Your first instinct may be to lock your doors and gird your loins as you drive south down Glenwood Avenue. Once inside the East Atlanta Village, however, you will happily unlock your doors and walk about with loins ungirded. Over just the past few years the storefronts at the intersection of Glenwood and Flat Shoals Avenue have come alive with bohemian entrepreneurs hoping to sell their hand-made works and maybe make a buck or two while they're at it. The aesthetic sensibility is comparable to Little Five Points, but with a more laid-back, less tourist-y attitude. There is no doubt you will find a hip, unique gift for everyone on your list in this burgeoning part of town.

The first shop we encountered was Martini-Girl. Operated by German-born artist Eva-Marie Connolly, the shop features graphic art, fashions and furniture depicting Connolly's cartoon creation, Martini-Girl. Martini-Girl is a red-haired nymphet in a bustier who is always partying with a martini glass by her side. "I used to go to a job where I would just sit in a cubic (sic) and work with the computer," Connolly says, "and then I would come home and see my Martini-Girl paintings in the bright colors with funny sayings, and it would make me happy. These are happy colors." Eva-Marie Connolly does all painting and sewing personally. If you have a taste for the wild ("This is not for a conservative home," Connolly warns) you will no doubt want to pick up at least one Martini-Girl piece, and may develop a compulsion to collect all things Martini.

Is your significant other in the market for handmade bamboo nun chucks, ceramic alien masks and decorative fireflies? Believe it or not you can pick all of these up at the nun chuck/alien mask/decorative firefly superstore, Life On Earth. Co-owners Daren Craig and Genevieve Ogle were among the first to open shop in the Village seven years ago, and are among the longest lasting. "We still have our day jobs. He's a cook and I'm a waiter," Ogle says. Craig crafts various kinds of marshal arts equipment from bamboo he harvests inside the Atlanta perimeter, and also creates various sorts of ceramic masks and musical instruments. Ogle handcrafts jewelry and sews various kinds of hats; certainly something here will befit the barren pate in your life. Ogle's latest creations are fireflies that would look curiously comfortable on a Christmas tree. There's also a great selection of incense, oils and pottery, as well as incense burners of an innovative design by Craig.

Creative Loafing has named Traders best for home décor in 2002. The store is packed with cozy furniture that walks on the wilder side of Pier One Imports. Possibly most eye-catching in this store are the prints of posters announcing French dancehall gatherings from the early 20th century. The customer service here has been raved about more than once, also.

Despite what you see on MTV, not every musician plays an amped-up guitar. Earthshaking Music caters to those who prefer a more organic music tinge to their music. Earthshaking Music was originally a home-based mail order business specializing in acoustic instruments, but moved to its current East Atlanta location in 1996. Nowadays electric guitars line the shelves alongside congas, banjos, maracas and most any other instrument you can think of from any corner of the world.

Restaurants seem to outnumber the shops in East Atlanta Village, and the themes are as eclectic as Earthshaking Music's instrumentation. Burrito Art takes the burrito a step further than your dad's fast food burrito. The Liz Roti House II International boasts of authentic Caribbean-American cuisine. We stopped in at the Good News Café and tried the "San Francisco Chronicle." This was a grilled chicken sandwich on sourdough bread with melted cheese and lettuce, served with a side of white corn. It wasn't the greatest but not the worst, either. The Diet Coke had a fine bouquet and was most likely bottled sometime in the past couple of weeks. The service was good, especially considering it looked like two guys were running the place all by themselves.

Whether you call it gentrification or urban renewal, it is exciting to see the East Atlanta neighborhood coming back to life and proving that just because an area of town may have grown old does not mean it is useless.