Art & Hobby Shop

The guys in here are lovely! Went in yesterday with a list of really random stuff, and the girl working here helped me loads. They didn’t have everything, but she suggested a feasible alternative for everything and went to a lot of trouble to help out. This one in particular is a lot dinkier than the one in Stephen’s Green, but they’ve still got a lot of stock. I’d say it’s pricey enough, but if you’re in the area, worth a look.

Meh, definitely experienced better.
The display of prices here is very poor here. I had to get the items I was interested in price checked at the till.
The place was also very cluttered, moving items stacked on top of what I wanted. Also another brand of the same product was on a completely different shelf behind me, which I found out after checking with staff.
Final woo of my visit was the Staff member couldn’t advise which brand was better. «Um, they’re just different brands?».
Shambolic and hard work. Getting a customer to part with their money should be made as easy as possible by a business.
Only for I had been I’d been hunting for what I was after for the past two weeks did I stick at it here. Oh and one star for finding what I was after (ink pads, yay).

You will find this handy store on the third level of the St Stephens Green Shopping Center in the row of stores just past the restrooms. It has a nice collection of art supplies and small craft items. Though the art supplies would be as extensive as maybe downstairs at Reads, but they are also constrained by space. They have a nice selection of small hobby items and I have bought some lego duplo sets here for my young son. I haven’t really seen a similar store outside of maybe Henry street or Dundrum so was glad to find a place like this although if you really want something specific, you may need to take a trip to one of the larger stores.

I have to give this place a lot of love because they stocked the elusive erasable marker and in a variety of colours — woot woot!
It is mainly geared towards art supplies and there is a lot of children’s toys which veer on the upmarket scale.
Also the member of staff helping me that day was so helpful and friendly even though she was exasperated with all the Spanish tourists and their children milling around the store.
Which leads me to why it is lacking that crucial extra star, it’s very cluttered and that makes it extremely uncomfortable when there is a lot of people in there, you end up doing the stationery store shuffle…
Touching bodies awkwardly as you reach for paper and markers ain’t the sexiest of moves.

When I need face-​paint, fake blood or that little extra accessory for my fancy-​dress costume, I usually head over to the Art & Hobby shop inside Stephens Green. Not that they have the best selection of art and craft materials, but I find the prices reasonable and I usually find what I came for. What’s even better is that I usually end up with something totally random in my bag as well. Feeling a bit creative during my last visit, I purchased a Origami paper set with folding instructions. Christmas cards will be hand-​made this year, so I’d better get started…

I didn’t think art and hobby stores could get much smaller than the store in Dundrum… I was wrong.
They have taken the biscuit here and eaten it whole. It’s fun though how small this pace is, i mean the fire restictions must mean they can’t have more than maybe 6 people in here at once. and thanks to the crazy paraphenalia that the A&H people usually sell it turns the little box into a bit of a jungle. Great fun.
The only pity about it is that what with this being a city centre store, perhaps their best positioned in all of Dublin, that it is so small and doesn’t offer more to the larger demand they have.
But that doesn’t really matter, not when you can buy plastic samurai swords for € 3.50 and get away with it.

When you feel like doing a bit of «make & do» then the Art & Hobby shop is the place to get inspiration. They have everything from poster paints to face paints, model airplane sets to mala (plasticine to some) and everything in between.
I sometimes attempt to make birthday cards myself so the Art & Hobby shop is great for fancy pens, markers, stickers, feathers, bobbles and bits that make my home-​made cards look almost like I hope they would. Great for kids, big and little!

This is not a very comfortable place to shop. The shelves are crammed full of stock and it has bits of everything but nothing in depth so you can never really find what your looking for. The staff are friendly enough but do not offer much in the way of help because there is a high amount of people traffic. They dont make the personal shopping experience enjoyable. The shop is also quite dark with very little window space.
For your average shopper or once off buyer this shop does the job, but if you really want a more in depth choice and a personal touch i would suggest going to the store in Jervis.