Stationery Quest: Daiso on Swanston Street

Image Description: A banner-image of a sword, presented in a diagonal fashion, with the hilt of the blade in the lower-left corner and the tip of the blade in the upper-right corner. In the upper-left corner is pink text reading “Stationery” and in the lower-right corner is pink text reading “Quest”.

Previous Blog-posts in this series:
~Stationery Quest: Miniso at Highpoint
~Stationery Quest: Daiso at Highpoint
~Stationery Quest: Miniso at Docklands

There are two stores located in Melbourne CBD: Daiso on Swanston Street and Daiso on Flinders Street. This post is going to be about the Daiso located on Swanston Street. You enter the entrance (pictured below) and go down a set of escalators.

Image Description: the main-entrance to Daiso on Swanston Street. The entrance looks like the opening to a shopping centre with a “Daiso Japan” red sign with white type-setting. Underneath that sign is a yellow and red sign for My Chemist Warehouse.

The Daiso store on Swanston Street is the largest Daiso store I have walked into thus far. It has a lot more floor space, so there’s a lot more stock available, and while that may seem like a good thing, it can also have its problems. Because it’s such a large store, it’s easy to be overwhelmed with all the options available, it’s also easy to get distracted by other items.

I recommend going to the store with specific item/s in mind. I’ve also found the Swanston Street harder to navigate and harder to find items. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve told K.A. that I can’t find a particular item at Daiso, only for K.A. to magically produce the item in question, however, in my defence, I would like to add that K.A. is exceptionally talented at finding Arts and Crafts items.

Image Description: a display of blank notebooks in various sizes and colours

Image Description: a display of various colourful stickers. There are multiple designs, however, most of the stickers are animal design (for example, hedgehogs and polar bears)

Image Description: an aisle display of plastic document holders, ring-binder folders and other document storage items. At the far end of the picture, there is a display of pencil cases and storage pockets of various sizes and colours.

Image Description: a large display of bull-dog clips. There are a large variety of sizes, colours, and designs of bull-dog clips.

As observed by the photos, Daiso on Swanston Street has a wide selection of stationery items, however, I feel as though this Daiso specialises is Arts and Crafts items instead. K.A. has sections of Stim Toy Box dedicated to DIY Components to make Stim Toys and DIY Stim Toys (Parts 1 to 4). A lot of the required items or tools can be found at this Daiso. My personal favourites are the Chenille hedgehog dusters and Chenille tube-dusters.

Image Description: a hanging-display of glitter glue pens in multiple colours

Image Description: a large aisle-display of various arts and craft items. These items include (but aren’t limited to) paint, modelling clay, texters, and a wide selection of pens.

Image Description: a large aisle-display of paper-stock. The paper-stock comes in a variety of sizes and colours. Some of the paper is for a specific purpose (for example origami paper), however, most of the paper resembles fancy craft-paper.

Image Description: a close-up picture of a retail display of plastic craft scissors.

Card-rings (pictured below) are useful for making bead-ring necklaces or a bead-ring lanyard. I usually use the 30mm sized card-rings but I’m sure you could use the larger sized ones if that’s what you’re into.

Image Description: a hanging-display of card-rings. The card rings come in four different sizes and have different colours. Card Ring 40mm (6 pack) is purple whereas 30mm (11 pack) is red.

Image Description: It’s a hanging-display with a few different types of Chenille stuff available. Up the top of the display are Chenille hedgehog dusters (in yellow, pink, and blue). Beneath those are Chenille tube-dusters (in yellow, pink, and blue). There’s also a small pink piggy Chenille duster as well.

You can use the Chenille items (pictured above) to make weighted plushies. Here’s a picture of Poppy and Daisy, K.A. made them for me, they’re weighted and scented with Lavender.

Image Description: From left to right, a pink Chenille hedgehog duster with small nubbly-looking feet, a yellow Chenille hedgehog duster without feet, lying on a green blanket.

I may be biased, however, I do feel as though the Chenille hedgehog duster makes an excellent weighted plush. It may be on the smaller side, however, that means it’s not too heavy to carry around the house or hold it in your lap. Although, if you use rice as a filler, you’ll need to be careful about not getting them wet. As much as I enjoy holding Contessa, she doesn’t sit well for photos, it can sometimes take me ages to get Contessa in the right position, it’s a lot easier to take photos of Poppy and Daisy.

Well, that’s it for now, I hope I’ve given you all ideas for your next Arts and Crafts project. Next Stationery Quest will be Daiso at Flinders Street.