One of my most popular posts is the one about the shopping delights of Hamburg.

With this in mind, I thought I’d write a bit of a follow up post, this time about the fantastic craft shopping in France, specifically Bordeaux.

For my summer holiday this year Ed and I went camping in a beautiful place called Montalivet. It was hot, sunny, had a beautiful beach and was a lovely quiet place to spend a week. Naturally, we ended up spending a couple of days in the local city, Bordeaux. That’s right, one shopping day just wasn’t enough, there was too much to see.

If you caught my Sephora hauls post, you’ll see what I picked up beauty wise. Today, I’m talking crafting and stationery!

Boesner

So I’m pretty gutted that I never discovered this shop in Hamburg, because apparently there’s two! This place is the art shop to end all art shops. Three huge rooms of anything you could think of – paints, pencils, canvases, even rocks! Ed and I probably spent a good hour in here, just perusing. It’s not the cheapest place you’ll necessarily shop for art supplies, but the fact that it’s range is so huge you won’t come here looking for something and be unable to find it.

Ed probably spent more than me here, as he picked up a beautiful pen roll and lots of things to fill it with.

This place isn’t located in the centre of town, just slightly on the outskirts. It’s in a great warehouse/arcade type place with a very cool wave cafe a couple of doors down. A great place to grab a drink and watch people fall off their surfboards!

My favourite purchase from Boesner was definitely my Artline Stix. I’ve been hearing about these pens for ages, and after trying them I finally know what the fuss is all about. These are the easiest pens to do brush lettering with that I’ve tried. I will definitely be picking up more soon!

I also picked up the great background stamp from the below picture. That was probably the only part of the store that was a little too small for my liking. However, had there of been a larger stamping section I’d have probably left considerably poorer!

La Droguerie

For those of you who love anything fabric, La Droguerie is the place for you. Found accidentally in the middle of the centre, this is a lovely shop full of fabric, yarn and some adorable extras like these cute iron on patches!

I have no idea what I’ll be using these for, but they were too cute to pass up.

Tintamarre

When it comes to ‘little gifty shops’ or ‘Emma shops’ as my best friend calls them, Tintamarre was amazing. Another shop we stumbled upon and I could have bought everything. There was some of the standard things you’d find in little gift shops – like lots of things you’ll see on dotcomgiftshop. What caught my eye though was a lovely section of very adorable toiletry bags and purses. 

I couldn’t not buy this little guy! It’s from a brand called Craftholic that I’d never heard of before. On investigation they have a whole heap of super cute items in their online shop from teddy bears to homewares.

Carrefour

When talking about any kind of shopping in France you can’t not talk about Carrefour. Ed and I both have fond memories of going to France as children and going shopping in Carrefour. These places aren’t like the supermarkets you get here in the UK. They sell EVERYTHING. Their craft and stationery sections particularly are amazing. They’re also fantastically priced. We picked up some lovely A4 Rhodia notebooks super cheap from one. It sounds super boring, but if you’ve never used a Rhodia notebook before, you need to give them a try. Fantastic quality, beautiful paper and a delight to use for home or work.

Special Mention – Savoir et Creer

This gets a special mention, despite not being in Bordeaux. We found this place while in Caen for the day waiting for the ferry. This store claims to have the biggests arts and crafts choice in the whole of Normandy and it didn’t disappoint. This is the store where I picked up the amazing quality mixed media sketchbook that I mentioned in my last cardmaking post. 

This shop is a family run business and spread over two floors. The top floor is all about art materials and the ground floor has a little bit of everything else. It has kids crafts, stationery, papercrafting and even a little section for mini indoor gardening. By mini indoor gardening I mean this. I’d never seen or heard of it before but now I want to do it! I love the idea of taking succulents and making them look like they’re in a mini garden! I can’t seem to find many places locally that sells these products but once I do, I’ll be doing some creating!

In terms of the other goodies I picked up here I got some new washi (despite being on a washi no buy).

I couldn’t pass up that seagull washi!

From the kids section I picked up a pack of stickers, because I can never have enough of those! 

I mainly bought these for the lovely hedgehog and squirrel stickers. They’re perfect for Autumn!

If there’s one thing I took away from my holiday to France (aside from some dodgy sunburn on the knees) it’s that the French really know how to do a craft shop!

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