Proprietor Clay Copeland has about 30 years experience as a jeweler. The store specializes in custom design and jewelry making, with gold and colored gem stones. You will also find repair services offered. The shop features pieces from several award-winning designers, and has a large selection of tanzanite. Don't forget to explore the selection of fine watches. Collections include the Hamilton Retro Line, Cyma, Citizen and Maurice Lacroix.

If you are looking for status furniture for your home or office, this small shop is worth checking out. Professionally-restored American Turn-of-the-Century (1850-1910) wooden (oak, walnut, mahogany) furniture is on display beside restorations-in-progress. You will find at Turn of the Century Antiques formal conference tables, swivel chairs, glass cabinets and more. The owner has years of restoration experience and on display are distinct pieces at moderate prices ranging from several hundred to several thousand.

Ceramics Bayou offers pre-made ceramic pieces for you to choose from for painting fun. Coffee mugs, bowls, tiles and more intricate items are available for you and your child to glaze. The shop will fire your pieces for you and they will be ready for pick up in just a few days.

This small store is easy to miss when you are driving by, but you will want to stop and shop. The inventory includes affordable imported clothing, accessories, and gifts from Bali, Thailand, Nepal, Africa and India. Unique jewelry, sparkling barrettes, candle-holders, iridescent make-up bags, beautiful hand-dyed dresses, eclectic pants and more are showcased. Explore the well-crafted boxes, mirrors, woodcrafts, and bags. The store is packed full of special works of art, you may spend hours looking through all they have to offer.

This full-service bicycle shop sells commuter, racing and mountain bikes. You will find the occasional funky bicycle here too (think Pee-Wee Herman). This wild group started out building bikes from scratch using random, non-matching parts. Those bikes turned into works of art, and all of the hipsters had to have one. They still refurbish old bikes, but they now specialize in professional biking gear. This place is friendly, affordable and fun.

A toy store open at midnight? This is not your typical predigested corporate toy outlet with Star Wars figures and Monopoly. Rather, Toy Joy is a wonderland for unconventional "children" of all ages. Though the inventory includes some popular kid's items like Beanie Babies and Pokemon collectibles, they specialize in the unusual. Similarly, most customers have long outgrown adolescence but not the trappings. This boutique of the bizarre is filled to capacity with selections like sumo wrestler alarm clocks, cube-shaped bubble wands, over sized lava lamps and creative sound makers. A great place to shop for a gift (for yourself?) or to pass an afternoon.

With an excellent collection of B-movies, cult classics, musicals, low-budget horror pictures, foreign films and a variety of videos you will not find at the chain stores, this is a movie-lover's paradise. Peruse the "director's wall" for films grouped by director; if you are looking for a silent film, this eclectic shop has one of the best selections in town. Staff suggestions are located throughout the store if you are having trouble deciding on which flick to rent. Most of the employees are huge film fans and know their business, so if you have questions about a rare movie, this is a great place to start.

Out of the several locations in Austin, this Half Price Books is understandably the most artsy and intellectual, given its location just off The Drag and a stone's throw from the University of Texas. A bargain-hunter and book-lover's paradise, the store is arranged into sub-shops, each devoted to a category of books. This isn't the place to find the most up-to-the-minute best-seller or the latest entry in Oprah's Book Club, but it is the spot for an out-of-print, hardbound copy of "The Catcher in the Rye", at half off the cover price. CDs, cassettes and other forms of music, even a huge collection of LPs, can be found in another room. Sit on the floor with a book or search the racks of albums for the one that got warped in high school. Loitering is encouraged. The staff is uniformly well-read and helpful, and they will search the store computer for a specific title upon request.

A veritable warehouse for bibliophiles, this two-level University Co-op store offers two complete worlds of books. Textbooks for University of Texas line shelves in the basement, and, on the first floor are titles for those outside the ivory tower. So shop upstairs for novels, popular history, children's books and self-help, and venture below for more cerebral and scholarly fare. UT fans will find a broad selection of Longhorn merchandise, from caps to socks and everything in between. A great selection of school supplies is also offered. You will even find items like engineering compasses and photography paper.

Complete Clothing could be missed if you are not specifically looking for it (it's sandwiched between two businesses at the south end of The Drag), but it is a "Street Culture-phile's" gem once discovered.  As the name suggests, men's beanies, hoodies, long sleeves, pants, shoes, shorts, and tees are abundant, but there is also a nice array of art pieces, books, designer toys, and magazines (some are even autographed!).  As if all of that were not enough, Complete hosts meet-and-greets with up-and-coming hip-hop artists, concerts, and has its finger on the pulse about other hip-hop shows in town. - Freddie Obregon