happy little moments... a Parisian haberdashery

I had a rather happy moment indeed when I emerged from a randomly chosen metro stop in Paris upon my arrival last week to start a-wandering to my hotel and immediately stumbled across the most marvellous haberdashery. Tucked into a narrow old building near a big building site, it was a little cavern of colour and delights full of rows of shelves which housed jars of fabric flowers...

A whole room full of buttons and beans, all sorted into colour and shape and lined up like sweets in an old-fashioned shop...

And an entire wall of beautiful ribbons of all colours, sizes, intricacies and delicteness...

In the back of the shop, a lady was spinning wool on an old fashioned machine, and there were various nooks and crannies full of bundles of fabric, loops of luxurious wools and yarns and pretty little craft kits. I could've spent hours browsing, admiring and picking out treats, but I was rather conscious of the gigantic backpack I was carrying and its potential to knock over all the pretty fragile things and alas, I had many miles to wander to my hotel, so I left empty-handed. But not without a smile on my face :)

I looked up the name of the shop online when I got back - it's called La droguerie and it's right by the metro stop Les Halles - well worth a visit if you're in Paris and looking to stock up on buttons/ribbons/beads/smiles... In fact, there are similar shops in lots of French cities (with different names I believe - the one in Lyon where I used to live is called La marchande des couleurs and I still have pretty things that I made with some of the treats I got there)

*sigh* even the sign is pretty as can be!
image via Craftzine

Later, in another quartier entirely (right near the Louvre) I sat in a pretty café, admiring this metro station entrance. It hardly looked real. It was as if some mischevious fairy had paid a visit to the lovely haberdashery, strung some beads and christmas baubles together in the shape of a miniature door, and then sprinkled them with fairy dust so that they grew to human size. Clearly, it's *actually* a magical entrance to some other place - probably a French fairy land or some extravagent pixie palace - and not a metro stop at all....

pretty pretty!

Here's to happy moments in haberdasheries all over the world!
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