Did you miss the flurry of artisan markets and craft fairs this past month? If so, no worries. Lots of opportunities to shop local with the stores we’ve listed below. They are all awesome supporters of local talent. Shopping with them goes a long way to help support your local makers and local businesses. Those listed below carry a wide range of items. We’ve included links to each so get a better sense of the items they carry.
Bird on A Wire Creations has been a long time supporter of local artists and have gathered quite a collection of beautiful items from a variety of artisans around BC. If you haven’t checked out this space, we encourage you to stop by. They are located at 2535 Main Street near Broadway.
Doctor Vigari Gallery is a great space at 1816 Commercial Drive supporting visual artists. You can find array of items perfect for gift giving including pieces of art from one of our favourite artists June Hunter.
Second Nature Home is a home décor boutique located at 3565 Commercial Street in Cedar Cottage. The store has a wide range of items outside of home décor including jewellery, gifts for the foodie in your life, something cute for the new baby or new mom and much more. They currently have extended hours running up to Christmas. December 17-23rd they are open until 9:00 pm and Monday, December 24th they are open 11:00 am – 4:00 pm.
Plenty + Spare is located at 2168 East Hasting Street. It’s easy to miss by the smells of their neighbour East Village Bakery which can draw you in by your nose literally, but do stop into Plenty + Spare. They create an array of beautiful handmade bath and beauty products along with a few other items brought in for the holiday season.
Giving Gifts is a very cool space located at 4570 Main Street. The store tucked between 30th & 29th Avenue is made of up 5 rooms packed with items from 100 local as well as fair trade artists from around the world. It is a gift giving boutique so you will easily be able to pick up a few gifts for just about any age.
Tiny Finery is a sweet little shop located in Hastings Sunrise at 2629 East Hastings Street that features jewellery as well as local pottery, leather work, prints and some greeting cards. They also do custom jewellery work if you have something specific in mind.
Why we should Shop Local. For every $100 you spend with a local business, $46 is re-circulated back into the BC economy (vs $18 for multi nationals). Small business re-circulates 2.6 times more revenue in the local economy as do chains.
We are big fans of trying and learning something new. With the New Year, we tend not to make resolutions but instead sign up for a class or workshop. We also start each year with a list of new places to check out whether it be a new coffee shop, brewery or restaurant. In recent months, we’ve learned to make the perfect pie crust with the French sisters at The Pie Shoppe, we also learnt how to make some great new appetizers from Caren McSherry at Gourmet Warehouse and most recently learnt how to make chocolate at The Soap Dispensary of all places. We recently featured some DIY classes by The Wood Shop which are now sold out until March, so lots of you are looking for things to do/make yourselves. With that in mind, we’ve set out a variety of workshops/classes coming up this New Year in case you wish to take a stab at trying something new, or just brushing up on something you haven’t done in a while. There’s lots going on close to home. Here’s some of what we found in and around East Vancouver:
ILiveInEastVan.com 