there’s a sweet little nest in my noe valley neighborhood. one part Parisian flea market, one part haven for pampering yourself, the urban nest is one of my favorite little san francisco shopping secrets, but pssst…i’m gonna let you in on it. when i’m on the hunt for a unique, personal gift, the urban nest is the shop i’m likely to hit first,... 
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i have no idea how i ended up finding this shop, but it’s just so lovely to look at, and with beautiful handmade shoes to buy. i think it was these black oxfords from albert et henriette that first lured me there, and then i discovered her blog, le dans la, and was equally smitten. albert et henriette is in french, but the blog has english translation. it doesn’t... 
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i somehow ended up over on toast (i’m fairly certain it was a darn tweet that lured me there!) and started perusing the pretty toast summer catalog. oooohing and awwwing all the way…they sent me on a visual vacation to the coast of italy! so i thought i’d share some of my favorite images and take you along, too. i love toast’s incredible U.k. inventory... 
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there’s an amazing shop that one simply must visit when in paris. jordan of oh happy day! took me by here on our way to the paris flea, and alas it was closed (on sundays) but i just had to go back. merci is beautiful, and really, really big — like two huge floors of a sunlit loft big, plus a cafe, and a reading room-slash-coffee house. think abc carpet meets anthropologie... 
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there’s a tiny, but intriguing little shop tucked away just off guerrero street in san francisco’s mission district called pot + pantry. designed for the vintage loving, recipe-happy cooking connoisseur in all of us, pot + pantry carries new and gently used cookware, as well as a small assortment of food products from local san francisco artisans cheerfully displayed... 
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