The Berylune Blog

I had a little walk around the charity shops in town earlier on. It's a lovely bright, sunny day, although a little chilly. I popped in to the Cancer Research shop on Bedford Street to find a special offer on paperback books - 4 for £1! Bargain.

Amy and I are a bit sad and we read teen fiction. I would apologise, but I'm really not sorry. They had all 4 Twilight books, and as Amy doesn't own them I...

Zoë and Paul recently had a few days away in sunny Glasgow and Zoë's new yellow satchel went along for the ride! Paul took the opportunity to play with his new camera, we are loving the results.


Thank you for sharing!



 

We are excited to welcome a new teacher to our team! Roisin (aka Dolly Clackett) is a renowned Leamington based blogger and dress making guru - you have probably read her inspiring blog, and if you haven't it's time you did.

Roisin wears a beautiful dress every single day. I'm guessing she must have PJ days like the rest of us, but if she's leaving the house, she'll be wearing a stunning frock,...

A very exciting parcel arrived from bonny Scotland today. No, not from Nikki McWilliams this time (good guess though, they're on their way), and not Zoë and Paul, although they just got back from Glasgow. We now have tea towels, mugs and aprons from Gillian Kyle:


Modelled here by Denise:

A common topic of conversation here at Berylune is whether or not we should blog craft tutorials. As we're pretty much always making something new around here, we've decided it won't take us long to photograph what we're doing and share it with you.

Our first tutorial is for a fabric cover for a notebook or diary. We needed a couple of diaries so we could keep track of our increasingly busy...

Pride & Prejudice is probably one of my favourite books. I read it every couple of years. I can't tell you why I love it, I just do. Did I love it before the fabulous BBC mini series?  I like to think I did, but Darcy IS the young, svelte, Colin Firth in my head. Imagine my excitement when I found these!


The range is called 'Pulp the Classics', and so far it only consists of Pride & Prejudice, but...

So much cake today! Brownies and lemon drizzle for our knicker ladies this morning:

Amy & I popped along to Spring Fair on Wednesday, to see what all the fuss was about. If you don't know what that is, it's essentially an opportunity for people with shops to have a peek at what manufacturers/wholesalers/importers are pedaling for the coming season.

And it occupies all of the halls of the NEC. ALL of them. It's slightly overwhelming, as there is so little there that applies to us....

Ok, so the screen prints produced in our workshop last night weren't quite Nikki McWilliams standard, but we think for a first attempt they are really very good!

Knit and natter was lovely and busy again last night, many of our favourite people came along to eat carrot cake:

Lemon shortbread button biscuits:

And crazy pink butterfly biscuits:
Oh yes, I think some people also did some knitting and crochet, between sweet courses and slurps of tea! You would be amazed how quickly that lot gets eaten by 10 hungry knitters.

Denise was also celebrating her Birthday...

As I mentioned before, we picked up a sideboard on our trip to Bristol on Wednesday. It was made in the UK by Nathan furniture in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. I'm guessing it's teak. Also guessing it was made in the 60s, but if anyone can enlighten us, we'd be pleased to hear from you!


Clearly, whoever made it had the exact dimensions of this gap in our shop, because it fits a treat.

We've had some...

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you will know that Amy and I had a field trip to Bristol on Wednesday. We asked you all for suggestions on where to go to find our kind of shop - indie shops run by fabulous people.

We started the day by collecting a bookcase/cabinet type thing we nabbed on ebay, from a really cool building:

Amy was a bit scared by the lift, but there was no way we were...

Soap is back in stock!

Sorry we ran out again. It's probably because they are completely lovely. My favourite at the moment is spearmint. It smells just delicious. We've stopped using shower gel in our house altogether now - so less packaging waste, which can only be a good thing.


When Amy & I were unpacking them, we were sniffing combinations together - coconut & almond with cherrylicious smells...

Amy has been painting! We put the pegboard sections up before Christmas, but didn't have occasion to paint them. We kinda liked their unfinished state, it looked a bit like kraft card. Now January is here, and snow along with it, we've had a bit more time on our hands!

So if you've not had time to pop in recently, here is how it looks:


Bright and fresh. We are very...

Amy and I trashed the shop today. It was necessary, as we had some new things to fit in. Don't worry, we (mostly) put it back together again.

My favourite new thing are these:


They have pipped several contenders to the post for the much coveted position of 'Kitschest thing in the shop' (see Gay Dog card).

On the subject of sodium chloride, we have a vintage salt shaker in stock:


It has a dog. It has...

Remember Squirrel Nutkin? He very nearly got taken home with Amy to fulfill his Christmas destiny - because truly, a squirrel nut bowl without a home at Christmas is a very sad little squirrel indeed.

Squirrel Nutkin was lucky enough to be spied by Matt and Emma on a shopping trip to our shop. He was living under a tree in the window at the time. Matt really liked him, but was shopping for other...

We've decided to stay at home today folks. It's snowing again and I rather imagine that you would all prefer to be indoors as well. Apologies to those of you with urgent gift/craft/vintage/soap/felt woodland animal needs. Service will resume as normal tomorrow, assuming we're not snowed in.

This weather really makes you evaluate the car you drive.

We have a new stuff in stock! Zoëhas made these...

Nic and I have been playing in the snow today! Judging by everyone's facebook pictures and tweets, you've all been doing the same. Snow is great, provided you have plenty of supplies in the house and you don't need to go anywhere..

Knit & Natter is now weekly! Click here for the current schedule. We have introduced a NEW Thursday session every fortnight, alternating with our existing Tuesday sessions. The first one is tomorrow evening, so if you couldn't make Tuesday nights previously, perhaps you can come along?