It’s been another busy week at the shop for me and George. Normally, he works the shop by himself on a Sunday, so I can catch up on housework and laundry that needs to be done, or work on my administrative responsibilities, such as VAT filings, or running inventory reports and placing orders. However, this past Sunday we decided to go into together to tackle a lot of the display work that needed to be done as a team. While I packed up what was remaining of our adorable Easter decorations, he cleaned up the stock room in preparation for a large delivery of home décor pieces that arrived today. After that we reset a couple of our window displays and started working on the displays in the centre section of our shop.
If you haven't visited our shop yet (what are you waiting for?!), it is broken up into three sections. The front section is filled with women’s accessories: handbags, scarves, fashion jewellery and watches, sterling silver jewellery, purses, and other fabulous accessories I can never have enough of. The back of our shop is where you will find a lot of our more traditional gifts. This is where we display our offerings from Wrendale Designs, Berni Parker Designs, East of India, and Wild Olive. It is also where we have our gifts for baby showers and christenings as well as for bridal showers and weddings. We have a lot of our greeting cards on display in this section also.
The centre of the shop is where you will find unique, sometimes quirky, but always beautiful home décor pieces, including stunning artificial flowers that help bring any home to life. What’s on offer in this section varies from season to season, but we always have a good selection of vases, photo frames, flickering LED candles, decorative plant pots, coasters, cushions, etc. Recently we had our hand-painted ceramic Indigo Collection on display there. This collection features hand-painted jugs, bud vases, coffee/tea mugs, and small bowls. In addition to the ceramic pieces, the Indigo Collection also includes a large white and blue square cushion, a draught excluder, and a doorstop. Now this collection is being used to create a striking window display for people passing by to enjoy. In the same section we have some handmade wood clocks and fun plaques made in Yorkshire by The Giggle Gift Company. That dry, sarcastic Yorkshire humour is loved by all our customers. Often, we will find groups of women standing together laughing while trying to decide which one is perfect for the friend that wasn’t able to join them that day. It’s so much fun to read them each time we sell one; inevitably there is a little story about why that one is so perfect for the person they are giving it to. Soon we will be adding beautiful new wreaths, garlands, plant pots and plant pot hangers to this part of the shop to help everyone get their homes, conservatories, gardens, and summerhouses ready for entertaining friends and family over the summer holidays. At the end of October / beginning of November, this part of the shop is turned into a Christmas decor shop, where I offer the cutest and most popular holiday decorations I can find. In fact, we have many loyal customers that come to Shrewsbury each year to shop with us for Christmas. They come to see what new decorations we have, to see how I've decorated the shops and the window displays, and to buy gifts for their loved ones. For these customers especially, I am very excited about my what I have planned for Christmas this year!
In addition to taking delivery of new artificial flowers, plant pot hangers and other ornaments, we also received a new delivery of cards from Louise Tiler Designs. This latest delivery contained 34 new designs of blank greeting cards for birthdays, Father’s Day, New Home, Graduation, Retirement, and so many more. In fact, for the first time, we are offering cards for all the hard-working teachers out there. To learn more about our Louise Tiler Designs offerings, stay tuned for my next blog post and to see the full range click here and have fun exploring.