Let Me Share with You - the joy......

I've been looking very hard for a certain craft punch.

The Martha Stewart Ice Cream Cone Punch made in 2009.

Her punches are manufactured for awhile and then put out of production, or retired, in other words.

SO, if you find something you want when it comes out, you should probably buy it then or else pay much much more on the secondary market like Etsy or Ebay.

I don't remember when the first time was that I saw this punch.  I only know I thought it was super cute and I had to have it.

SO, I started looking for where I could purchase it.  Turns out, it was no where to be found.  The last one that sold on Etsy was in September of 2011.  I couldn't even find out when the last one was sold on Ebay recently.

It wasn't in any of the normal stores I would shop at for scrapbooking stuff, it wasn't at any of the new stores I found while hunting for it.  All I could do is find images of it on Google and longingly drool all over my keyboard.

I had recently seen a punch go for $120.00 on Ebay that was retired and was afraid that my punch would have to be purchased at the same ridiculous price.  I had all but given up.

I had put posts up on multiple scrapbook forums looking for someone who was willing to sell theirs.  I had exhausted my searches on Etsy, Ebay, Google, Amazon, and everywhere else on the web.
I had made some new friends on the web and asked them to help me hunt, but to no avail.
I was hopeless thinking I would just never find one, especially, not new.  But that was ok, I was getting used to the idea of buying a slightly used one.

When suddenly today, everything changed.

I was doing my normal Google search.  I do one daily.  The results are always filled with stupid blog entries, people showing off their projects with this punch, etc.  Old product descriptions on scrapbooking stores that no longer have any stock.  I was just messing around and hit the page 10 button, nothing,  page 15, nothing new, and for no reason skipped to page 18.

There was something, oh, but it was probably nothing......but still.....I have to check this one out.  I know, it usually leads to a dead page or something.

BUT

What's this?!

There's a store page showing my punch and having an inventory of 1 available.....Could it be?

It's in British pounds, ok, so it's not local.  But it looks legit. 

Is this a dead store site, let me refresh the page,...........

No, it's still says it's available.  Ok so I'll put it in my basket and try to purchase it to see when the bad news comes along.

So far so good......it's in my basket, I give them all my shipping and payment info.

I press the confirm purchase button and.................................

Oops, sorry, something is wrong with your transaction.
We apologize.

Oh, I almost believed there for a minute it could be mine.  Well, maybe it did go through.  Let me check my email.
Yes, it says thanks for your order and they've given me a confirmation order number.  I go back to the website and click on the listed product.......now it says it's out of stock.  So that means, I got the last one?!

I check their shipping and company policies.  They say they ship internationally so maybe it will really be mine?

I dare dream.

I'll keep you updated.

But in US dollars with shipping it ended up costing me (after the exchange rate) about $20.00.  Very reasonable.....but I just can't believe it yet.  I still think it's a trick. 

BUT


I want to believe.

You'll know as soon as I'm positive it's for sure.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the little cutie......