I had seen the hoards of boxes of craft items on the auction-house website but had brushed past them because I don’t craft.
When I arrived on the day of the auction, I was again confronted with the overload of crafts, which were actually scrapbooking supplies. Boxes and boxes and boxes of them outside. On top of tables, under tables and on the pavement next to the tables. There were other boxes and items inside.
This was someone’s scrapbooking hobby gone awry. But it had apparently been a wonderful experience because some of the items were just beautiful. Large scrapbooks in lavendars and limes, pinks and aquas and many other pastel colors – some still in plastic packaging, all new and unused. Items with names I had never heard of before because I’m not a scrapbook enthusiast.
What’s a Sizzix and Sizzlits Funky Brush? Another auction-goer and I couldn’t quite figure out how to use a tool and other items pertaining to Sizzix, which has its own blog.
There was more than enough stuff here for anyone who needed that final nudge to get into scrapbooking as a hobby: Canvas tote bags; tiny stickers in flowers, hearts and other shapes and sizes; scrapbooks; decorative boxes; paints; stamps; clear plastic notebook-size cases.
There were several boxes with one name I did recognize: QVC. I see the name on boxes or hear stories about it so often at auctions that it’s become synonymous with excess. This scrapbook maker had likely spent many hours in front of the TV or computer buying supplies from this shopping network. Stuff that he or she never even got a chance to use – much less open.
I remember going to another auction once where one room was filled with opened and unopened boxes of Christmas and other items purchased from QVC. One auction associate told me that the family’s basement was full of QVC boxes.
I could understand the tendency to over-indulge. I used to sew years ago, and I found a great store that sold fabric at very low prices. I spent many hours there buying fabric for projects that I would eventually do. I actually used some of it, but a lot of it never made it to my sewing machine.
I remember coming across a sign once that said “She Who Dies With the Most Fabric Wins,” and it was both accurate and telling. I’d buy knowing that I would never ever find the time in my lifetime to make a dress or a suit or a pair of slacks from all the fabric I had accumulated through my obsessiveness.
I’m sure that was the case with the owner of the scrapbooking stuff, who likely spent a lot of money on it (I saw one scrapbook with $15 printed in black marker on a price tag and many unopened items with their original prices).
I figured that a dealer could buy a few boxes, set them out at a flea market and watch the items disappear very quickly. Scrapbooking has been and still is a very popular hobby and a billion-dollar industry, so getting rid of these items would be easy.
Just like me, a number of people were curious about the boxes, stopping to comb through them and likely scoping out the ones that they wanted.
When the auctioneer finally got to the supplies, he decided to offer all of them as one lot rather than separately. Maybe he, too, was overwhelmed and just wanted to dispense of them as quickly as possible.
He started at $5, and several people jumped into the bidding. The rest of us just watched and listened, including another auction-goer who had told me that he’d like a box or two for a relative. He, however, decided not to bid.
The bidding soon got very serious – first past $100, then $150, then $200, before finally settling at $230. What a haul.
