Local Love: Tender Loving Empire

greetings

In May, we partnered with our friends at Egg Press and moved our printing operations to their studio in Portland, Oregon. Since we now have a Hello!Lucky team up north in addition to our design studio in San Francisco, we thought it was only logical to extend our Local Love series and showcase some of the fantastic shops in Portland! We're starting with Tender Loving Empire, which was founded in 2006 by Portland-based artists and musicians Jared and Brianne Mees. It began as a record label and print shop and a year later expanded to include a consignment retail shop focused on locally produced items. The walls of the shop are covered in illustrations, and a mural above the front door reads "You are part of this place", which captures the spirit of the store and its dedication to community.

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Its current location on Southwest 10th and Stark houses a full screen print shop and the Tender Loving Empire offices as well as the retail store front. The store sells exclusively handmade items and strives to represent Pacific Northwest artists. We're proud to see a few of our own on the shelf alongside cards made by so many talented local artists!

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The screen printing studio produces T-shirts and prints, album packaging for the TLE label's artists as well as commissions for local businesses.

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Tender Loving Empire

412 SW 10th Ave, Portland Oregon (503) 243-5859

Local Love: Little Paper Planes & Owl Cave

entrance LPP

For this installment of our Local Love series we headed to Valencia street and visited one of our favorite new stores, Little Paper Planes + Owl Cave books. Little Paper Planes opened earlier this year in May and it's such a great addition to the bustling Mission neighborhood.

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Little Paper Planes is owned and operated by Kelly Lynn Jones, who ran LPP as an online shop for years before launching this brick and mortar version of her store. Kelly is joined by Viniita Moran who brought her online bookstore Owl Cave Books into the shop. Owl Cave Books has a wonderfully curated selection of hard to find art books and magazines.

Owl Cave Books

One of our favorite things about the shop is the space, which was transformed with fixtures and hand built pieces created by Kate Pruitt.

Jewelry & wall art

The shop also has a  print gallery which features a new artist every month and a residency program which can be found in the back of the store. The residency program offers space to artists, makers and curators.

Little Paper Planes

If you're visiting the bay area or if you're a local who hasn't been to LPP + Owl Cave Books yet definitely make a trip there. They have such a great selection of goods and they're so well curated and displayed, you'll definitely leave feeling inspired and hopefully with something fun you didn't have before.

Little Paper Planes + Owl Cave 855 Valencia Street in San Francisco,  (415) 643-4616

Local Love: General Store

This weekend we made a trek out to the Outer Sunset in San Francisco and visited one of our favorite shops, General Store.

General Store has a wonderful collection of locally sourced and well designed goods for sale. We love the feel of the shop and the carefully selected items.

How amazing is this wall of cards? We love the simplicity of the wood and rope. Such a great design, there's something about the General Store that makes us feel like we're on a ship, which is pretty fitting given how close it is to the ocean.

Fat bags of local beans.

Terrariums and tea towels.

If you visit the bay area definitely make a trek out to General Store, it's worth the trip! And while you're out there stop next door and grab some cinnamon toast and something hot to drink at Trouble Coffee.

General Store
4035 Judah St, San Francisco, CA 94122
415-682-0600
11-7 Monday - Friday
10 - 7 Saturday - Sunday