Champagne Tastes is hit or miss – some days its endless the stuff I want to buy and other days its really sad and dusty musty overpriced estate crap.

Black Bond Books is still in Royal City Centre – I don’t know how it survives but its an excellent bookstore with good customer service.

i tell ya – there are five items left on my list and do you think I can find any of them here in NW?

I’ve dug up some more, such as
Champagne Taste home decor, at the foot of Royal ave where it meets Columbia/stewardson

there’s a furniture store with a very strange name, right beside the starbucks on columbia street – it often has some neat crafty and decor items, though the new owner has turned it into mostly import furniture from india and thailand

I wish the anvil bookstore was still on 6th. It was pretty great – though I hear the shoe store is still there? in the same strip mall where Orange Room used to be.

What about the children’s clothing store that used to be at the corner of 8th ave and 1st street – in a tiny old strip mall behind the canadian tire?

on the gift locations: – I’ll second Jen’s comment on the superfluous dollar stores – there’s nothing that says “municipal decline” like plural dollar stores. (I think it was the death knell for Royal City Centre!)

I second the Lofty Living store – I also like the furniture store on Columbia in the old Booktown outlet (is that lofty living? I don’t know their name.) I like London Drugs, to be honest, and it’s a homegrown Canadian Company founded by Brandt Louie, chancellor of SFU. I’ll second Cadeaux in Sapperton, and it’s nice to hear someone praise Cartwrights – that guy has been in NW for soooo long! We need to interview him.

I used to like some of the 12th St. Antique stores for gifting, and now that we have chickpea (front street) who needs to go anywhere else for boutique kids stuff?

Jen – I totally agree about the fabric and craft store.

There is also a new Toy/Hobby shop open kind of across the street from the old Hobbycraft on Carnarvon and 6th street. I have not been there yet but I know the owner is a specialty Lego fanatic and a kite aficionado, so it is probably worth a visit.

I'd like to nominate Clever Mink's Gifts on Carnarvon just a few feet from the courthouse, The Bug Lab, in their new location at the foot of 6th Ave, Lofty Living on Columbia (they are awesome on the customer service, too) and finally, Cartwright Jewellers on 6th Ave uptown. Ross and I have been trying to shop locally for everything for a long time, but there are some serious gaps in retailers and I'd love to see retailers respond to that! There is no fabric store in New West (and Walmart recently stopped carrying fabric by the metre) so good luck MAKING your gifts. There is no general craft shop to speak of and so you have to go to Micheals or Walmart for supplies (although, admittedly, the A&N has some stuff and specialized shops such as Paper Poet do exist). There is also no garden store. I'd be happy to trade one of the (off the top of my head -Dear City Hall stop approving business license applications for dollar stores, geesh) 12 dollar stores for one good fabric and craft shop and one good garden store any day. Finally (this is a long winded comment, sorry) a few years ago, I made the New Year's resolution that I do not step foot in a mall after December 1st. I have stuck to that resolution (perhaps the only one ever) and I gotta tell you, it makes shopping SO much more enjoyable!