Monday 9 December 2013

My Business Saturday shopping spree



Small Business Saturday UK



Saturday 7th December was Small business Saturday here in the UK, so I decided that I would  try to only use small busiess for the whole day. Luckily my home city of Cardiff has a great variety of small shops and independent cafes to frequent so it was hardly a struggle to find places to give my custom too.

First stop of the day was to the Christmas market where  there were plenty of craft, jewelry and food stores to browes through. Not having made a start on my christmass shopping yet (I always seem to leave it till the last minute for some reason) it was great to see so many unique and handmade products, from local craftpeople and further of field.





One of the favourite sellers I saw at the Christmas market was Natures Best Designs   who make a variety of wooden bird boxes, and bee hotels along with other garden items and pet house. The items are realy beautifully made out of  hard woods and some even have a slate roof! They are clearly very passionate about the quality of their work and also about how to promote wildlife in our gardens and outdoor spaces. I had a lovely chat to them about the visiting hedgehog in my garden and what to do to encourage it to visit more often ( and maybe even stay)!
 
The next stop on my trip was Cardiff indoor market that holds a thriving selection of  sellers  and small business. You can find any thing from hardware stores to a wide selection of butchers and fruit and veg sellers and even a fortune seller.
 
I was there for two shops in particular , firstly to go to the brilliant E Ashton fishmongers, this is a Cardiff treasure and has a really great variety of fresh fish and sea food. 

 
It's always a real treat to pick up some really fresh fish from here for tea, you can even buy cockles or oysters as a snack to eat straight away and the staff are really helpful if your not sure how to cook a particular fish.
 
Next up was the fabric store to peruse their selection of  Christmas fabrics for some festive sewing projects I'll be working on over the next week or so ( seeing it's already the 9th I better get cracking!)
 
 
For a small sewing store they have a great range of haberdashery and the prices are pretty competitive and between that and the haberdashery store that's  a few plots across I can usually get all of my sewing supplies here rather than having to go further afield to John Lewis.


 I love all these festive prints  they look so pretty and I can't wait to use some of the for homemade festive decorations and gifts.

My final stop on my shopping spree was to two shops  in the lovely Royal Arcade one of several beautify Victorian shopping arcades in Cardiff. These arcades are really my favourite place to  spend a leisurely afternoon window shopping when ever I get a free few hours.

 
First stop was to the brilliant deli Wally's which was originally set up at another nearby location in 1947. It has always been part of my Christmas traditions to come here and stock up on festive produce  and as they now have a gorgeous olive bar and a really good coffee shop I find myself finding more and more temptations to come here all year round!
 


Then on to my final stop was the Pen and Paper stationers, to pick up a birthday card. I love stationary and I come here quite a lot of my art supplies, they have a great selection of artists materials as well as stationary, cards and gift wrap.  

 
 
 


I really enjoyed my Small Business Saturday shopping spree and it definitely reinforced the idea that  shopping in smaller  retailers is a much more pleasant and friendly way of shopping rather than shopping at big brands. I really hope that Small business Saturday was successful in giving the small independent businesses a well deserved boost and would encourage everybody to try having their own small biz shopping spree. Hope you all have a super week xxx