InBerkeley

Pop-up stores are in — but you knew that already — and a delightful one has just appeared in The Elmwood, taking the front space of the equally delightful Trips Out Travel store.

Designer Donna Allman has amassed a wonderful trove of decorative and useful items over the years and is doing a clear-out. There are delicate packets of Japanese silver leaf, for $10 if memory serves, beautiful buttons, odd rolls of pretty 1950s wallpaper and drawer pulls from $5 to $10.

Picture nails have been one of Allman’s specialties at her business Lilac Bow Yoke.  A decorative button attached to a nail, they were used in Victorian times to hang paintings. Martha Stewart liked them so much she featured two of Allman’s designs in her catalog.

I liked the black and white ones with old-fashioned illustrations of kitchen utensils and clocks.

Allman is a friend of the owner of Trips Out, which by the way has been dispensing travel advice in the same spot for more than 40 years. She will be displaying her wares on Saturdays and Sundays from about noon to 5pm for the foreseeable future (an element of surprise being de rigueur with pop-up stores).

[Photo: www.elmwoodshop.com]

Retail, The Elmwood Donna Allman, Pop-up store, The Elmwood, Trips Out Travel