The Berylune Blog

It's snowing and my graze box hasn't turned up. Let's have a game of 'Crazy Tower' to cheer ourselves up.

The instructions are all in french, but don't worry, it's pretty easy to work out. Throw the dice. Put the colour you throw on to the wobble board. Easy. Except it's rock hard!

Denisewas fortunate enough to receive one of these in her stocking. She founded the crazy-tower-mile-high club on her...

'Tin tin tin' - Nottingham speak for 'it isn't in the tin'... Ask Nic when you next see him on the counter and he'll give you a demonstration.

Amy and I love tins. Love them. We fight over them when we find a particularly delightful one. You can keep things in them AND they look pretty. Win win. We love vintage tins, but there are some beautiful new tinsavailable too - our frustration at not...

I am so pleased that the new year has brought with it renewed interest in our craft workshops. Maybe it's our workshop window display, or maybe it's all those new year's resolutions! Learning a new craft or vowing to make your own clothes are both great ways to start the year - and so much cheaper than joining the gym!

The window features examples from a number of our workshops - screen printing, ...

This post should actually have been entitled 'what NOT to do with well known brands of blue tacky stuff'.

I was just clearing away some of the paperstuffs we've had adorning our walls, so we can start afresh for 2013 - sorry Ryan - when I was reminded of why my Mother never wanted me to have 5 Starposters on my wall. Well OK, in retrospect, she might have found the subject matter perplexing, but it...

We've had stalls at Christmas markets for a few years now. Product lines have come and gone; occasionally something gets dropped by the wayside for no particular reason other than we forget we used to do it, or another idea takes over and we find ourselves caught up in that instead.

In 2011 we made baby-sock bunny kits. A friend of our shop, Kirsten, was lucky enough to be bought one of those kits...

2012 saw so many changes in all our lives around here. The realisation of our shop-shaped dream being the most significant. Unexpectedly, we have made inspiring new friends, learnt new crafts and had a thoroughly good time!

We've been taking stock (literally!), and working out which of our ideas we want to concentrate on next. We've been desperately trying to justify field trips to several European...

Now that, alas, Christmas is drawing to a close, we are going to have some significant gaps on our shelves! For those of you who love our re-claimed vintage Christmas cards (the earliest of which was dated 1908, almost an antique!), they are now available 1/2 price in store - along with the rest of our Christmas decorations and Nate's favourite paper chains!


I've been busily making cards today, to...

Thanks to Nathan for his insight in to the world of glass blowing. He truly is a civil servant of many talents. Someone needs to tell him this metric malarkey really won't catch on though.

For those of us that don't have a Ninja suit to hand, I thought I would share how I've wrapped my presents to go under the tree this year.

As a number of my friends and family will be receiving stock-ings (as in,...

Greetings dear readers!

Ok, it's looked like Christmas for a while, but I like the song. And I just watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' whilst writing Christmas cards and munching on a mince pie (carefully chosen by Michael and  delivered in an owl napkin by Denise!)

Nathan, our trusty south coast correspondent, sent me this amazing picture of our pretty paper chains, further adding to my Christmassy glow:

Amy has been wrapping soaps like a madwoman, because they've been selling as quickly as we have been putting them out! I think you'll agree, they're quite pretty:

Fancy learning French? Want to learn to sew? If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, our new French sewing cards are for you!

I just discovered highlighter pencils can be used on text written in ink without causing smearing or smudging. How great is that?!

I've wanted these since forever. I'm so, so excited that we are stocking them!

Knit and natter was a bit loopy this week.

Hello dear Mo-voyeurs!

Well, it's all over. My 2nd year of facial frolics and stubble stimulation has reached it's grand finale. The fruits of my labour (or lack thereof) have resulted in what can only be described as a thoroughly agreeable whisker conurbation which has the consistency of a well pruned privet hedge. Ok, I would very much liked to have been able to craft a Dali and sit in meetings...

It's been a tough weekend. Kidlington on Friday. Bicester on Saturday. Leamington on Sunday. We've met some great people, thank you everyone who came and say hello, it was fun meeting you all!

Some uses of Washi are stumbled upon in times of need. They are no less valid. If you find yourself on a Christmas market, pedaling your wares in near freezing temperatures, and you get your down filled coat caught on a rough edge of box steel, fear not. Washi will effectively tape up the hole, preventing you looking like you've been plucking a pekin duck.

Large puffy parcels arrived today, with a Dundee return address. Caramel Wafer and Tunnocks Teacake cushions are now back in stock!

Some pretty new designs also arrived:

Well, dear vintageophile, I am in the final week of my facial abuse and I have hit an all-time low: I have Mo envy.

When I began my foray into growing a facial wilderness this year, I felt quite confident in my moustache-growing abilities. Hey, this was my second year of mo-ing; I was, in my mind, an old hat at this malarky. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I was smug, but I was most certainly...