The Crafty City

I landed in New York with a mission: to get a bunch of paper decorations and things for my wedding. I scoured the city (no, really, I walked up and down Manhattan like you've no idea) and found most of what I needed. Here are a few of my top paper supply and crafting stores. Kate's Paperie: new location at 435 Broome Street (between Broadway and Crosby Streets). And the mother of all paper stores: Paper Presentation: 23 West 18th Street, New York. Tel: 212-463-7035. This place is where I got the majority of what I needed, lots of paper circles, and a proper circle cutter. I'm very excited about my cutter.
Purl: 459 Broome Street, New York. These guys have some gorgeous farics, including the Liberty range, plus wool, felt, other fabrics, books, and tools.
I picked up a lovely quilting pack of over a dozen different types of liberty fabrics, and a few quarter yards of some others that you can see in the photo. I have a plan for these for the wedding...all will be revealed after August! Purl also has a wonderful blog. To the left of the Purl stash are some lovely fat quarters picked up from a quilting shop called The City Quilter: 133 West 25th Street. These pieces were a mere USD $3 each and the fabrics are beautiful watercolour looking. Wonderful painterly soft gradients. And I got some Japanese pattern prints in blue, so i might try and make a watery geisha doll out of it.
The ribbon in the bottom right corner is from the most amazing ribbon shop: M&J Trimmings: 1008 Sixth Avenue, (Between 37th & 38th Streets). I'm thinking 'mermaid doll'...
And that's it for craftiness in the big apple.

Picture Book NYC

I fed one of my addictions while in the big apple, and added a few lovely titles to my children's book collection. All but one was a vintage find, and came from the fabulous Strand Book Store: 828 Broadway, New York. Tel: 212 473-1452. Also: Books of Wonder: 18 West 18th Street between 5th and 6th Aves.
The store has been renovated since I was last there and they have a large children's book section and their regular books are also discounted. They buy books also, in good condition. The booty:
Wait Till the Moon is Full by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Gareth Williams, 1948. USD $10 / €7.60.
Paji by Esther Kiviat, illustrated by Harold Price, 1946. USD $4.50 / €3.40. Love the vibrant green double-page illustrations.
Little Magic Horse, A Russian Tale by Peter Ershoff. Translated by Tatiana Balkoff Drowne and illustrated by Vera Bock. USD $15 / €11.40.
Frog Went a-courtin' by John Langstaff, illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky, first published in 1955. This copy is a reprint. Awarded the Caldecott Medal as "The most distinguished American Picture book for children" in the year of it's publication. USD $8.50 / €6.48.
Pooka the Penthouse Cat by Genia Wennerstrom, 1971. USD $7.50 / €5.70.
Pitschi by Hans Fischer, 1953. USD $8.50 / €6.48.
Madeline and the Cats of Rome by John Bemelmans Marciano, 2008. USD $7.95 / €6.06.
Another wonderful children's book store is Books of Wonder in the Flatiron District: 18 West 18th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Apparently, this is NYC's oldest children's bookstore. They have new books, but also second-hand. Only things is that their vintage is for the serious collector, not for the likes of me or your kiddies. I had a look, but not so many picture books anyway. There's a cafe inside which sells great cupcakes, too. So it's a nice place to stop and recharge. If you're into craftiness, it's also almost dead opposite Paper Presentation mentioned in The Crafty City post. Handy!
Last but not least is Kinokuniya Bookstore: 1073 Avenue of the Americas (Between 40th & 41st St) New York. I purchased one book her: Brooch by Yoshie Watanabe and illustrated by Yayako Uchida, 2004. Approx USD $38 / €29 for the Japanese version, the English was considerably more at USD $52 / €39, so I got the Japanese. Beautiful illustrations on tissue paper so you can see part of the illustration underneath, and the illustrations play off each other in this way. I could have bought up half the shop, but resisted. They have a great selection of books, a cafe upstairs, and stationery and books downstairs. Lots of fab crafty books, in Japanese, but with such great step-by-step illustrations you could probably figure it out. Besides, they're just beautiful books.

I heart MOMA

One day I went to MOMA to check out some art. Wonderful as always, here are a few of my fave's. Martin Kippenberger. Untitled, from the series Dear Painter, Paint for me. 1981.
Ok, I actually do not like this piece. This is just rubbish. Bloody piles of the same small crap on a floor...done to death. Not art. Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Untitles (Placebo) 1991. Candies, individually wrapped in silver cellophane.
Takashi Murakami. 727. 1996.
Tadanori Yokoo. Japanese Culture of the Posterwar Years 1945-1995.
Marlene Dumas. Chlorosis (Love sick). 1994.

Brooklyn Sunday

The adventure continued over the river Sunday as Mr E and I headed to Brooklyn to mingle with the hipsters.
Food first! And we were first in the door (hence why it looks empty) at Cafe Juliette; 135 North 5th Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Tel: 718 388-9222. Delicious eggs and coffee under the beautiful greenery of Juliette's. Dramarama. Fire. A stack of firetrucks and ambulances.
We then wandered about to the Brooklyn Art Library: 103A North 3rd Street, Brooklyn. Tel: 718 388-7941. An "archive of visual inspiration, gallery space, and storefront offering vintage notebooks, art supplies, and stationary inspired by the past."
It's very cozy and was filled with lots of goodies. There were family looking through the sketch books, which was rather lovely.
I couldn't resist these vintage paper bags for ice cream, cucumber, and peanuts. And I fell in love with this little piggy bucket of pure lard. Amazing. After a while it was lunch time and on the advice of a friend we went to Rosarito Fish Shack: 168 Wythe Ave, North 7th Street. Tel: 718 388-8832.
The food was incredible. Really really fresh and interesting. Highly recommended.
We headed for the main street and spied a lovely little jewellery store called Catbird: 219 Bedford Avenue. It's a tiny shop filled with beautiful jewels. I noticed a very young couple looking at wedding bands, something Mr E and I were yet to do. So once they left we headed over to have a look...and twenty minutes later we had our rings! They very much suit our personal style, and incredibly enough they had the style and colour gold we wanted in our sizes...meant to be! So another big item ticked off the list with ease. with the sun setting in Brooklyn, we jumped in a taxi and headed back to Manhattan.

New York, New York

Back in New York! Lucky me, I know. I'm here as my man is judging The One Show Interactive, so I decided to hotel crash. We stayed at two wonderful hotels while in town; first stop was The Standard from which the view above was taken. What a lovely welcome. The rooms are beautifully designed, and I wish I hadn't been feeling so ill to have enjoyed it more. Did love the elevator art installation, worth checking out.This is the view from the hotel room at night, looking out over the Meat Packing District.
Saturday. Waking up in New York and for the first proper Adventure Saturday Mr E and I had had in a while. What to do?! First, fill our bellies. We headed to Balthazar's in Soho for a wonderful fruit salad and eggs Benedict. Delicious.
Fueled up, we then we started to mooch about Soho. We visited Kisok, 95 Spring Street. Head up the stairs, then turn right at the top. Filled with lots of goodies, we were strong and resisted.
Taking in some nice window displays. Headed to a few paper and textile stores, but saving those for a post of their own or this will get too long. Mr E sniffed out some good record stores on Bleeker Street. Of which had a massive cat lazing about on a pile of heavily-clawed boxes. Then at the end of a long day of waking, I couldn't resist a Magnolia Bakery cupcake.
Admiring the architecture and building details. Later that night we managed to get tickets to Mary Poppins and loved every minute of it! The set design was just incredible. First time I've seen a show in NYC. Amazing!
Sunday we switched hotels, for the rest of the trip we'd be at the Ace Hotel on 29th. A real rock 'n' Roll hotel, our room was kitted out with guitar, record player and stack of vinyl, Polaroid camera, and a lovely view...They have a couple of nice restaurants downstairs and Stumptown Coffee Roasters, to which there was a continuous queue out the door. I was a little skeptical, until I had their mocha. Best mocha ever. Converted.
Home again now and some treasure: vintage Empire State Building banner in mint condition! From Flea Market antiques (questionable) and collectibles at 120 West 25th Street. On that same street is also a beautiful store New York Vintage at 117 West 25th Street, with a wonderful selection of designer names. Price tags to match, sadly.
Picked up a fun set of glasses from Fish Eddy: 889 Broadway at 19th Street, New York. Half-price sale! USD $12 / €9.15 for a set of 4.