materials - general

Broad Canvas, 20 Broad Street
Tel 01865 244025
Art and craft supplies: paints, pads, brushes etc. Large craft section, including materials for stool-making, tapestry, screen printing, candlemaking, picture framing. Little gallery as well. Now incorporates what was Brush & Compass from two doors down.

Bead Games, 40 Cowley Road
Tel 01865 251620
Beads of all shapes and sizes, but the ones looking very much like sweets really are! Do not confuse them... Also gifts, stocking fillers, beading wire, joke supplies and fancy dress

Unique Creations, 263 Banbury Road, Summertown
Tel 01865 553554
This is both a pottery painting cafe and busy shop, giving it a purposeful air. The shop sells gifts (particularly for small children, newborn presents etc) and does a good range of craft supplies too. Includes beads, pliers, wire, ribbons, paper and forms for decollage, fimo, sets of thingss, and they'll even sell you a complete kit for a party.
The pottery painting is great fun. You choose the item you'd like to paint, which has been biscuit-fired, and they have the paints, brushes, sponges etc. When you're finished they fire it and you collect a week later. It's a jolly good way to spend a rainy afternoon, or keep smalls amused, though probably too expensive for every weekend! You can also order drinks in handpainted crockery.

The Cake Shop, Covered Market
Tel 01865 248691
As well as the finished masterpieces they also sell the equipment to decorate cakes yourself, including professional sugar paste and flower cutters.

Eggs Eggcetera, 67 Botley Road
Another good purveyor of cake equipment.

Orinoco Scrapstore, Headington Quarry
Tel 01865 761113 / 07960 661748
Open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, 11am - 4pm
This is for people who like the lucky dip approach to buying craft materials! Orinoco might at any time have scrap paint, gold lamé cloth, beads shaped like licquorice allsorts, gigantic sheets of hardboard, pencils, new books, plastic bottles (clean and unused), spare monopoly counters and the list goes on. Fortunately it's all illustrated on their website, so you can get an idea what's new in! Ethical, helpful, surprising, what more could you want?

Conservation Resources (UK), Unit 2, Ashville Way, off Watlington Road, Cowley, OX4 6TU
Tel 01865 747755; email ConservArts@aol.com
Mail order firm who sell conservation grade stationery and art materials, but they also sell in person, 8.30am - 5.30pm. Amongst their stock: restoration products, acid-free paper, mount board and cutting tools.

Gill's the Ironmongers, Wheatsheaf Lane, 128a High St
Tel 01865 242058
Useful to the craftsman on a number of fronts... Firstly they sell long (60cm / 1m / 2 yard) rulers, more cheaply than Broad Canvas. Secondly they may be able to hire out large numeral-shaped cake tins. Thirdly they're rumoured to be taking some stock from the sadly deceased King's Fabrics. I'm told they're taking everything except the fabric, so presumably that's patterns, haberdashery, trimmings and tools. Fourthly they sell brewing equipment, and if you're thinking that's not a craft I defy you to say it through a mouthful of good champagne.

The Works Publisher's Outlet, Cornmarket
Surprise entry, as most people will know this as a source of remaindered paperbacks and London bus fridge magnets. HOWEVER upstairs is an art dept which might sell you enormous canvases, easels, cutting mats, paints, paper, and clip frames, all very cheaply. In my experience the paint brushes shed, but everything else seems to be of decent if not professional quality. Stock will vary over time.

Assorted stationers
Oxford boasts many of these, from independent Honest Stationery (Cowley Rd), Pen to Paper (London Rd) and Mayther (New Inn Hall St) which will sell you any colour of writing paper and matching envelopes under the sun. Then there are chains: Ryman's on the High is pretty good with enticing arty materials as well as the more mundane officey things. WH Smiths on Cornmarket also sells some craft things.

materials - mainly textiles

Brambles, 93 London Road, Headington
Tel 01865 762695
Wool, patterns and knitting advice

Port Meadow Designs, 104a Walton Street
Tel 01865 311008
Behind the clothes they stock all sorts of wool, highly prized by those in the know. These include Manos (wool and silk blend), Noro, Debbie Bliss, Louisa Harding, Colinette, tweed wools, Rowan wools and Addi needles.

Oxford Kitchen Yarns, mail order
Email
Beautiful hand-dyed wool made in a kitchen in Oxford with natural dyes. Make sure if you want your knitting to be exactly the same shade to order enough wool from a single batch. This is proper cottage industry, and small variations in colour may well occur!

The Wednesday Market, Gloucester Green, every Wednesday
Has a cloth and haberdashery stall. Fabric is increasingly hard to come by in Oxford, but Abingdon, Thame and Kidlington all still have cloth shops.

Fred's Discount Store, 185 Cowley Road
Another surprise, but if you're looking for sewing / embroidery threads and you don't mind if they're not Anchor or DMC then often Fred's and its cousins are your best (certainly cheapest) bet. They also sell Dylon Dyes.

Nabeel Fashion & Fabrics, 387 Cowley Road, OX4 2BS (next to Tattoo Museum and nr Glanville Rd)
Tel 01865 747203
Fabulous, exotic sari materials, nearly all artificial and highly embroidered. Also sell genie slippers.

AnnaBelinda Couture, corner of Gloucester Green & Red Lion Square
Tel 01865 246806
Tailor-made clothing but they also sell offcuts of the cloth.

craft and gift shops

Alice's Shop, 83 St Aldate's
Tel 01865 723793
Lewis Carroll souvenirs, Alice memorabilia, other gifts.

Arcadia, 4 St Michael's Street
Tel 01865 241757
Gifts, wrapping paper, cards, second hand paperbacks, prints.

The Farmhouse, Covered Market
Tel 01865 247084
Gifts, pottery, teddy bears, cards, pot-pourri, toiletries, Pilgrim jewellry.

Oxford Holographics, 71 High Street
Tel 01865 250506
Holographic pictures, jewellery and innumerable eye-catching knick-knaks.

The Verandah Gallery, 3 North Parade, OX2 6LX
Tel 01865 310123; open Tue - Sat 10am - 5pm
Mainly British jewellery, ceramics and textiles.

Saree, 62 Cowley Road
Tel 01865 794176
Ethical and fairtrade textiles, notebooks, toiletries, jewellery and sparkly things.

Galeria Brasil, 33 Cowley Road
Tel 01865 240568
Brazilian clothing, sandals, jewellery and small brightly painted things. As featured in Isolarion, James Attlee's book about the Cowley Road.

Octopus, 30 Cornmarket
Tel 01865 256058
French firm who make an astonishing assortment of domestic items with characters, such as squid egg whisks, salt and pepper people, decorated toasters, watering-can handbags, and all manner of things to make everyday life more fun.

The Fairtrade Shop, under St Michael's Church, Cornmarket
Tel 01865 722505
Ethical, fairtrade clothing, food and knick-knaks.

Art Jericho, 6 King Street, OX2 6DF
Open Wednesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm or by appointment
Contemporary 2D and 3D art in a converted Chandlery.

East Oxford Farmer's Market, East Oxford Primary School, behind Tesco's
Saturdays, 10am - 1pm
Usually has at least one stall of jewellery, cards, textiles etc. Some of the cakes border on fine art too.

Gift Hotspots
If you just want to browse then you'll find the highest concentration of useful shops in the Covered Market, Little Clarendon Street, North and South Parades.

prints and posters

Sanders of Oxford, 104 High Street
Tel 01865 242590
Specialist print shop, both antique and contemporary, also sells maps, engravings and views of Oxford.

Blackwell's Art & Poster Shop, 27 Broad Street
Tel 01865 333646
Books on the visual arts, posters, cards, calendars and diaries. The main Blackwells sells good wrapping paper.

Isis Creative Framing, 2 Northampton Road, off Abingdon Rd
Tel 01865 247625
Picture-framers making and selling ready-made frames, prints and mirrors.

Covered Arts, Covered Market
Tel 01865 249955
Extremely helpful picture framers, who can advise about the best way to mount and frame almost anything, with the possible exception of politicians. They also have ready-framed art on display.