The Art and Craft Scene: A Comparison Between Mexico and the United States

As a craft lover, I have always been fascinated by the vast array of art supplies and materials available at craft stores in different parts of the world. In this article, we will be exploring my personal experience of visiting two craft stores in Los Angeles that specialize in arts and crafts, one in Mexico, and comparing their offerings to those found in the United States.

My first stop was a specialized art store in Los Angeles that caters to artists and sculptors. The store was filled with an impressive selection of decorative papers, including textured, plastified sheets that I wanted to take back home for my YouTube tutorials. What caught my attention most was the vast array of colors available for spray paint, which is notoriously difficult to find in Mexico. I also spotted a few brands of fabric markers and fine point markers that I had never seen before, let alone in Mexico. The store's markers section was impressive, with a variety of styles and designs available, including chalk markers and pastel-colored markers that were hard to find in Mexican stores.

The store also carried a range of gel pens, calligraphy markers, and cardstock in many different colors. However, what truly caught my eye was the shelf dedicated to pieces of wood in various sizes. In Mexico, it is extremely difficult to find wooden sticks or flat sticks for craft projects. The store's selection of rainbow pencils was another standout feature that I couldn't wait to share with my audience.

After visiting this specialized art store, I headed over to a second store that catered to a broader range of crafting needs. This store was more like Michaels, a well-known chain of craft stores in the United States. The store had everything from flowers and bakery supplies to stationery and glues. What impressed me most about this store was its vast selection of colored tapes, which is notoriously hard to find in Mexico. The store's tape section was extensive, with a range of colors and designs available.

The second floor of the store was dedicated to fabrics, including a special section for cosplay costumes like mermaid outfits. This feature highlighted the diversity and creativity of the crafting community. As I explored the store further, I stumbled upon a glittery stamp section that caught my eye. The design of the stamps was much nicer than what I had seen before in Mexican stores.

While all three stores offered unique features and products, one store stood out to me as my personal favorite for arts and crafts: Michaels. With its vast array of products, including scrapbooking supplies, pastry crafting materials, clays, and molds, it has everything a crafty person could want. The store's design is also much nicer than what I had seen before in Mexican stores, with an impressive selection of stamps and stationery available.

My experience visiting these three stores has left me with a newfound appreciation for the diversity and creativity of crafting communities around the world. Whether you are a seasoned crafter or just starting out, it's always exciting to discover new materials and products that can inspire your next project. In my next article, we will be exploring some unique crafting supplies that I discovered during my travels.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHello Crafters! Your guys know that I'm a huge craft lover.So much that I dedicate my life to make youtube tutorials.And one of the things that I love most about making tutorials, is that I get to go to a lot of stores.stationary and craft stores.I'm the kind of person who enters a store and sees everything in the rainbow colorsand I want to take absolutely everything.So, since I'm in Los Angeles, I decided to go to a couple of craft storesto compare the United States' and Mexico's storesbecause, a lot of times, people say they can't find the same things being here or over there,so we're going to investigate what we can find here and in Mexico.We're in a specialize art store. We have a few of these in Mexicoand what mostly caught my eye was this wall filled with decorative paperbecause they're like textured, plastified. I want to take a few to record videos on them.These are fabric markers and these are used to paint on clothes. There are a few brandsthese ones and these other ones, which are fine point markersand I have never seen these in Mexico, comment down below if you have.I'm impressed, see... There's a lot of colors. In Mexico it's very difficult to buy spray paint,you have to go to home depot or Walmart and you can only find like 3 colorsand here you have a full wall with different colors.Look at all of this markers section!In Mexico it's pretty complicated to find markers in different styles,for example: here you have chalk markers of pastel colors and in Mexico it's hard to find them.And they have these gel pens which I haven't seen in a long time,these are also really hard to find and here you have a shelf full of them.Look, these are calligraphy markers. They're like the ones used on videos of people who do typography.These types of cardstock in many different colors are easily found in Mexicoyou can find them in big stationary storeshere you have a few more colors than the ones you can find over there but you can still find themWhat I have never seen are these pieces of wood. It's a whole shelf of different sizes of wood.In Mexico you can only find wooden sticks or flat sticks or for lollipops.What I loved more about this store was that it sells rainbow pencils.It's like the one on the video, I bought like 6 of them for me.They're so cool!You can find all of these things over there, you can easily find them at a store over there.This is pure glitter.We just left the first store, it's very specialized. It's like for artists, sculpture, paint, calligraphy, etc.It's very awesome but it barely has craft supplies.So now, we're going to go to a specialized craft store.We're at the second store and it's awesome because it's like a Michaels,it's a craft store, but it has a lot of things. It has flowers,it has bakery supplies, stationary stuff it has a little bit of everything.Look just to decorate a project you have butterflies, these gems which look like diamonds, & colored rocks.In Mexico they only sell this gray tape and here you have all kinds of colors.That's why people over here do prettier things because you have more options.What is this? It's like vintage... I don't get it, there are a lot of options!Watch these! Kits to make slime, chocolate... Well not it isn't chocolate, it's poop slime.My camera died on me so I'll be talking to you guys from my cellphone.This is the bakery section, this is the part that excites me the mostbecause in Mexico it's very hard to find a store that specializes on crafts or something creative,which also contains bakery supplies; you have to go to a specialized store on bakery products and not always you can find everything you do here.Sprinkles, look, there's a world of them!Flowers, colored sugar of different colors.OMG! I'm at the glue gun sectionand in Mexico it's been hard to buy a good glue gun. I bought one in Fantasias Miguel but its super small.Here you have different sized ones like super pro, mega pro and extra pro.Mine, in Mexico is like that one. Look at this one, it's really giant for professionals.Amateurs...Professionals... And amateurs.Look at what this is! A silicone roll, I've never seen this in Mexico.Look at this, I don't know if you can see it, these are giant!GIANT!This is one of my favorites, eraser clay. That one you definitely can't find in Mexico.Here we are, in the paper section.This is my favorite part in all stores because it has paper of all kinds of colors and textures.Holographic! I know you're going to like it, Crafters. Give it a thumbs up if you like this kind of paper.Look at this Crafters, this paper is super cool because it's Tutti Frutti!It has watermelons. These aren't watermelons these are pineapples.It has pineapples, it has watermelons, it has strawberries and then these hearts which are like diamonds!I need this paper in my life. Look at that, ice cream!It's super awesome.I need to buy it now!I fell for it.Look at these, it's a whole wall dedicated to glue,but what specially caught my eye was this because it has different kinds of glueand in Mexico it's very hard to find different types of glue, for example: this clear pencil you can only find it in one store.We have just found a necessary object in your lives.It's a poop emoji drill. You need it. I need it.Ah but it's too expensive, it cost $17 dollars and I don't think I'll be making a lot of poop.And now we're going to tour around the store to see what they sell.We're on the second floor and it is full of different colored fabrics, there's a lot of designs.It's super awesome!This section is special because there're fabrics for cosplay,like this one which is for mermaid costumes, these have like mermaid style as well.We're at the last store which is a Michales. Let's see what we find.If you're asking yourself why I'm wearing another shirt, it's because we were taking some pictures.I'll leave the blog right here so you can go see what we where doing today.In my personal opinion, my favorite store for arts and crafts in the United States is Michaelsbecause it has a lot of variety, products for scrapbooking, pastry, craft things, clays, things to make moldsIt has a lot of things and it's really awesome, it's a store you have to visit.Look... Rainbow pompons.There's this stamp section that I think is incredible.I think that what I like the most is that it's a stationary and, at the same time art and craft self-service store.It's huge, you can find whatever you want and you can grab things yourself.You don't have to be waiting in a counter or only have variations of 2 things,the design of the things over here is a lot nicer. I actually really enjoy buying things on this storethe other ones that we went, are also really nice, but I had never been there before.Here you can find everything. Look at this glitter.Look at these stamps ink. They're of all colors!Well I don't know if they're for stamps, they say \"Pigment\" so I think they're but they are rainbow.What a variety of stickers.Look at those washi tapes.Any drill you can think of, is here. There's this one which is like a normal styleand there're those that you have to do this.Look at these papers, how incredible! They are like glitter, can you see it?No! Pineapples!And golden.I love it because there's a lot of variety. Wherever you look, there's variety of everything.Ahhh!! This really caught my eye. It's like clear slime but the colors match so well that I want to take them.OMG! I could take them.They look real!Colored silicone with glitter.I'm a scrapbook album victim and I'm on a section where there're just albumsand there's this one that has 180 sheets. Look at the thickness, its super fat.And there's this one that's like watercolor, which also conquered my heart because it looks really pretty.But there are also other specialized stores like Party City that only has party things an it's incredible.A few moments later in Party CityAsh it doesn't reach me.There are piñatas!Is this plastic? For real? I can't believe it. Look at this it's plastic. In Mexico they're white.Do you have backgrounds like this?We found them, we asked and they helped us just because we have a blog camera.What?! It's the first time that something good comes out of having a blog camera, normally they say \"Stop recording!\" but not here.There are a lot of colors, there gold, silver, blue.It's so cool!And I think this is the great difference with Mexico. Here, if you need something to make a tutorial,or you have to do a homework, or you have a party, you can find everything on one store maximum twoand not over there. You have to look around to see if you like the variety and if not you have to keep on looking.Now that we saw how shopping is like here in the U.S., let's see how it's in Mexico.Here we are, in Mexico! Here the process is different, if you want to find stationary basics you can go to the stationary on the corner of your blockbecause there are stationary stores everywherebut if you want something more specialized, you have to go where there are more stores of the same type, so you won't have to drive around the whole city.So we're going to downtown to see what we can find.What I love the most about Mexico is that you can find practically anything you want on your local stationary because there's one on every blockand in the U.S. there aren't. We asked and they told us the most common thing is to go to a big stationary store like Office Max, Office Depot and Staples.We also have those here, you can go there, but you can practically find anything at the stationary near your house.This is like scrapbook paper and there are here a lot of paper types, but this store is new, it has a year or less.Most of the specialized stores in art, architecture and design are placed in downtown.The advantage is that they are all on one street, so we're going to take a look around.There's a lot of back to school stuff and in the U.S. I didn't see that much.It has like an insta camera, and they sell a pencil case with two zippers.So cool!A scrapbook guillotine with borders, it's convincing me.This scrapbook section is new, before you couldn't find any of these things here but now you have all of these brands.Mini drill very Kawaii.Approximately $6 dollars, they're expensive.There are drills, paper kits, those that also are sell in Michaelsnow we have these in Mexico, back then we didn't.Hey these colored cutting mats are also hard to find and now we have them here.This is new, here we have scrapbook sheets and also acrylic ones, transparent.How awesome!On the previous video we made, we didn't find all of these things, we had to go to another specialized store and now they are here.What I like most about this store is the paper section because you can practically find any kind of paper or material that you need that comes in sheetsThey also sell this plastic, you see? There's practically everything.There's Cardboard, Kraft paper, Styrofoam, there're a lot of materials here.We found this foam that's like a rug. It's textured, it has little hairs.I was checking that there aren't pasting circles like in the U.S. there were a lot. Here there's just tape.See here there's just black and over there they had of a lot of colors.I love these sheets. Really, I used to collect them, I still have a lot stored and I've never used them for anything.There's a lot of variety. Specially here that it's the Art section.This is one of my favorite stores because you can find a lot of things.Besides they are super serious.I'm a mannequin.This store is looking more like a Michaels, they keep on adding more stuff every timebefore they didn't have party supplies, they had wrapping paper but not decoration stuff.Lumen is one of my favorite stores because you can find almost everything and now that they're adding different sections you can find even more thingsbut let's go to my second favorite store.We have arrived to Fantasias Miguel, which is a self service store that has a lot of crafting materials.It has more variety than other stores.What I don't like about Mexico, is that you can find a lot of things, but the design, or the way it looks is not very desirable.Let's see what we find.Anything holographic draws me.An advantage here is that you can buy one unit or many and it gives you the price of one, but if you buy a dozen its cheaper.It's been a while since I came to shop here, because I have practically everything in the studio.So I have like a mini stationary, I just pull out what I need. This section is new, there are a lot more papers.Fabric for crafts but they only sell a strip so that you can decorate jeans or I don't know what.This would be like a mini Party City segmentbut as you can see there isn't a lot of variety, I mean these are the only utensils.And the plastic trays that are over there that are like the ones we saw at Party City, are totally different.This is how we shop in Mexico, comment down below if you notice any differenceand also comment what it's like to shop in your country. Is it alike? Is it different?I personally think that the difference in the U.S. is it's self-service and it has a lot more designs and a lot more variety.And here, in Mexico, it's harder to find things but if you go to the place where all the stores are, you can find whatever you want.That's if for today Crafters!Hey hey hey! Miss Rangel, this can't be over yet. We said that we were going to announce the winner of the giveawayof the pensI'm actually very surprised because the great majority did their homework. It's the first time.I was expecting less from this group. I'm very very surprised.It took me a long time to check your homework and after checking that you completed everything, we now have a winner.And that person is..We're going to leave a comment below so that you can send us your information to be able to send you your prize.That's it.Miss Rangel give me your pens.Please no! (crying)Give them to me.\n"