Vacation 2012: Portland

This will be a non-chronological account of the highlights of our recent Northwestern road trip.
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Portland!  As some sort of hipster, Norman certainly needed to visit.  It was lovely, though we didn't spend much time there.  We visited two main attractions: IKEA and SCRAP.  Yes, both of these places are spelled with all caps.  That's because they are both so exciting.

We decided to visit the IKEA because 1.) I'd never been to an IKEA and by all accounts it's a wonderland of fabulousness, and 2.) The Portland IKEA has a fabric-by-the-yard section, which is apparently uncommon.

 [It was even cloudy!]

It pretty much fulfilled all of my wildest expectations.  Beautiful showroom (including at least three displays of full apartments under 900 sq. ft.) (I have a slight obsession with tiny spaces, even though I could never live in one), cheap products that offer clever solutions to household organization problems, and cheap, interesting food.  On Facebook I called it an amusement park for grownups, which I guess isn't quite right because grownups like actual amusement parks.  Maybe it's an amusement park for the Pinterest set.  Which I am kind of a part of even though I don't have a Pinterest account.

[Spinach and cheese crepes (meh), fried chicken BBQ wrap (yum), IKEA chocolate bars (yes, please!)]

I bought a set of dish cloths, a set of washcloths with little loops on the corners for hanging, two down/feather pillows, and two sets of these shelves/drawers for my craft room.  Unfortunately they have to stay in their packages until after we move.  Sad.

Then we headed on over to SCRAP.  Lucy fell asleep, which meant I got to go in by myself!  It was like a vacation from my vacation!

SCRAP is a magical place.  It looks like this.  They sell recycled craft supplies.  Some of which are actual craft supplies, and some of which are just other recycled things.

I bought a ton of stuff (including a stack of interesting paper for making journals, a bunch of film reels, and about 50 very large manila envelopes for $2), and spent less than $14.

(There are other places like this SCRAP around the country and the world.  Check out this directory.)

[Aaaand that's an industrial laundry hamper FULL of zippers. 25 cents a piece!]

So even though we didn't spend much time in Portland, and we didn't really hit any tourist spots, it was a ton of fun!