A drawer that got out of hand

Porcelain Dreams is a very small shop, run from a house in Melbourne. It started the way these things do — one drawer of blue-and-white pendants, beads and earrings that had quietly stopped fitting in the drawer.

Everything here was picked one piece at a time. Nothing is drop-shipped, nothing comes off a supplier's catalogue page, and every photograph on this site is of the actual item you will receive, taken on our own table. Where a hand-painted piece differs from the next one, you are seeing that, not a bad photo.

There are two shelves. Porcelain is the heart of it: hand-painted plaques, glazed beads, a tiny corked jar that really opens. Vintage Finds is the second shelf — pre-owned costume jewellery from the eighties and nineties that was too good to leave behind. Everything on that shelf is second-hand, listed with the wear it came with, and priced accordingly.

Who packs your parcel

The shop is run by an eleven-year-old, with a parent handling the boring half — the ABN, the tax, the bit where a card gets charged. She chooses the stock, writes the notes on each piece, and packs the parcels at the kitchen table. If a note on a product page sounds like it was written by someone who nearly kept the thing, that is because it was.

How it works

Payment goes through Stripe, so we never see your card. Orders placed before 2pm on a weekday normally go out that afternoon with Australia Post — flat $5, free over $60, Australia only for now. If something is wrong when it arrives, tell us and we will fix it; your rights under the Australian Consumer Law are set out in full on the returns page.