Stuff & Nonsense

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!

~Jana

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.

~Jana

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!

~Jana

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!

~Jana

It’s finally summertime on Salt Spring Island and the flowers are blooming beautiful!  The Saturday Market is bursting at the seams and so is Stuff & Nonsense at ferry times.

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!

~Jana