Craft, Lifestyle, Productivity

Hamburg Craft and Stationery Shopping

I may have mentioned once or twice that I went on holiday last month(!)

Instead of just doing a usual ‘haul’ post of everything cool I picked up while there I decided to turn it into a bit of a stationery shop trail of where to check out in case any of you find yourselves in Hamburg sometime soon.

I’m going to start by saying Hamburg is pretty amazing when it comes to shopping – the centre seems huge compared to what I’m used to. There’s even a massive home electrical store called Saturn which is slightly baffling as the HMVs and Currys of the UK aren’t exactly flying high in terms of success right now.

I didn’t get a chance to do huge amounts of shopping as a lot of the shops were chains we have back home and Ed has minimal patience when it comes to shopping.

We do have a bit of a deal though – free reign for me and my hobbies (craft and stationery) and free reign for his hobbies (model trains).

First I’m going to talk about the crafty shop in Hamburg/Germany: Idee Creativmarkt. There is a large one in the centre of Hamburg plus various others dotted around (we found one in Altona, just a few miles out of the centre) and how I summed it up was ‘what Hobbycraft wishes it was’ it was bright, clean, beautiful and had a great range. It is however a little expensive and had no cardmaking supplies at all, just general papercraft/scrapbooking. I couldn’t even find any cardmaking magazines in the bookshops of Hamburg which makes me think cardmaking isn’t big at all in Germany?

As it was a bit pricey I did only pick up a few bits…IMG_7751There was a lot more I could have bought (some of which I’m kicking myself about) but I’m happy with this cute sticker and washi selection – especially as there’s flamingo stickers and washi!

Sticking with the centre and I also stumbled across Papeterie Europa – a cute little stationery store which is worth a look.

As there isn’t a Muji near me I had to go in the one in Hamburg. Even though it wasn’t that big I managed to pick up a few bits…IMG_7742I’d never bought clothes from Muji before but this is probably one of the nicest vest tops I own (both in terms of fit and softness). Things were also cheaper in this Muji than they are back home – the pack of notebooks for example is £4 back home.

Away from the centre and close to the main train station is a nice little street that we found called Lange Reihe that had a couple of shops worth checking out. Shops 1First up is a gift shop (that has a clothes shop at the back) called Lagerhaus which has a cute mix of things from homewares to gifts and stationery with a nice little cafe in the front too. Next is a stationery shop called Blendwerk which was probably the nicest the prettiest stationery shop I’ve seen in quite a while. It had a great range of stationery with brands such as Moleskin, Iconic and Livework. I didn’t buy anything from here though because which the products were awesome, the prices were really expensive! It’s worth a look just because of how pretty the shop is but unless you want to spend £5+ on a pack of sticky notes don’t expect to buy anything.

Special mention time for the main train station in Hamburg which has more shops than some normal shopping centres! It had four bookshops, two supermarkets and a food court that had a rather tasty sushi restaurant.

This was the tastiest and cheapest sushi I think I've ever had.

This was the tastiest and cheapest sushi I think I’ve ever had.

I picked up my first colouring book in one of the bookshops there and some super cheap pens and pencils in one of the supermarkets. IMG_7735Finally I want to talk about a neat area outside the centre called Altona. It’s only a couple of train stops away and we ended up there for a large model railway store in the area and came across a nice shopping centre close by. It had a great food hall (the Germans really know how to do quick lunchtime eating), another Idee Creativmarkt, a cute stationery shop called Hermann Jurgensen where I picked up a couple of nice pens, and a great bookstore where I picked up my very first copy of Flow Magazine.

So there’s my stationery shopping in Hamburg! Special mentions have to go to a clothes shop called New Yorker because it’s cheap as chips and pretty good quality and Douglas (a bit like Sephora) with a couple of good brands (but anything available back home is cheaper to buy in the UK than there). Hope this helps anyone heading to Hamburg soon!

Em x

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