collected in Melbourne

Saturday, October 13, 2007 @ 12:59 am
Filed under lovely links, stuff n nonsense, thrifting

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When I was visiting Melbourne last week, I spent most of the time walking the streets. Window shopping that is.

My best friend Yvette lives in Melbourne and it was SO SO good to catch up again. We spent a couple of days walking up and down Smith Street, Gertrude Street and Brunswick Street - stopping in at Yvie’s favourite cafes for refreshment (coffee for her, sugar hit for me) along the way. We didn’t buy much but we enjoyed looking at everything. Lots of great inspiration and handcrafted goodness.

Here is a bunch of stuff that I brought back with me. You might be able to see a few vintage buttons and sewing patterns, a bunch of silver belt buckles, a few other bits and pieces and lots and lots of business cards that I collected so that I could check out websites when I got home. Melbourne has a thriving crafty scene and loads of independent fashion designers. Heaven!

Of course, I haven’t gotten around to checking out all these crafty people’s sites yet but I thought I would list them here for you to see too:

3 Sided Square - graphic design
Cat Davison - painting, jewellery, photography, graphic design
Jen Allison - Visual Artist
the girl can’t help it
HMC Designs - handmade plush, gift cards
Katharine Vella - photographer and designer
Pram Outings - clothes to go out in
Clare Whitney - original artwork
Dirt Fish
Leyla

I also followed Yvie and Dan along to their weekly organic fruit and veg shop at the Vic Markets, bought yarn and embroidery supplies at Clegs, ate at the extremely yummy BlueBag in the city, checked out the amazing Ceres (a community environment park), visited the eye candy that is Outre Gallery (art, books and curiousities, yes indeed!), got a parking ticket in the city, and shopped at the Rose St Artist Market.

I was a bit excited to check out the original Mikes store in Richmond, after reading their blog online since forever.

We even chanced a sneak peak at their soon-to-open new store on Brunswick Street. We were walking past at just the right time, as Pip and a few helpers had just finished hanging some gorgeous vintage drummer boy wallpaper and stapling their trademark Little Golden Book covers onto the door and invited us in for a quick chat. The new store was looking so good and I am hoping to get some of my things into there soon - I will email you about it, Pip!

Another great store Yvie and I found was in.cube8r - a gallery/shopfront in Smith Street with an interesting business model. Instead of the store taking a commission, the artist rents a 40cm glass cube to display their wares (or hanging space for clothing/bags, or wall space for artwork) and the artist pays a monthly rental fee and then receives the total amount from any sales they make. When things sell, the artist sends a few more things along to replace them.

I am very keen to follow both of these up, so if you are in Melbourne you might see some RED INSTEAD in real life real soon.