I Bought This, Affiliate Links
As usual, I am a museum gift shop fiend. I wrote about my museum purchases from last holiday season (here). This year, I picked up a few items at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA and the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester MA.
One of the benefits of membership at PEM or CAM or the North American Reciprocal Museum Association (NARM) is that I get a discount at the museum gift shops. And during their special events throughout the year, the discount doubles.
Peabody Essex Museum Store
I visited the Peabody Essex Museum and stopped into the gift shop twice in December. I bought some wonderful dripless metallic Hanukah candles, perfect non-denominational holiday cards, and a pair of handy-dandy magnifying glasses that look like old-fashioned lorgnettes.
Frequently, I find myself in the kitchen on the first floor of my house without my reading glasses. Usually, I want to read the ingredients or the directions on a food package,
but I am too lazy to climb the stairs to get my glasses. What I especially love about these fun Simply Marvelous Magnetic Black Diamante Spectacles by IfUSA is that I can keep them right on my refrigerator at the ready! How cool is that?
Though the “handle” and magnifying lenses look like they are set up for a lefty (like me!) when they are on the fridge, they work for both righties and lefties. PEM had the Black Diamante cat eye glasses in stock, but they also come in faux tortoise shell round lenses. The MSRP in stores and on Amazon is around $17. Right now, on BarnesandNoble.com, they’re $12.99. I think they would make a cute hostess gift!
Cape Ann Museum Store
Cape Ann Museum has an annual wine and cheese party for members in December, and we enjoy going. They also doubled the discount for members that night.
In November when we visited the museum, I stopped in the museum store just before we left at closing time. I spied a lovely blush and ivory scarf in a charming design that was from the Folly Cove Designers, a group of local artisans who sold housewares and clothing in the lineoleum block print designs that they created during the 1940s-60s.
I posted about the adorable Gossips carry-all tote bag that I bought last year.
I was about to buy the scarf, but the women who worked the cash register (or whatever they call the checkout device these days) said that they were closing and it was too late. I called them about it a couple of weeks later, and the scarves were sold out.
Fortunately, they received a new shipment in time for the holiday party and I scored one at a bigger discount! The ballet-inspired design was created in 1956 by founder Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios. You may be familiar with her because she wrote and illustrated “Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel”. Do you may remember that book from childhood?
I wish the scarf was listed on the Museum Store website now, but sadly it isn’t. But instead, they have other Folly Cove Designers merchandise with Folly Cove lovely placemats, table runner, baby hat and bib, 2023 calendar, as well as note cards and holiday cards for sale online.
Are you a museum store shopper?
Those reading glasses are incredibly clever and pragmatic! I just love them, Allison. Museum gift shops are so much fun, and every time I go to a museum– which is very often– I always take a look in their gift shops! So many wonderful treasures that one is less likely to find outside of the museum context!
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You find such great things. I’m not a good shopper since I don’t linger long. But those glasses would be so handy. My husband has old pairs of glasses all over the house because he refuses to acknowledge he needs to wear glasses all the time. Switching prescriptions would give me a big headache.