For Valentine's day I'm making dinner/dessert for my boyfriend and we are keeping things low key and cost friendly. I've asked him his favorite dinner item and dessert item and being Italian, he's requested Canolli's. I'd like to attempt to make them at home, but don't have the time to make the Canolli shell.

Do you know of any food store that will sell Canolli shells?

I would try a specialty food store. Unfortunately, not knowing the area where you live, I couldn't suggest any specific store.

I saw on your FP that you live in NC... if you're anywhere near Raleigh, you can try Cafe Buongiorno's. It's an Italian bakery and they carry cannolis, so maybe they'd be willing to do a special order for you.

http://cafebuongiornos.com/

alot of stores in my neighborhood i found out fill the canollis on the spot so i would suggest just going to a bakery and asking if you can buy some shells. If you cant find them in store.

Cannoli's don't take long to make, once you have made the dough you leave it in the fridge for at least an hour, then you can come back to it in the day, roll it out into the sizes you want and fry them for 2-3 minutes, apart from leaving them in the fridge it takes about twenty minutes to make them.

It sounds so non-time consuming, but being a single mom, working that entire weekend, and barely being able to breathe; I just don't have time to make the shells themselves! :(

theres a grocery store here (called Giant). In their bakery department in where they have the already made cakes they have a canolli kit. It has pouches of the cream and already made shells.... i would look at a grocery store.

You can definitely try a bakery. Try and avoid ones in grocery stores because they're pretty much hang signs that say "IF IT'S NOT IN THE GLASS CASE YOU CANNOT HAS." So i'd aim more for mom n pop joints. They're there, you just gotta look sometimes lol.