A great week-end in Paris

Week-end in Paris for me means to gather stuff in flea markets. This town offers a lot of knick-knack expositions. The most famous are marchés aux puces, which are located in Saint-Ouen (at the Porte de Clignancourt), in Porte de Vanves, and in Montreuil. These markets are stable ones and they are opened each week-end, sometimes also during monday, and they are really little towns filled with old stuffs. Yet aside these well-established flea markets, usually each week-end some ephemeral exchanges are organized in the streets: they are either brocantes or vide greniers. A brocante, word that could be translated with "second-hand good", is an occasional market in which sellers sold in the street antiquities and other old things. Vide greniers (literally "clean out attics") are even more informal, and people simply brings their old and no more wanted things for selling them down in the street. While brocantes are usually more chic, in vide-greniers you can find really great deals (or huge rip-offs.... bien sur!)

During my last gathering activity, I stumbled upon an amazing brocante in Village Saint-Paul - an ancient inner court in the Marais district - and amongst wonderful old stuffs, I found my little happiness. Indeed, I've found a tiny owl in ceramic (first photo in head) and a spectacular typo drawer in wood, which can contain with ease not only the tiny owl but also all other little stuffs already gathered around! In my opinion, it is simply wonderful, and it fit very well with the ambience of my little attic...

And my old-new tiny owl inspired me to such extent that it became my mascot and I turned it in a felt brooch and in a rubber stamp... you can see the outcome here below... both the brooch and the stamp are on my etsy!