the Curiosity Shoppe is open for Business!

Back in May I paid a visit to the Curiosity Shoppe HQ in SF - and at that time the shoppe was an online venture only. I'm happy to say that I attended a packed opening event for the Curiosity Shoppe's new retail store home at 855 Valencia Street!



This is a new store opened by my friends Lauren and Derek. I've known Lauren since I was born, and had the immense privilege of photographing their wedding in 2004 (which you can see on my weddings site). They moved back to SF from NYC to open their shoppe, and it's been very inspiring to see them do it!



The neighborhood is awesome - they're on Valencia between 19th and 20th, close to BART; across the street from 826 Valencia, Chay-Ya, yummy Ethiopian food, and much more; and sharing the block with Little Otsu, Shoe Biz, and all kinds of cool stuff.



This is about as close to the action as I could get at the opening because it was SO crammed with excited visitors to the new store:





Lauren and Derek have put so much love, work, and passion into this store, I am so excited to see how well it is already doing! Besides going to the opening with my mom (and having dinner with Lauren's parents, which was a blast), I drove down last Sunday before the Shoppe opened to capture some shots of the store with L&D heavily featured. You can see some of the wonderful photos they have on their awesome blog at www.smartsandcrafts.com, and the online shop itself at www.curiosityshoppeonline.com/ (if you're too lazy to go to the actual store - but you should head over there as soon as you can!).

More shots of their opening celebration and super cool inventory:









(this piece says: "Instructions for use: 1. Borrow a loved one's clothing; 2. Sew Label into loved one's clothing [label attached says "the Best"]; 3. Unborrow the said article of clothing.")









The hand-crocheted sea creatures are probably my favorite thing in the store - I love the sand dollars so much and am just itching to take them home!





As you can see, many of their items are handmade by local and far-flung artists, often in homage to the natural world (but made of plaster, ceramics, yarn, etc). There are a lot of truly unique items for sale, and reasonably priced too.

My mom testing out her new bat whistle from the ten cent drawer:



And posing gracefully with a mustache-on-a-stick:



Here are a ton more images from this weekend - be sure to head over to www.curiosityshoppeonline.com to buy stuff!









Wooden rings:









I love love LOVE these "forget-me-knot" rings... hint, hint, Devon!





This vase looks like a birch tree log:











Check out these beautifully made dishes, molded from take-out containers!



Crocheted coral, ceramic sea urchins!


















There is a teeny gallery space in the back of the store, this month featuring Shawn Creeder's cool bat-related paintings... hence the bats hanging down throughout the store.



And the superstars of the Curiosity Shoppe themselves! I had so much fun taking these photos.









Mustaches-on-a-stock made GREAT props... I love how Lauren and Derek each took a haircolor-appropriate mustache, and just totally owned wearing their mustaches. Most excellent!

















I also got to meet L&D's adorable kitties:







Japanese vegetarian food at Cha-ya, yum!