In a gorgeous little back street of Newtown, appropriately named ‘australia street’, sits an incredibly quaint boutique called newspaper taxi. I’d been dying to visit ever since I met owner Stefanie Bassett at my impromptu book signing last year at Berkelouw bookstore in Newtown. Finally last week, I got my chance…

(the always inspiring children’s magazine, papier mache.)

Stef’s store is filled with vintage collectibles, handmade home wares and beautiful publications like you see above, and below…

(ebony’s divine gift wrapping zine. Ebony is also selling her zines online, of which all proceeds from the sales will go directly to Red Cross to help survivors in Japan.)

(above left: beautiful ceramic brooches made by sarah o’sullivan above right: a little in store vignette of vintage goodness.)

Newspaper Taxi is also an exclusive stockist of one of our favourite parisian artisans, Nathalie Lété. At the moment, Stef has some stunning prints by Nathalie. If you’re in newtown, be sure to check out stef’s store.  If you’re nowhere near newtown and don’t think you’ll be there in the near future, you can also view part of stef’s extensive collection of goodies on her online shop here. And! she writes a blog here with updates on her newest finds.

Oh, I can’t wait to visit again and again. It’s good to be back in my ol’ hometown.

xx

oh my. I love this little house. Look at the detail…

It’s an architect’s model from the early 1930’s. I found it on the glorious website of Galerie Half (found via brydie brown – one of my current ‘blogs in the spotlight’ in the side bar). Looks like Galerie Half is located in Los Angeles – I can only imagine how gorgeous the store is if their website of wares is this divine. And as if the above house wasn’t already enough to make us weak at the knees, take a look at this one…

all photographs courtesy of little ocean annie.

The little winter market in Portland, Oregon was this past weekend.  Created by chelsea and abby, this sweet handmade market included loads of my favourite people/bloggers/designers/creatives – herriott grace, mossière, cori kindred, to name but a few, I would have loved to have been there, no doubt I would have bought up a storm.  There is a great post about it by little ocean annie (click here), and there are more photos from the event on flickr.

Marie’s crochet bags are super cute, don’t you think? I think one of these sweet little crochet bags would look pretty teamed with this peacock mini from nanidoo…

…which you could wear any season, love the scoop back.

I’ve been perusing big cartel while having my breakfast. There are heaps of great boutiques but it’s not the easiest site to search. Any tips or tricks?  I’d love to see big cartel do something similar to etsy, with a market place home page that changes regularly, I think it would be  much more appealing as both a buyer and a seller. And then us bloggers could do ‘big cartel favourites’ posts too.

Oh if only I had my homeware store still. I would be perusing these fab internet markets every day, in search of beautiful handmade and vintage stock. Perhaps one day I’ll open another one somewhere in the world. There are so many cute shops for lease in Amsterdam these days, no doubt because of the current economic climate. I often fancy myself setting up shop again in one of them. Although I adore shopping virtually, nothing beats a bricks & mortar shop, there is something so special about walking into one that just captures your imagination, like walking into a little world where you can buy and take home the things you fall in love with. I think now is the time you can negotiate a great lease deal and set up your dream shop. Some of my fondest memories are those of first setting up my shop  – having very little capital and finding cheap second hand shelving, filling old indian cabinets with handmade treasures, lugging a ridiculously heavy old iron claw foot bath into the storefront and filling it with handmade soaps. So much fun.

If there is one good thing about my friend Zoë moving away to England it’s that she can tell me all about her adventures in her new place of residence, and visit all the places I would love to visit. The other day Zoë went to the opening of the anthropologie store in london on my behalf, and then sent me a truckload of beautiful photographs and wonderful descriptions of what is in store. I think my favourite installation is the tea bags in the front window, how fabulously creative and so very English. Zoë’s post is now in the guest quarters, so please  click here to read and view her gorgeous photos.

Thanks Zoë!

xx