Since beginning this website and starting a blog, I've learned a lot about the industry of fashion and even more about my own personal style. If you've been following my blog since the beginning, then you know how different things have become here. I'm no longer interested in just showing you my latest outfit choice, rather, I'd like this blog to become something bigger. I want to showcase stories of interest and hopefully give you as an audience something more than just what I wear on a particular day. I've recently been cooking up a project idea to encourage my readers to start shopping small. I'm lucky to live in a place like Portland, that encourages its local makers to do what they love and to bring something genuine and beautiful into this community.

Thus, the "Shop Small Series" was born. This will be an ongoing (hopefully) series in which I team up with local shops to showcase the beautifully ethical items that they offer. My ultimate goal with this series is to show lovely products at attainable price points to encourage you all to start shopping small. By shopping small, we give right back into our city to help it grow. We also can make connections that may help us along in the future and, if nothing else, we find some really great things that we may not have known were right down the road from us!

First stop down that road: Field Trip.

Field trip is a lifestyle shop and community space located off of SE Division. The idea behind Field Trip was to bring together makers in and around Portland by offering a retail space to support small designers and crafters. Field trip offers a plethora of small to large home goods products from mats to baskets, to vases and candles. The space also has a range of beauty and jewelry pieces, as well as a communal table to host workshops. After spending some time talking with Kara, the owner, I took a minute to walk around the shop and pick out some pieces that really caught my eye.

Although Field Trip is filled with great home goods, I chose to shine a light on some beauty and style items. I've really been loving the look of these polymer clay pendants that keep popping up as of late; they're simple pieces that can really make a statement. They can come in an array of colors, but this black and white one really caught my eye while I was in Field Trip. The same can be said for these silver earrings, simple yet stunning. An absolute favorite product is this Juniperus scene from Fiele Fragrances, a company based out of Santa Monica, California. All fragrances are blended by hand and compounded in small batches. With the addition of organic Pine Needles and Virginia Cedarwood the scent is clean, sweet and vibrant.

All of these products caught my eye just by spending a few minutes looking around Field Trip, but if jewelry isn't your thing there is so much more that this store offers I'm debating on going back and doing another post focused around the home goods or even the workshops they offer. There was even a workshop taking place when I came in! (I'm currently waiting for another DIY Wall Hanging workshop to be posted.) There is a real sense of community in the shop, and I can't wait to return.

That's it for this post. Thank you so much for reading and starting this journey with me. I highly encourage you to stop by Field Trip, if you do be sure to let them know you saw this post!

What other local shops would you like to see featured? Let me know in the comments below.

- C

Shop Small Series: An Introduction.