Can't spare the time to get to Santa Fe? Head to Old Santa Fe Pottery instead. Since 1988, this family-owned and -operated adobe complex has offered an expansive selection of Southwestern-style furniture, furnishings, Mexican tiles, jewelry, soap, piñon incense and salsas. During the summer, shop the courtyard for a huge selection of outdoor pots; during the winter holidays, this is the place to go for chile-pepper ristras and wreaths.
2485 South Santa Fe Drive
Tired of buying your furniture from a smartphone? Modern Bungalow offers a relaxed, no-pressure retail experience. It specializes in Amish-built, customizable furniture using hardwood from responsibly managed forests, and even ships it with reusable blankets. Browse William Morris fabrics and wallpaper, Motawi art tiles and handmade wool rugs, with everything meant to be handed down to the next generation.
1028 South Gaylord Street
If we could turn back the clock, it would be to an era when we didn't just toss broken stuff in the trash but instead got it fixed as good as new — and also to when the 16th Street Mall didn't look like a giant concrete tossed salad. So when the rebar started flying, we panicked that our favorite little repair shop would go the way of the town crier. But Gold & Time is still on our side, because Mr. Ming, who had been replacing batteries and repairing eyeglasses at 16th and Tremont for office workers on their lunch breaks for more than a decade, was able to move to the other end of the mall, where he still patiently switches out leather bands and will carefully clean Grandpa's pocket watch. He can also restring pearls, engrave or resize jewelry and make you a new key — all in good time.
16th Street Mall between Wazee and Wynkoop streets
The items in the Terrorium Shop were all handcrafted by the owners, a taxidermist and a gardener. Choose from oddities such as coyote-tooth earrings, a decorated skunk skull, a custom-made diorama attuned to your vibe, or a ready-to-mount domestic canary. No creature was killed to create your new treasure; all specimens were ethically sourced and arrived post-mortem.
4416 Yates Street
Want to pamper a little one without resorting to some huge eatertainment complex? Little Bird Denver offers high-quality clothing (some of which is gender-neutral), as well as games, jewelry, books, shoes and special-occasion outfits. There's even an attached salon, in case your charge needs some additional sprucing up.
2200 Kearney Street
A great tattoo studio is the first step to a great tattoo. Ryane and Jess Rose founded the Wolf Den, a women-owned and -operated tattoo studio, in 2017 with the goal of creating a welcoming and comforting environment where you can get inked. And what ink: One scroll through the shop's Instagram shows off the immense talent of its artists. From fine-line tattoos to elaborate, custom illustrations, this is the place to go if you want to make your mark.
6640 East Colfax Avenue
The Enigma, a former mainstay of the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, moved here last summer and keeps a (relatively) low profile as a tattoo artist at the Freakys on East Colfax. But the man famous for his world-record full-body tattoo of 2,123 blue puzzle pieces still likes to get up on stage and swallow swords, something he's been doing since he became interested in circus performance as a teenager growing up in the Seattle suburbs. You can catch him doing his act, which includes shoving a condom out of his nose, at such events as the Mile High Horror Film Festival and Colorado Festival of Horror.
theenigmalive.com
