One of the best things about spending the winter on Salt Spring Island is the Salt Spring Folk Club.  Typically a time of year that we tend to hibernate in our cosy forest homes curled up  next to the wood stove, the Folk Club brings us out and brings us together with friends and food an above all incredible music.  Once a month from October through March, the Fuford Hall opens its doors to welcome islanders and the few lucky visitors that hear about it to an evening filled with warmth, laughter and amazing tunes! From Folk to the Blues, Celtic Fiddling and Bluegrass, we are treated to it all!

Folk Club evenings begin with the tradition of serving exquisite wholesome dinners and dessert,  and a selection of teas, beer and wine are also available to help warm the audience.  Once the final morsels are consumed and plates are cleared, the eager fans await the sweet sounds of the evening’s guest musicians. Each show is unique and memorable, in fact last year a show continued through an unexpected power failure –  folky and fun!

This month sees the return of Victoria folk legend Colleen Eccleston in a double bill with Salt Spring’s own Tara on Monday, January 30th. Tickets are on sale for $20 At Stuff&Nonsense. See you there!

One thing that we at Stuff&Nonsense have always prided ourselves in is our sock and underwear selection.  Local folks here have long depended on being able to pop in at any time of year to pick up the barest of necessities: Underwear and of course socks, tights & yes baby legwarmers!  Whether you are searching for the perfect camisole or a pair of rugged hiking socks, we probably have it for you.  Tucked neatly in a cosy corner across from our nighties and slipper displays, we happily present our intimates collection.

We are proud to feature Jockey Brand’s “no panty line promise” tactel fiber blend bikini and modern hipster brief, a undie that is so comfy you will forget you have them on!  Pair them with a Jockey Luxe Camisole and you are good to go.  All available in pretty new colours and basics for the spring.  New to Stuff&Nonsense this year is Coobie Intimates and organic cotton panties and bralets from Echo Verde.  Coobies are a fun and colourful line of simple one size bras, bandeaus and matching camis with a built in shelf bra, both which rate high in the comfort scale.

We also love our socks & tights and carry a wide selection of both.  As always we have in stock MacGregor cotton and wool blends for men and women; a familiar and favourite brand.  New to us is the extremely popular Smartwool “Ultra Comfy Socks” a high quality merino wool line that ranges from funky, stripey Ladie’s knee-highs to practical cosy Men’s work socks.  Back by popular demand are the incredibly cozy and stylish BEST EVER fleecy on the inside tights, this year in four fashion colours.  And, finally, Cosy Toes, a brushed wool-blend sock that comes to us from New Zealand are perfect for just schlepping around the house or lining your gumboots!

Whether for work or play, fashion of function, in the socks & underwear department, we’ve got you covered!

P.S. Need another layer to keep your feet warm? We of course carry the very popular, comfy and colourful made in North Vancouver Padraig slippers for babies, children, men & women!

This January we are celebrating all things Canadian!  From our sweet Salt Spring Island shores to the Eastern coastal reaches of our great country, Stuff&Nonsense presents a fine array of Canadian made and designed products that we proudly offer to you.

Starting on the West Coast we are featuring Salt Spring made gifts and housewares.  From Cedar Mountain Studios, locally made wall art and coasters; Beeswax Works supplies their luscious line of Beeswax Candles; spices blended from Monsoon Coast: and an amazing Vegan cookbook “Extra Vegan Za” by local Author and Biologist, Laura Matthias.  We even sell a beautiful Silver Charm and Pendant fashioned in the shape of Salt Spring Island! Close by, Galiano Island offers up Galiano Soap Works‘ gorgeous hand crafted soaps and candles.  A hop over to the mainland, and you’ll find our gorgeous best selling Padraig slippers, made in North Vancouver.  And that  is just the West Coast!

Representing the Eastern portion of our fair country we have our perennial favourite; April Cornell with her timeless Table Linens and Clothing.  Also from back east we are happy to continue offering brightly hued handmade ceramic switch plates and clocks from All Fired Up.  And last, but certainly not the least, in the fun department we have the Toymaker from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the creator of simple, but clever wooden toys.

We are honoured to share the creative wealth of our vast and unique land with you!  If you have any made in Canada product suggestions for us, send us an email to info@stuffandnonsense.ca.

Happy January!

There’s been a lot of general grinching about the closing of Patterson’s in Fulford Village, as we’ll all miss having Bruce around daily in these parts.  However happy change is afoot (for both Bruce and Fulford) with our soon to be new neigbours busily fixing up the Fulford landmark for their opening this spring.  In the meantime the rest of us in Fulford are putting on a festive face this holiday season.  As Marilyn who runs the Fulford Marina with her husband aptly says: “Patterson’s may be closed but Fulford is not!” In fact, we’re open, with bells on!

Please join us on Friday, December 16th, for an evening of festive frolicking, to get your glow on Fulford style.  Things kick of at 5pm.  There will be live music in the streets by Samba de Soliel & Sir Bassa Crew, hot apple cider, carolling and late night shopping from the merchants.  Weather permitting there will also be a parade of boats in the harbour (fingers crossed we’ve finished with the windy bits in November).  Bruce is opening up the parking lot for the evening to make space for the event.  And though there’s a lot of Christmas/Solstice lights twinkling in these parts, we recommend that you bring a long a flashlight as the full moon is waning.

So, come on down to sample the world’s flavours and artisan markets!

You can also enter to win some very fabulous prizes!  Each business will have a draw; Stuff & Nonsense – $50 gift certificate, Jambalaya – Leather Journal, Spokespeople – $50 Bike Tune-Up, Knotty Threads – Hand Woven Wool Scarf, & Rock Salt Restaurant & Cafe – Mexican Cooking Lesson with our Chef Joel!  To enter you just need to fill out a ballot at each of the participating businesses as each business will have their own draw.

If you have any questions regarding this event please give Shannon, manager @ the Rock Salt Restaurant & Cafe a call 250-653-4833.

Hope you can join us!

Peace Out.

We love this time of year in the store.  All the baskets are filled with sparkly, shiny, felty, whimsical, handcrafted and just plain lovely ornaments to make you and your home glow from the inside out.  Our all time favourite ornament has got to be the German glass Christmas Pickle (shown above in a basket already half empty as ‘The Pickle’ tends to be a favourite among Stuffers too).

We’re told by The Pickle people that in Germany, the pickle is considered a symbol of good luck. Tuck one of these glass goodies amongst the boughs of your tree and the first to find it is rewarded with and extra present!  We’ve shared this with a total of two friends of German descent, and shipped one off to Germany with a customer, and have had as of yet no confirmation of this actually being a German tradition. No matter, we still love the way it sounds, and we still love The Pickle.

Find your pickle (and your extra present for discovering it) here!

Want to get your ‘stache’ on? Come on down to Stuff & Nonsense and we’ll set you up!

Ah November … we’ve ‘fallen back’, and our daylight hours are slowly getting shorter as we ease into the Winter Solstice season.

The amount of darkness in November in this part of Canada always startles me, no matter  how much I try to mentally prepare for it.  As such I for one have unofficially declared November the month of the candle.  There is something about candlelight that imbues a room with a certain quality of comfort  like nothing else.  Makes me think of corny phrases like “warms the cockles of my heart”.

Here at Stuff we would like to help brighten those long November evenings by offering several options for your candle-lighting pleasure.  As always we have an array of Salt Spring made beeswax candles, as well as soy and palm wax pillars from Galiano Soapworks.  And newly in store for the winter season are wooden Pyramid ‘windmill’ Candles, a beautiful and fun tradition from Germany.  Light the candles to propel the windmill which in turn spins the angels.  Mesmerizing and warming both.

Happy unofficial month of the candle everyone!

When I was little, when asked what my favourite colour was, I often replied “stripes”.  Stripes don’t discriminate on the colour wheel – in fact in the stripey world, the more colours the merrier.  And let’s face it, stripes in nature have produced some the most striking animals going (zebras & tigers to name just two, tho I am rather partial to the tabby cat too).

So I couldn’t have been happier when a big box of SmartWool arrived in the shop this week, in all its warm, wooly, comfy AND stripey glory.  I first met this sock about five years ago and have been trying to convert my entire sock drawer over to them one pair at a time ever since.

Why SmartWool you might ask?  Well I’ll tell you straight from the horse’s, ahem sheep’s, mouth over at SmartWool headquarters: “We’re wool geeks, there’s no way around it. For over 17 years we’ve been combining the latest in innovative design, technology and construction with the best wool nature has to offer, and it’s this expertise and experience combined with our passion for mountain sports that makes our products so unique.”  That and a super stylish lifestyle line, which keep your feet warm and looking super cute to boot.  Seriously folks, these socks are the Best*Socks*Ever!

Next weekend heralds one of my favourite annual events: Salt Spring Island’s 13th Annual Apple Festival.  At Stuff & Nonsense we don’t get to contribute to the tasting (as all we have is a brambly troublesome blackberry bush threatening to take over our recycling shed), but we do get to decorate the porch with April Cornell apple patterned table cloths and trade apple stories with locals and visitors alike.  And if there’s one thing that everyone agrees on is that the Salt Spring Apple Festival is not to be missed (nor is the apple pie baked by Salt Spring’s famous pie ladies).

This year, also not to be missed is our third annual PRE-SEASON BLOWOUT EXTRAVAGANZA!  We’re teaming up with Cedar Mountain Studios as well as Twang & Pearl for a two day sale at the Lion’s Club.  There will be lots of discontinued stock at wholesale prices and some seconds at deeper discounts.  A few pieces of Twang & Pearl’s Indian teak furniture too!  Also joining us this year is Raffleasia Marketplace’s Thai handicrafts & jewelry and Two Loops’ Christmas decor.

If you missed this sale last year you definitely don’t want to miss it again.  If you made it last year, this year’s sale will be even better!

Sales are available in the Blowout location only:

Lion’s Club – just off Drake Road on Bonnet Avenue

Saturday & Sunday, October 1 & 2

9:30-4:30 pm

So take a bite out of an apple (or 100) and then head on down to the Lion’s Club and let us take a bite out of your Christmas spending.  The apples may be tart but the deals will be sweet!

Even though summer isn’t technically over yet, Labour Day always seems to herald the end of it for me.  As I sit here listening to Harry Manx at the store, the last wave of summer family visitors have just sailed away and I’m looking forward to meeting the wave of less rambunctious visitors that September usually brings in at a less frenetic pace.  I for one don’t yearn for the fabled endless summer, and always welcome the return to school and with it the knee high socks, sweaters and tall boots I get to pull out of summer storage.

At Stuff & Nonsense fall is arriving in boxes: boxes of calendars, boxes of Pure Handknit sweaters, boxes of Paperblank Daytimers, boxes of the best ever fleecy on the inside tights, and yes boxes of knee high socks.  We also are happy to welcome a new line of eco-fabric clothes from Echo Verde.  If you haven’t met their organic wool/bamboo/silk drape neck vests & cardigans yet, I can tell you they are divine.  Come in and wrap yourself in one and you too may find yourself excited for the coming of fall.

We’ve often been told that we have the best selection of baby gifts on the island.  We’re proud to offer lots of organic options including Parade Organics onesies, the fabulously useful Baby Legs, made in Canada Little Star Slings & Teethers and now these cute little gaffers:  Handknit fair trade organic baby rattles.  Serious irresistible cuteness!

We’re absolutely delighted to be introducing Pure & Co.’s Hand knit sweaters to Stuff & Nonsense (and our sister store Twang & Pearl) this season.  Not only are the sweaters themselves beautiful, soft and so delightfully cozy, they are also knit ethically in a place we love, Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Pure Handknit employs over 4500 knitters, providing these women with not only a job but also paid health care, maternity leave and a continuing education program.  The company is also dedicated to reducing their environmental footprint and uses solar energy to heat and cool their headquarters in Canada & Thailand.

So come on in and wrap yourself in warmth & beauty.  You can feel good about a Pure Handkint Sweater purchase both inside and out!

Ride with a Pure Heart.  That’s on a button by our friends at Sister Sister Buttons and it’s an apt one for the weekend after next.  Fulford Spokespeople (our sweet new neighbours) are hosting a “Bike Fest” Saturday, August 6th from noon to 6 pm to celebrate their opening.  There will be a ribbon cutting at 12:30 pm, a bike swap meet from 1pm to 3pm plus a raffle and music.  Oh and if you’re a kid and you like to deck out your bike, prizes for the most creatively decorated bike in three age groups will be awarded at 2pm.  So cycle on down to Fulford Saturday  the 6th (with a pure heart) for a day of fun and help welcome Spokespeople to the ‘hood!  P.S. Stuff & Nonsense will of course be open and we’ve got several cycling Sister Sister buttons to choose from, and maybe even a few things to bedeck your bike!

This is the part of the sunny season when bargain shoppers rejoice.  It’s summer clothing sale season!  This summer even those of us who tend to shop in season can rejoice as well, as summer has barely started.  I froze my toes all throughout the end of June and early July in my flip flops and only busted out a swishy short skirt (sans leggings) for the first time last week.  So here’s your chance to head out into the ‘dog days’ of summer in style (and for less!).

At Stuff & Nonsense we’re having a rare early occurrence … our entire APRIL CORNELL summer clothing collection is ON SALE.  Better yet, the more pieces you buy the more you save:  Buy one piece and save 20%, buy two pieces save 30%, buy three or more pieces save 40% off each piece!  As always it is a beautiful breezy summer collection, and since it just hasn’t been that summery in these parts there’s a little more to choose from than usual this time of year.

Come quick to get your pick, including this beautiful silky skirt!

We’ll let you in on a little local secret for a more relaxing and leisurely Saturday on Salt Spring.  Instead of heading straight to Ganges when you get off the ferry, hang out in Fulford in the morning.  While the Market is at its most crowded in Ganges in the morning, you can sip a latte and have a delicious brunch at the Rocksalt , and afterward have the Fulford Village shops almost to yourself.  Head to Ganges for the afternoon (don’t forget to stop at Salt Spring Vineyards on the way).  The market crowd will have thinned and you can enjoy a more leisurely stroll there too.  If you don’t eat your fill of tasty samples at the market, go for a late lunch – so you don’t have to wait in the most popular restaurant’s lines (we recommend Auntie Pestos, the Tree House Cafe and Cafe Talia).  And then hit the shops in town (don’t miss Twang & Pearl in the purple house on Hereford and Frankly Scarlet Jewellery in Grace Point Square).

Happy travels!

Have you heard?  It’s true! We’re opening a sister store called Twang & Pearl in the purple house on Hereford Street in our lovely town centre of Ganges.  Tell us ‘What Inspires You’ on the new Twang & Pearl Facebook Fan Page Wall, and win a $100 SHOPPING SPREE at the new store!  Not on Facebook?  Join our new mailing list and keep up to date on all the exciting opening news!

See you soon on the North side.

We love the organic cotton onesies by Parade Organics in Vancouver.  They’re a perfect example of style and function harmonizing.  This little monster motif is the newest addition to Parade’s ‘Playful’ line and we’re thinking it just might start to outshine the current favourite: monkey.  What do you think?

As a little girl, I never did quite believe in the Easter Bunny.

The Tooth Fairy made sense somehow, especially as I was told my baby teeth would be used to build their little fairy houses (also incentive to keep my teeth clean by the by).  Santa Claus also had a measure of magic realness, since folklore told me Santa Claus started as Kris Kringle distributing toys at night to children in a dark land where toys were outlawed.  But a huge bunny hopping around on two bunny feet instead of four with a basket hiding eggs just didn’t seem plausible even in the realm of magic.  I mean what useful or altruistic purpose could the Easter Bunny possibly serve?

We did have fun colouring eggs and finding where my Mom had hid them.  My Mom also always left out sweet little gifts of bunnies & duckies for my sister and me.  Chocolate didn’t often enter into the equation (I’m sure both to protect my Mom’s sanity on Easter Sunday and our teeth both).

So for me the Easter Bunny has always been more about a herald to Spring in all its bunny cuteness and daffodil glory.  If you’re looking for some of that cuteness and glory to gift for Easter rather than (or in addition to) chocolate, we have a great selection in stock, with the front runner being our three cotton bunnies zipped inside a carrot.  So hop on down to Fulford and check it out!

New Clothes & Linens in Stock! To make room, all remaining winter clothing is 30-40%, all bedding is 30% off, all in stock Jockey & Blue Canoe underwear is 30% off and select winter accessories are 20% off.  Sweet!