Look. Look with your special eyes.

Here's a little photo journal of some of the cool stuff I saw yesterday. Our first stop is The Guild Shop. They're one of my favorite thrift stores as far as selection of stuff. They have fabulous furniture and I never leave there empty handed. The only down side is that they know what they've got. They've got good antiques and they price it accordingly. This is unlike MAM who doesn't have the selection that The Guild Shop does but their prices just can't be beat, even on antiques.

How I managed to leave the store without these is beyond me. Oh yeah. They were $150 each.

I always show up at the store an hour before they close (which is 3:30) so I haven't looked through their jewelry. Yet.

This appeals to my hyper-organized OCD self.

The next stop is also our last and once you see the pictures you'll know why. Nothing is organized and you have to dig for the good stuff which appeals to my disorganized flaky self. There are lots of selfs in here and they're all very different. It's exhausting being me.

Let's look at the little slice of heaven called Texas Art Asylum. I apologize for the quality of the pictures. All I had with me was my phone so I'm forced to make another trip back there soon so I can get pictures with a decent camera.

This is what I saw when I walked in and I fell instantly in love. It looks like my pre-organization art room threw up in here.

It may appear to be chaos at first glance but there is a method to the madness. I love the broken bottles used in this display!

Among the plethora of supplies for sale there are also a few handmade pieces of art like this steampunk jewelry.

Okay seriously? $350 for found objects attached to a chain with jump rings?? Crazy.

Even the checkout counter is fun to look at.

The shelves are crammed full of stuff and I liked that they used containers from their own stock for display bins.

I would love one of these shelf things. Well, me and everyone else which is why they're so hard to find at a reasonable price.

They put dried beans in the bins to...uh...I don't really know why but it's cool that they're there.

This should have come home with me.

There were lots of bins with stuff that was all priced a little differently. These slides are priced per slide.

These buttons are priced per scoop.

The bottle caps are priced by the handful. Helpful hint: take someone with you who has very large hands. Like Uma Thurman hands. Have you noticed how huge her hands are? True story.

Taylor used to make tiny cities out of circuit boards.

Jars of stuff. One price gets you the stuff and the jar.

These were tempting cuz I've been seeing stuff done with them lately but I didn't buy any. I can probably get them cheaper at MAM.

Container heaven! They have more glass bottles than I do.

I have more keys than they do.

I'd say we're almost even in our cork collection.

The rusty metal and hardware was one of my favorite things.

I bought that rake head. I have a plan for it. Right now it's sitting in the backyard because it isn't quite rusty enough for me. I had to buy it to prevent me from ripping the head off our rake...which I've been tempted to do.

The railroad spikes are beautiful. Just beautiful.

Here's something I've never thought about collecting: covers from hardback books!

I could live happily in this store if it wasn't for the dolls and doll parts. They're everywhere. It's horrifying.

Even the disembodied limbs frighten me. But not enough to keep me from digging through those test tubes on the shelf below. I decided I could get them cheaper at American Science & Surplus.

Fabric was $2/yard and they had some pretty good stuff.

They have way more cigar boxes than me. And check out the lamp shades with the Christmas lights inside. Genius.

There was quite a bit of jewelry and some of it had thoughtfully been prepared for use. There was also a bin of china and pottery that had been conveniently broken.

I've never met a cardboard tube I could throw away and apparently neither have they.

I will be making future trips to the Asylum, oh yes indeed, and I might even take a class. I suppose I could donate some of my supplies to them but I'd rather buy some of their supplies to add to my own.

As a final note, I would like to say to all my friends who think I'm a hoarder: IN YOUR FACE!! Okay, that wasn't very nice but I do feel justified in my collection of art supplies that might appear to have nothing to do with art. Because...really...everything has to do with art if you look at it with the right eyes.