Welcoming Spring to Chirpy
How is it April already?
It seems a while since I wrote a quarterly blog, so thought it was time to reflect on the last 3 months as we seem to finally being jumping into Spring.
I have to admit, January got off to a strange start, I definitely seemed to have left my Chirpy mojo in 2025. Not sure why, but I just didn’t seem to have much focus so had to embrace the season of ‘wintering’ and take it all very slowly while putting on a Chirpy smile in the shop. Despite me being a little overwhelmed by 2026, it got off to a good start in Chirpy, helped by a sale to clear some stock ready for a spring refresh with some great new stock arriving too, Lots of customers picked up some great bargains and January ended up being a good month.
I shook off my January blues in time for a busy February. I love supporting other local businesses and organisations and was delighted to welcome a new weekly networking group to Chirpy to help them get off the ground (just glad I didn’t need to be there for the 6:30am starts!) They’ve moved to a bigger venue now but was great to be part of their launch.
I went back to school in February, as part of Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week, presenting at a local primary school assembly and working with children in year 2, for their Wellbeing Week. The children made postcards to give out into the local community and were inspired by the generous donations of cards from lots of my independent card suppliers. Hopefully the next generation will be buying cards in the future to help keep the industry alive.
Our first workshop of the year took place in February, welcoming back Cherry Tree Glass with her ever popular Fused Glass Workshops. It was great to see creativity taking place again in our brilliant upstairs workshop space and we’re delighted at how this year’s workshop programme has been received, with lots of new workshops being added and lots of people booked onto them. Check out what we’ve got coming up HERE
Lot’s of you were spreading the Chirpy love for Valentine’s day this year with more cards being sold than ever. No sooner had the Valentine’s cards been put away (or the few we had left) then we stocked our shelves with Mother’s Day cards. Mother’s Day moves every year, linked to when Easter falls and usually dictates the month of March for sales. Falling early, as it did this year, meant we got off to a brilliant start to March, with mums in Chapel Allerton definitely being spoilt this year. I love the thought that so many mums opened a lovely card & gift from Chirpy with their breakfast in bed!
From the high of Mother’s day weekend to the low of the rest of March! Great time to catch up on a lot of admin when the shop is quiet including taking part in Retail Roar, an annual online conference with some inspiring guest speakers including Mary Portas. It’s great to get different perspectives from other people in retail.
To boost our online Sales we offered a little tiered discount (check out the banner at the top of our website) which we’ve extended until midnight Easter Monday so why not take advantage of it and shop & save HERE. We’re also taking PREORDERS for our best selling Brick Vases so you could save on those too.
We’ve also kept busy with lots of workshops, including a great new Embroidery Workshop and Lino Workshop, both which sold out very quickly. We welcomed back some popular Calligraphy, Jesmonite and Fused Glass workshops too.
Upstairs we also hosted Tessa Houghton’s new ‘Land, Sea & Sky’ exhibition and held a charity coffee morning, raising over £330 for Coppafeel! & hosted George & Joseph’s Cheese Academy!
I also even managed a long weekend in Budapest, a delayed Christmas present with my husband, which was just what I needed. And the last day of the quarter was spent in London with my daughter, another Christmas present seeing Romeo & Juliet which was amazing.
There’s been quite a lot of changes going on in Chapel Allerton and we said goodbye to some brilliant businesses including the infamous Sunshine Bakery and our wonderful neighbours The Glasshouse Gallery.
And we finally got a new shop sign! So if you’re walking past and have ever wondered what’s upstairs, then perhaps now is the time to find out!
Hope to see you soon in Chirpy
Jo x
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