You read correctly my friend, it's been 10 years since we opened our wee shop around the corner on Park St. Berylune came in to being the same year as the UK hosted our 3rd Olympics and the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee. A decade on and many things have changed - what we sell, who we are, where we live. Queenie is going platinum, we've added some much-loved people to our team, we've moved shops, we've survived a pandemic...
So, how are you going celebrate?
I'm glad you asked! On Saturday 14th May, 2022, we’ll be hosting Berylune’s First Summer Fete! The door marked ‘Private’ at the back of our store will be completely open to the public for a whole day; you are cordially invited to roam around our whole building (almost!), enjoying refreshments at Ellie’s Lemonade Stand, competing in our first Post Room Olympics, perusing Daisy’s Popup Plant Shop, having fun in Dan’s Photo Booth, adding your stamp to Anya’s Art Installation, winning prizes in the Tombola giveaway to end all Tombola giveaways, and much more!
FAQS
When is this fantastic-sounding event? Saturday 14th May, 2022.
Where is Berylune's Summer Fete going to be held? At our shop, of course! You might not realise, but 100 Warwick Street is actually a 3 storey building, with a maze of rooms to play in.
Can I bring my family/other half/well behaved dog? Of course! However, please be aware that our building does span three levels, so there are a number of steps to traverse. This will make visiting with a buggy difficult and we don't really have space to park them on the shop floor.
Do I need to pay to get in? Nope! This is a completely free event. However, there will be a Plant Pop Up Shop in addition to our usual (amazing) offering, as well as some special promotions on the day, so don't leave your pocket money at home!
Do I need a ticket? Nope! If we become overwhelmed, we might initiate a queuing system of some sort, but the entire event will be on a first come, first served basis.
How long can we expect to be entertained when visiting? We’ll be open all day (10-5:30pm), but anticipate most visitors will spend between 15 minutes and half an hour taking part in our various activities. Of course, if you get chatting to one of our founders, or become engrossed by the atmosphere, you might find yourself here a little longer. If you're a larger group or come at a busy period, you may have to wait to have a turn at everything. As this is not a ticketed event, we have no idea what footfall to expect!
I'm not from here, what on earth is a Fete? It's like a mini-festival. Traditionally in the UK, villages will host a Fete in order to raise funds for something local, like a new village hall or a church roof. People bring their home grown vegetables and baked goods to be judged, they play silly games that involve bludgeoning something resembling a rat, they enjoy a cup of tea on an uncomfortable bale of straw, they throw balls at coconuts and buy a slice of cake that is either delicious or terrible and nothing in between. Sometimes, you get really lucky and find a troupe of middle aged folk with bells on their fingers and toes. We're doing our own take on this, but we're not raising any money, our refreshments and tombola tickets won't cost you a penny, we don't want to see your vegetables, we'll have no bells on, and it's all indoors, so rain won't be a problem. However, if you bring us cake, we will likely eat it. We'll even judge it for you if you insist.
I can't make it to Leamington, will I miss out on the fun completely? Would we leave you out?! We'll think of something, watch this space!
Is there a code I need to enter at checkout? - Nope, the discount will automatically apply if you spend £40.
How much is delivery? - UK deliveries are free on all orders over £25.
Are you offering Click&Collect? - Yes, select 'Local pickup' when you get to the delivery screen.
When does this offer end? - Midnight Sunday 13th September BST.
Are you one of those websites that discounts all the time? - Nope! Berylune has only offered one other promotion this year, to celebrate our 8th Birthday. Now we get to have two Birthdays, a bit like the Queen!
I want to send a present to a friend, are you offering gift wrapping? - Yes! Head to the 'View Cart' page and you'll find this option, we are are charging £1.95 for this service. If you order a number of things, we'll wrap them 'Treat Box Style', using pretty stickers etc. Don't forget to add a gift note to your order.
Can I place an order for £40 to get the discount and have you send it to two different addresses? - No. You have to have your whole order delivered to one address. If you want to place another order to a different address, you are more than welcome to!
These are the images of the downstairs we received in the agent’s details:
The shop doesn't look that big in these pictures - but when you look at what the space is filled with, that is a lot of washing machines!
There is a good deal of to-ing and fro-ing when negotiating a lease, far more than in any house purchase I’ve experienced. It takes so much longer than you can imagine. We loved what the building could be, but goodness, we hated that suspended ceiling and those horrid stages you can see in the windows.
These might have been easy things to remove, but it’s something we have never done - and I’m personally averse to taking on work that would mean exposing something I can’t currently see! The building is really old and had been occupied by the same people for a long time. The agent kindly had a peek above the suspended ceiling for us and said ‘wow, there is at least a metre up there’. We wanted those lovely high ceilings exposed, but we were also conscious that time was marching on - we needed to move in ready for our busy Christmas trading period.
So, we negotiated for the shop space to be handed to us as an empty shell, ready for fitting. This way the team that was in there doing work for the landlord could just carry on. We wanted to move in and get started on fitting, without having to first hire a skip. We also didn’t want someone else’s idea of what a shop should look like; we wanted to pick our own floor and decide where the plug points should go (everywhere!).
And that’s what we got (eventually). We got bare plaster walls. We got precisely 3 plug points to work from and no lighting whatsoever! I confess I felt a little bit smug when they found asbestos in that ceiling cavity… It did lead to more delay, but at least we weren’t financially responsible for it!
The agent was almost right, there was a good deal of space above the false ceiling!
So we got the keys mid August and got painting. And painting. And when we thought the painting was getting a bit much, we painted some more. We installed skirting boards. What was dusty and unpleasant became a clean blank canvas.
Our shop is now this many cans of paint smaller than it was!
The space is pretty big, so we had to save as much of our money as possible for the floor and electrics - so we did everything else ourselves. Well. We roped in our other halves where possible! Holiday was taken from full time jobs - they were all gems. And I think they perhaps might have enjoyed it a bit.
Partridge Electrical sent a whole team of lovely gents to get our fit done super swiftly! They were in and done in a day or two.
We had power, but no floor!
So along came Josh. Royal Spa Carpets & Flooring did an amazing job!
Work in progress...
Floor!
4 weeks after receiving the keys, we were open. Christine and Alison kept the Park St shop running (thank you ladies!), so we only closed for 3 days overall.
There are many more images over on our instagram stories - of you head to highlights and find '100 Warwick St', there are some videos there too!
]]>No blog posts for, like… ever. Here we are, back with an epic one.
So, what have we been up to? So our last post that goes in to any detail was in 2018, chatting about our cabin build in Emily’s – my – garden.
The cabin is still there, but at the moment it’s empty. It saw us through Christmas 2017, all of 2018 and well in to 2019. We outgrew it more swiftly than any of us thought possible.
So, back to our core issue…. SPACE. Oh my goodness, we needed some space. Not just for packing, which was getting desperate, but in the shop as well. We couldn't stock the things we wanted to. Pallets would arrive… and thinking back, I can’t even remember where they went. It was a mad scramble to get the stock on to the shelves, in to the tiny cellar, in to the kitchen-turned-stock room and loaded in to the van to head down to the cabin for storage.
There was a good deal of running around, which felt like such a waste of time. And we couldn’t easily employ extra staff to help us, because there wasn’t really anywhere to put them! Our team consisted of the three of us (Amy, Zoë full time & Emily part time), Alison part time and Christine part time. I’ve got to be honest, every Christmas we got sick. Not all at the same time, but the stress and overwork was making us unwell.
So, what were we waiting for? Get a bigger shop premises and rent a unit out of town where we can employ people to help pack parcels. Simple, right?
Yeah. Maybe we should have. But here is the thing. We wanted to work together. Under the same roof, not scattered all over town. NEWSFLASH – WE DON’T DO THIS FOR THE MONEY. Well, yes, ok, we wouldn’t/couldn’t do this without an income. However, all of us could have earned more money over the last 8 years had we just worked regular jobs. Hopefully the same won’t be true for the next 8 years, but if it is, we’re all ok with that. We want to work with each other, and we love what we do.
So there was only one solution… go big, or go home.
We needed a shop with enough space for us to grow in to… expand our range, display our wares beautifully and allow our customers enough space to browse. We also needed a decent sized space in which to store stock and pack parcels. We wanted those things all under one roof. In Leamington Spa. Not far from 45 Park Street.
This sounds like it should be easy, right? But when we started looking at shop premises – not ones that are even available, just premises in general, we realised that there really weren’t that many that fit this bill.
The first one we really considered was a shop on Regent Street occupied at the time by ‘Warwick Gallery’/’Filthy but Gorgeous’. It’s a double fronted shop with heaps of space upstairs. It’s a pretty awesome premises – there was plenty of space for us to grow in to. I guess it could have been amazing – but there were a few things wrong with it. The rent was eye-watering. It was a bit higgledy-piggledy – all the stock would have to be taken up a beautiful period staircase, which although pretty, wasn’t very practical. Sacks of post would have to be taken down the same staircase. There was no rear or side access. Whilst it’s on Regent St, it’s a bit further away from the Parade than we’d want to be ideally, although it was very close to our Park St shop. We thought long and hard but ultimately decided not to go for it.
The second premises we had a serious look at was also on Regent Street – it used to be ‘La Coppola’ and is now ‘Cotswold Trading’. Location – perfect. The building itself seemed like a good size, but there is a steep and narrow staircase to get to the space we needed, which is the same problem we had with the ‘Filthy But Gorgeous’ shop, only there was significantly less space. There is rear access, but it wasn’t very convenient for deliveries. There were also a couple of steps you need to go up to get in to the shop. We really wanted a shop that offered easy access to everyone in our community… and we have a LOT of customers with buggies!
Again, the rent was pretty steep, we would have been paying for a premium retail spot. Location, location, location, right? Wrong! We planned to use a large portion of the space to store stock and pack our online orders, we would have been drastically overpaying for our packing room. This didn’t make financial sense. The only thing that would have made sense at this premises was to make it ALL retail, upstairs as well. We would have had the same problems as at our Park St store with space and stairs, only on a larger scale. That balcony though… walking away from that one was painful, and by the time it came on the market we were getting pretty desperate. But, it wasn't right.
We were beginning to lose hope. Was our dream of working under the same roof unattainable? We were probably going to have to compromise, but which bit?
Early 2019 came around, after our busiest and most draining Christmas yet.
Finally, another building came on the market that we were keen to see… 100 Warwick Street. For two or three generations of locals, ‘Walls Electrical Shop’ was where you would go to buy electrical goods in town. Many people have told us that their family’s first ever black & white tv was purchased from Walls, which should give you an idea of how well established they were - and still are, if you want to buy from a local and genuinely lovely bunch of folk, they have another shop on Cubbington Road.
We had a little look around – the retail space was intensely uninspiring! I mean, it was an electrical shop, so there were washing machines and TV’s everywhere. It was kitted out with platforms and false walls, as you might expect in such a shop. There was a suspended ceiling and carpet tiles. The signage outside was heavy and dated.
The building itself was intimidatingly large - the footprint of the shop, which was pretty big and just had two small steps up to the back ⅓, was mirrored upstairs, with a substantial loft above that. In addition there was a huge room above the lovely Elise, with yet another room above that, which lead to a huge room that extends over the Warwick Street Kitchen premises the other way.
So. Much. Space.
The front of the building enjoys Leamington’s Regency architecture, whereas the back looks to be 60s built and very practical, with a nice wide staircase!
Location. Well, ok, Warwick Street isn’t as fancy as Regent St. Warwick St is a street full of independent shops though, both sides of The Parade. The footfall, compared to Park Street… Well, there is no comparison. It’s busier, with heavy local traffic. Whenever we went up there to have a look at the place, we’d bump into one of our customers! The neighbouring shop was Warwick Street Kitchen. We LOVED our neighbours on Park Street (Kate at Driftwood is literally the sweetest person I know), but we had serious Girl Crushes on everyone at WSK, and they’re very popular with our customers.
Leamington really only has 4 car parks, and to access two of them, you pretty much end up using the busy junction 100 Warwick Street is on. It’s actually visible from the parade, where Oliver Bonas, Paperchase, Hotel Chocolat etc live. So whilst the location was the compromise we would have to make, it really didn’t feel like it would hurt us too much. It also has 3 huge windows, each one larger than our Park St shop - so plenty of space to try to lure passers by in for a browse!
The rent was again an intimidating figure - but there was potential to sublet a section, and whilst intimidating, it wasn't eye-watering.
So, we went for it. We got the keys in August and opened Mid September. I think that might be a story for another post...
*Edit - I forgot to mention that 100 Warwick St also has a side door on Park Street, which leads straight to the bottom of the stairs at the rear of the shop. There is a loading bay right opposite, so plenty of space for deliveries to boot!
]]>On Thursday 13th December, we will be taking part in Leamington's Living Advent Calendar! We will be offering after hours shopping with drinks, nibbles and live entertainment from our good friends Laura & her lovely husband Dave. They will be serenading shoppers with a mixture of Christmas Carols and tunes from their busking-folk-duo days. Lucky us!
Do come and join us for some festive cheer! We will be open until 7pm. Yay!
]]>So, we ordered a cabin.
We chose 'The Rho' from Tiger Sheds cabin range, but made a few amendments to the design - they charge a flat fee for this service. We decided to have both windows at the front (due to how narrow the garden is), and we changed the door so it was a part-glazed single door, rather than double, fully glazed doors, as they were not practical for our purposes.
We read the reviews carefully and chose to upgrade to double glazed, Georgian style window units. We also paid extra for felt shingles, as we didn't want to have to replace the felt later down the line.
We were very pleased with the quality of the timber from Tiger Sheds, the pieces were all cut perfectly and it went together relatively easily, as you can see from the below video. Our good friend Matt is a carpenter, he managed the build for us and made a few very minor alterations as we went along - there is a very tiny, very fancy bit of skirting between the door and the wall!
We treated every piece with Cuprinol as we built it, and will treat the whole thing again before winter this year. It's weathering really well. We will probably change the colour at some point, but we are enjoying the wood for now.
Winter 2017/18 was quite a cold one. We are pretty active in our cabin, we aren't just sat at computers, so our electric radiator managed to keep us warm for the most part. We left it on overnight in the deepest frosts.
The cabin is really cosy, but you might want to look at a stove or some more significant heating if you want to use it as a home office in the depths of winter. We also have interlocking foam floor tiles for insulation.
With regards to Tiger - on the whole we were impressed. The staff were friendly when we called. All the parts arrived. We had read that they're slow, and they were, but we were prepared for that. We physically couldn't order the cabin any sooner than we did due to the house move. We ordered 17th July 2017 and took delivery 4th October 2017. Fine if you know!
If you follow us on Instagram, you'll see various images of the inside of the cabin in stories from time to time. We love it!
]]>We celebrated our 5th Birthday last weekend!
We offered our customers some exciting discounts, handed out treats and free gifts, covered the shop in balloons and had an exciting surprise - our good friend Liz brought Annie, her vintage ice cream van, over for visit!
We had tasty ice creams and a natter in the street, perfect.
]]>
We have been ogling crafty people's houses and creative spaces in Mollie Makes since just before we opened our shop, almost 5 years ago. We have had a few products featured within, and I won't lie, we have found some lovely goodies to stock via the pages of this ever-colourful magazine.
Imagine our delight when the opportunity came up to feature one of our houses! Our amazing friend Fiona, who happens to be an excellent photographer, popped up a few weeks back (months? Gosh time flies!), and snapped Amy's beautiful home.
Amy wasn't sure how she felt about this - she lives in a rented house, so there are some things about it that she just can't change. Namely the nasty green carpet.
We all talked her in to it, because in my opinion Amy's house is so filled with her personality, unique style and such a large helping of Beryluneness that I don't think you can even see the bits she would love to change.
So here is! Thank you Mollie Makes for such a lovely feature. Thank you Fiona for taking such beautiful photos of Amy and her home. Thank you Lara for your kind words and managing to put a nervous Amy at ease!
]]>The crafts on offer upstairs were a samosa coin purse, a beaded bar necklace, a monochrome decorated mug, a stamped landscape print, a collage decorated brooch and a marble paper notebook. Downstairs we had envelope making, 3m of colouring in(!), Hama beads & pompom making, so there was plenty to choose from!
We also had a fantastic raffle (thank you to our lovely suppliers for the goodies they donated), a Berylune popup shop, a photo booth and an amazing special guest appearance by Creighton's Chocolaterie, who were personalising chocolate bars! Although I think I saw more rude words than names... Our volunteers were all so wonderful, thank you all! This year we raised just over £800 for Myton Hospices.
We all had a great time! And judging from #craftpartyleam on Instagram, so did everyone who came along. We were so impressed by the crafty creations!
Thank you to everyone who came along, you lot are amazing!
]]>We have been planning #craftpartyleam 2016 for a few weeks now. We have been making samples, ordering things, planning & plotting to make sure you have an amazing time! As before, you'll get a Berylune goodie bag to take home with you, in addition to everything you make on the night - all supplies, notions and whatnot are included in the price. Don't forget to check out our youtube video from last year!
Pop in to our shop to purchase tickets over the counter or us Eventbrite's online ordering facility below:
]]>Most people write Christmas gift guides a few weeks before the big day, to give you plenty of opportunity to buy your presents. We have just been too busy! So here are our top 10 best sellers instead, in no particular order, and excluding a few we didn't find as interesting:
Both colouring in and Taylor Swift are crazes that are sweeping the nation - so a Taylor Swift colouring book is a no brainer! Tropical Wonderland is a favourite too, along with colouring pencils and Lyra art pens.
Light boxes with alphabet tiles - what's not to love! The rest of the nation's indie shops seemed to sell out of these super quickly, but we stocked up and never ran out.
Creighton's Custard Cream chocolate bar. Yes, it's as delicious as it sounds. Hand made in the UK.
Our modern craft advent calendar kit. Stamp your own numbers, decorate your bags and parcels and fill them with awesome gifts.
Our wrapping packs - this one is the monochrome colour way, but the colour pop pack has sold just as well. It includes everything you see here - pom pom makers, yarn, baker's twine, washi tape, the lot!
Spangly Christmas bath bombs - from Chilly Willy to Deer Me, Holly Bobs to Father Blissmas. The smell amazing and just look at all that glitter!
My personal favourite, simply because I was told Fisherman's Friends are horrible and they'll never sell! Little did they know...
Ceramic charms. Zoë has nearly collected all of them! But actual customers seem to like them too!
Washi tape. We've been selling it for years, but it seems like the world is finally beginning to catch up!
Retro tape writers - both this deluxe model and the smaller one have sold like hot cakes. I am imagining well labelled offices, school books, kitchens and work spaces across the country...
What an awesome bunch of stuff! You lot have the best taste!
New Years resolution - BLOG EMILY, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WRITE SOMETHING!
Merry Christmas one and all.
]]>We were more organised this year - we limited the numbers to 150 (we reduced the tickets available from 200 last year). We put Denise in charge of queuing. We arranged the craft stations a bit better - some stations had no chairs, others were set up so colours/patterns/designs could be picked whist people were waiting to sit down and have a go. Family Tree had their liquor license this year, so drinks could be enjoyed in between crafting activities. Most importantly, we were lucky with the weather! 2014's party landed on a scorching hot day, it was thankfully much cooler this time around.
We again hosted a charity raffle in support of Myton Hostpices. Our generous suppliers, as well as some local Etsy Sellers, in addition to us here at Berylune (Amy, Zoë and I all picked hampers of our favourite stuff!), were kind enough to donate raffle prizes that helped us raise over £400. Check out #craftpartyleam on Instagram for more details of the fab prizes, as well as more photos from attendees on the evening!
We'd like to thank our lovely volunteers - those fantastic folk that helped out by manning craft stations, flogging raffle tickets, taking care of the pop-up shop, helped with decorations, assisted with set up, tidying up and packing down and really made the whole thing possible. Also Priscilla and her team at Family Tree - it really is an amazing venue, and available for weddings and events, I would highly recommend it.
We all had a whale of a time! We all got to chat to our friends and regular shop customers, everyone was so excited to be there, we have had so many positive comments and thank-yous both online and in the shop. Yes it's hard work, but it's totally worth it! Thanks for coming everyone, we'll see you again next year!
Want to see more pictures? Have a look here for our Pinterest board of the evening, or here for our Facebook album. Or, even better, we have an awesome YouTube video of the evening!
]]>Our third annual Craft Party is scheduled for next Saturday, 6th June!
This year, we'll be painting big geometric beads to make a necklace, threading wooden bead bracelets with cotton tassels, applying sayings to pennant banners, playing with Modpodge to cover a wooden pen pot in fabric, having a go with the badge maker to make a hand mirror, printing a pretty stationery set, playing with Hama beads, making pom poms and much more!
It’s £15 a ticket – we have increased the price this year, so that we can reduce the numbers slightly (it was a bit crowded last year, and we can’t imagine finding a bigger venue!), but also so that we can offer some really awesome crafts and a fabulous goody bag.
On the night, each craft has its own table or station, and revellers work their way around, making things as they go. We have enough supplies for everyone to have a go at everything! If you’re not very crafty, don’t worry. We have chosen simple crafts and there will be plenty of Berylune helpers around to give you hints and tips.
We also have a raffle to raise money for Myton Hospice, tickets can be purchased for £1 each on the night. Many of our suppliers have been kind enough to donate prizes. Amy, Zoë and I have also chosen a prize each donated by Berylune.
There will be a bar and a pop-up shop, so bring some pocket money with you!
You can get your tickets here, or pop in to the shop to save Eventbrite’s booking fee.
Pretty pictures of last year’s party can be found here.
]]>A lovely new customer came into the shop yesterday, and mentioned that she had been reading our blog. I apologised that I don't blog much anymore - we really enjoy posting on instagram, but the blog has definitely taken a back seat for now.
Why is this? There are a number of reasons, but mostly it's time related. I used to blog when I was at home, twiddlling my thumbs, hatching new plans. But since we have started selling online, that time is now taken up with photographing pretty new things, editing the pictures and listing them on the website. Also, instagram, that doesn't restrict the amount of text we can write like twitter does, just feels like a more natural place to communicate what is going on. We can post a picture and say as much or little about it as we like. Usually it's a little :)
Our lovely new customer kindly said that she had enjoyed reading the old blog posts, which, when I look back, gives some really interesting perspective in to how Berylune started and who we were back then. Reading back, I was convinced I was going to get a yellow satchel. I bought a red one. All of the cards we sold when we first opened were made by us, now less than 10% of the cards available in store are Berylune-branded (which is a good thing, we sell loads more cards now!). I took the above photo of the baker's twine we were selling.
And on Friday, I took this one:
I do have a much spiffier camera and a super spiffy lens these days. Also I have a wonderful photographer friend who has taught me so much. I'm not a natural, but I do enjoy taking pictures of our products.
So a lot has changed. I really like that the blog is a record of that. This doesn't help me find time to write more blog posts, but that doesn't mean I don't plan to! We had great plans for crafting tutorial posts, but simply haven't had time to put them in to action. I got half way through the alphabet on my 80s movie posts, but then L happened and I had too many to pick from - Labyrinth? Lost Boys? Legend? Ladyhawke? Maybe I'll come back to that :) I'll try to post more details about new products as we get them too.
Like this amazing solid coloured baker's twine, that is so beautiful:
Thanks for reading!
]]>
But please, can we stop this lock related madness?
I made some excellent purchases, one of my favourites being some fabric for the the lovely Roisin, another being a pair ceramic charms for Amy (a giraffe) and Zoë (an elephant). I instantly regretted not getting one for myself! So I managed to find the supplier, and here they are:
So now I have a charm of my own. He's called Mr Jingles:
Cute huh?
]]>
As a thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last 3 years, there will be treats and special offers in store on Saturday, so pop in if you're around!
It took a few more chicks than anticipated (I think the final count is 170, which exhausted the stocks of Poundland Leamington). So maybe use a slightly smaller hoop than we did, or space your chicks out a bit more.
...and you just push the chicks in to the polystyrene, using the backs of their feet.
It's so adorable, I just brush my cheek against it.
Berylune, 45 Park Street, Leamington Spa CV32 4QN. www.berylune.co.uk
The Pint Sized Department Store
They're a retro remake of mid century Dutch classic 'Tomado' wall shelves. They're £79 in store or £89 online, including delivery.
We also have chunks of thick pegboard - finally! We have been talking about getting some for approximately 3 years. Yes, we opened 3 years ago in May.
They're 60cm x 30cm and come with 10 shaker style pegs that fit snugly in the holes. They're unfinished fibreboard (which I quite like as it is), that you can finish as you would like - cross stitch with yarn? Paint them a bright colour? Cover them in stickers? They're £19.95 in the shop or £28 online including delivery.
Berylune, 45 Park Street, Leamington Spa CV32 4QN. www.berylune.co.uk
The Pint Sized Department Store