.com/mlpnylonhair.htm) as they have nice quality & selection. I've never personally ordered from anyone else, though I got my first hair from a MLP member that was selling a bunch of older excess supplies and the difference between that hair and the dollyhair was huge. I LOVE my dollyhair!

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