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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Leaving the shop door open with a Spring in my step ...

…looking back at the last 3 months

 Can’t quite work out whether the last 3 months have dragged on or flown by, can you? Easter seems to have come round so quickly and we’re definitely heading into Spring (well, most days!)

As ever, it’s been an eventful start to the year.  Even when it’s quiet in the shop there’s always things to do and plan so never really a dull moment, and when there is, there’s always a cup of tea and a local piece of cake to eat!

Our customers enjoyed our January Sale at the beginning of the year (in January in fact!) with lots of great bargains to be had. I decided not to go to my favourite tradeshow this January, heading for a weekend up north and a sea dip, though of course had FOMO watching everyone’s Instagram stories while they were there. Despite not going, it didn’t mean that we didn’t start to get lots of new stock for the new season. This year we are looking to collaborate with other small businesses too and in January we had our first meeting with local biscuit maker The Biskery to start hatching some plans for the rest of the year.

February saw a whistle stop visit to Spring Fair at the NEC (not helped by not charging the car the night before and having to get back to Leeds for 5pm) so perhaps need to plan better next time! We also held our first workshops of the year, including a lovely private birthday Jesmonite workshop. Our Chirpy customers showed a lot of love this February with a record breaking number of Valentine cards being sold. And I managed to grab a few days off with as little trip to London leaving Chirpy in the hands of my great team Jenna & Lizzie as well as new team member Hannah.

March started with a Double Points weekend in store to thank all our loyal customers for their support. The card revolution continued with Mother’s Day with another record breaking year of card sales (& customers on the Saturday before). We love the fact that hundreds of mums woke up on 10th March with a gorgeous card from Chirpy, including myself!

This month we were very excited to launch our 2nd collaboration of the year, this time with Sarah Thornton Art. Sarah has designed a bespoke Chirpy bird which we have had printed onto cards, tea towels and prints. As part of this year’s charity fund raiser 20% of the sales of each product goes to Coppafeel. They are proving popular and we’re well on the way to achieving our target (though would love to smash it!). The workshops this month have all been sold out and we launched lots more too – people really seem to be enjoying our Chirp workshops at the moment. Have you tried one?

So Easter has come early this year and Easter weekend falls in March. Traditionally Easter isn’t the busiest time for us, though our chocolate sales are usually quite good! We’re ending the month with another Double Points weekend, and Chapel Allerton is hosting its first Food market on Saturday as well as a Easter hunt for the kids, so here’s hoping that it might be busy after all. There’s a little Easter treat online too.

So what’s in store for the next 3 months? More new stock, more workshops, including some great new ones, a new stationery trade show to visit and the return of Magic Tenner in May. All whilst trying to navigate A level exams and then a trip to Paris to celebrate the end of 2 years of very hard work for my girl. 

Wishing you a very Happy Easter & don’t forget to turn your clocks back on Saturday night!

Jo x