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| - Deserres has been around for a while, and it definately shows. This store started off as Loomis, and became Deserres a while back. The store is huge, spanning two floors of the building. On the ground floor, you'd find scrapbooking supplies (paper, stickers, stamps and stamp pads), more crafty kinds of things (they have an area dedicated to fabric pens!) and more "kid-friendly" stuff. The upstairs area is a bit crowded with "serious" stuff - like paints of all sorts, and other stuff. (Can you tell I'm not an artist?) It's all a bit confusing, as trying to find a specific item is unneccessarily annoying! (I ended up browsing both floors to find lino cuts upstairs and fabric paint downstairs...) They have a custom framing area, and it looks to be pretty competent.
Staff is generally willing to help, but pretty scarce to find. It's all a bit hit and miss. (They might know where some stuff is, or they might know something about the art supplies you need or the technique you need.) However, that is par for the course in a huge art store - not everyone can know everything about every technique or material invented.
Prices are generally on par with what you'd expect to pay at a higher end art store. However, there are cheaper alternatives to buying from these guys. (But, Deserres does stock stuff that even Curry's or Woolfits doesn't...)
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