This week has involved a lot of meetings…. Meetings with our lovely partners from Patchwork (making plans for the new events etc), A Meeting with our newly formed group “Rosehips and Teacups”… (more about that soon) and meetings with people that are helping us to develop and set up the new Homewood Bound Tea room…

We were in Manchester on Monday doing some buying for the shop, we were lucky enough to get some lovely vintage finds, including some gorgeous old school cupboards…

Lots of customers orders are coming through after Christmas! Here is a picture of a very happy customers beautiful oak dresser…

As you probably all know the Castle Hotel in Ruthin is just about to open its doors after a huge refurbishment (now owned by Wetherspoons) we have had tickets to call and say hello before the grand opening. It was lovely to see ‘Nell’ the new manageress here at Homewood Bound. She is John’s Niece and a very lovely young lady trying hard to engage with the community… ‘Good Luck Nel’!!!

Last summer we had an audit/inspection from Cath Kidston head office. All stockists had to be interviewed and lots of questions were asked and photographs taken of stock/displays and the shop in general. Last week we had a letter from London to say that we had been given the green light and that Cath Kidston was ‘delighted’ to carry on doing business with us. As you can imagine we were very proud and found out that many stockists had failed … the company is becoming very strict and continues to expand rapidly and on a world wide scale.

We love Cath Kidston and will be receiving the new Spring/Summer stock in the next 7 days!

Valentines day is fast approaching… we have lots of lovely things to inspire you…

 Homepatch News

Our brand new website should be live this week…

Had a lovely card from a customer

Sales of Bacon Jam are booming…

We have some lovely hampers available in the shop..

More News For You Soon….

Thank you for taking an interest in Homewood Bound

‘We love you for that’

Hazel John & the team xx

Its all go here….The shop has had a major change around this week and the team have all worked hard and done an excellent job! Still got a little more to do (hopefully in the next week).

We’ve moved all the Cath Kidston & Bridgewater in to the new extension at last!! Our Cath Kidston Sale is still on and we also have a special offer of 10% off Bridgewater (this includes textiles,tin and melamine)  x

The lovely new Bridgewater  cookware that we have here in the shop was actually mentioned in the Daily Mail “Weekend”.

Don’t forget that Valentines day is coming soon… we have lots of lovely things for that special person!

Also just arrived this week……

Beth had her braces taken off after over a year and a half of having train tracks on top and bottom…. Well done for persevering darling!!

Had this dvd as a present from a lovely customer… she realised we had missed it with working a lot at night lately and treated us..

Thanks so much Philipa!!!

Just had this lovely Cath Kidston material delivered… getting a vintage chair upholstered in it.. gorgeous..

Homepatch News

The Homepatch shop continues to be well supported by local customers and has new stock arriving on a regular basis. The website is almost ready and we will keep you informed of the latest news and events ….

You can be sure of a warm welcome from Tuesday to Saturday…

Back soon

Hazel, John & The Team XX

Things are progressing nicely here at Homewood Bound! Lots of comings and goings, lots of alterations and plans being put in to action. Time is flying by and certainly nothing is standing still.

We have had lots of people calling this week…

We even had a visit from the Tweet bus!

We gave them this pressie because they are from Cornwall.
They said some lovely things about our shop and took some pics…

Talking of twitter we had this lovely message from Ffion Williams.. Thanks so much Ffion for taking the trouble to send this pic X

Also received this letter from Gellifor school PTA this week… always nice to have a thank you…

The Sport Relief Great British Bake off has been on this week. It’s great to see that so many of the props are things that we have here in the shop.

  As you know we are busy planning our tea room… well for some weeks now we have been testing homemade cakes brought in by some very special ladies. They have all been lovely but we have by no means made our decision yet and assure you that we have very high standards….

Farrow & Ball have a new brochure out..

In previous blogs we have mentioned mentoring, well Hazel is still mentoring various people and this week meets with some of her group. One member of the group is Holly of Holly Edwards Photography, she has lust started blogging (well done Hol… so interested in what you do!!). She mentioned Hazel on her blog which was very flattering…. be sure to read her blog at -

http://hollyedwardsphotography.blogspot.com/

Hazel also had a beautiful bouquet hand delivered as a pressie on Saturday from Angharad (Maia Florists) in Ruthin.

Angharad also popped into the shop this week to pick up something for her Bridal Consultation Room and tweeted us this….

One of our closest friends on Twitter, Hayley ‘Mrs Scoops’ has her gorgeous ice cream van ‘Betty’ featured in Joules upcoming clothing catalogue!!! Yay, well done!!

New Cath Kidston stock coming soon…sneak peek..

Our Cath Kidston Sale starts Saturday 14th January…… don’t miss out, there’s some great savings to be had…

News from Homepatch

New Homepatch website coming soon… lots of information and a chance to
subscribe to the newsletter..

Keep reading the blog, we love it when we get feedback from you!!

Hazel, John and The Team xx

A very Happy New Year to you all, how are you? Seems like quite a long time since our last blog! Hope that you all had a peaceful and Happy Christmas and enjoyed whatever it was you were up to….

A new year, a fresh start, lets look around us for inspiration and hope that we can make the most of life (as we all know it can be too short!)

Here are a few little quotes we wanted to share with you……

‘Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve’

‘Love what you do. Do what you love’

‘Always try to think positive as it is good for your health.’

‘People change, things go wrong sometimes and life is complicated all we need is to remember that life goes on and life somehow is simple,
you make a choice and don’t look back.

“Thinking negative is losing hope”

“If you are to learn anything from this life it’s to accept the bad and cherish the good”

We have lots of great plans this year and the team at Homewood Bound Collections and will be working hard to put these plans in to place.

We are starting to move the Cath Kidston & Emma Bridgewater displays into the new extension (didn’t have time before Christmas because we were full on with setting up the new Homepatch shop and dealing with the ever busy run up to the festive period). When we have done this we can then make way for the new tea room. We’ve chosen the name but it’s still a secret…

We are still very proud to be the largest stockists of C.Kidston & E.Bridgewater in both North Wales & Cheshire …the wonderful and highly sought after designs remain strong….

We have some amazing new stock coming through in the next 2 to 4 weeks. As you know we have the Olympics and the Queens Diamond Jubilee this year which will strongly reflect in the patterns (getting excited already) we were lucky enough to see some of these over six months ago…. We chose extra carefully to bring together our special hand picked collection.

We will keep you informed of arrival dates etc and we will be having a SALE before then, which of course we will let you all know about as soon as it starts!

News from the HomePatch shop

Sales of Pate and homewares were certainly booming thanks to the brand new shop (in newly converted office). Well done to Scott, Sharon, Margaret & Jenny for doing a sterling job of making everyone so welcome! We were featured in the business section of the Daily Post on Dec 28th… a rather lovely article which you can read for yourself by clicking the link below…

Daily Post article

We will let you know what great things we are planning for 2012 at the Patchwork Factory and you can keep up with the latest happenings by visiting its dedicated..

Facebook page

&

Twitter Page

Thanks for reading!

Hazel, John & The Team xx

 We are counting down the hours now and have a lot of things to pack in to a few days but we can do it! Especially with such great team spirit…We had a lovely evening on Friday for our Homewood Bound Staff Christmas Party…. Such a special night, gave us a great opportunity to chat about the year that we have had and to look forward to an exciting year ahead. Plus we had some laughs and of course some drinks!!!

Thought you might like this link …

‘How to do an Audrey Hepburn hairdo’

‘Local Ladies’ handy work has sold well!

Had some lovely new signs in the shop… long story (we ordered them 5 weeks ago). The lovely couple who make them have moved from Denbighshire to France. By mistake the signs were packed with all their belongings… We had to wait until they could find the relevant box and then send them back to the U.K… anyway thank goodness they have now arrived!!

News and updates from the Homewood @ Patchwork shop.

Our beautiful new shop is really getting it’s own character now… it has been so popular and we are quite overwhelmed with the amount of support and interest that we have had from our regular customers, then realising that a lot of our customers overlap. It has been lovely to see some new faces too, young and old. Many people still don’t know that we are there and have such a lovely surprise when they discover us!!

Special visitor Scarlett and her Mummy Lynn…

The Patchwork Food Companies great new product “Bacon Jam” was included as part of the ‘Goodie bags’ given out at the UK comedy awards…

Margaret Carter was also on the radio again last week, a very interesting and inspiring interview with Calon F.M if you get chance or 20 mins spare….well worth a listen… be careful you don’t miss anything X

Click here to listen to Margaret Carter on Calon FM

 The hampers have been going down very well and the Mulled Wine, coffee and samples have been very welcomed!! Patchwork shop is open until 4pm on Saturday the 24th December for your convenience… lots of special goodies available …

 Thank you for our lovely Christmas cards and comments on the blog and Facebook, we love receiving feedback like this…

We also received this lovely card from one of our customers who lives in Scotland! Thanks Sharon!

Remember at Homewood Bound, winter or summer we are here for you, at your service..

Thank you for your continued support throughout the year …. without you
Homewood Bound wouldn’t be what it is today, may we take this opportunity to wish all our customers, staff, friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

So much news for the New Year.. so many plans and lots of exciting things will happen including our new Tea room in the Rhewl Shop. As you know the extension is now complete so we are busy planning the next stage…..more on that in the New Year blog…

Xmas opening times

 We are closed from the 24^th December 2pm (approx)

and will re-open

10am Tuesday 3^rd January

Once again a very merry Christmas!

Hazel, John and The Team XXX

Homewood Bound News

Well…. Another ‘Full on’ week….. Lots of preparations going on for Christmas. The tree is up in the shop (so that really means we are getting close). We are busy preparing peoples orders for furniture and the shop has been so lively with lots of lovely visitors!

This week we did a Christmas Fair at Llanrhaeadr school and also at the Tennis club (in aid of Barnados) both were good fairs. We also had a day at an Antique sale, braving the dreadful rain to sniff out some gorgeous vintage pieces…

Lots of new stock delivered this week for Christmas including some stunning hand made jewellery hand picked by us from local lady Kate Hamilton Hunter.

And Beth turned 19! Can’t believe one year has past since we celebrated her 18th in London, ‘Love you Beth’ (hard to juggle time for family at the moment) xx

Mentoring

As you know Hazel has been mentoring JayandFrey, Bathing Beauty and Fiddlestitch Arts. Well all three ladies are doing so well, so much so that JayandFrey & Bathing Beauty have both been asked to showcase their hand made specialities at the newly opened Rhug Estate (so proud of you girls!). More exciting news regarding my mentored ladies coming soon…

And Fiddlestitch Arts (Sarah) has her exclusive designs on sale at Homewood Bound and Maia Florist in Ruthin.

As mentioned in last weeks blog we said that we would let you have some Christmas present suggestions. Here are a few for all the family……x

News from the Homepatch shop 
(based at Patchworks headquarters/factory In Ruthin)
Virtually opposite Ruthin Craft Centre.

Take a look at our lovely new sign..

The launch of the new shop (Joining Homewood Bound with Patchwork Food Co) has had a great response! We have been preparing Hampers which combine both our products.

Lots of lovely callers and great to see Cath Skates again who bought a bag and is taking it with her to New York!

We will be serving Mulled wine throughout the festive season and of course we sell fresh coffee. You will also be able to sample various Pates whilst visiting. We will tell you about our New Year plans for the shop in another blog…exciting times….

Hope that you all have a good week and don’t get too stressed trying to fit everything in, we love that you take the time to read our Blog each week! And Remember to..

Back soon with more news..

Hazel, John & The Team X

Hi everyone.. Christmas is fast approaching… hope that you are all getting organised and making your lists! We have been Busy Bee’s..

The new shop has been a hive of activity, lots of callers and lots of plans developing.

A big Thank You to all of the people that have called in to say hello and show your support, it’s very much appreciated.

We would just like to say a big Thank you to our lovely Scott who has done an excellent job of setting things up and running the shop in a friendly and professional way. He really is a breath of fresh air and it’s great to have him as part of our special Homewood Bound Team! Thanks Scott! xx

At Homewood Bound in Rhewl we have been working very long hours to fit everything in.. quite a lot of late nights, at least 11 o’clock for 2-3 nights… Eeeek!! Med & Neal have done a brilliant job of laying the wooden floor in our new extension (tea room plans are hotting up…). Julie & Linda have been like little Elves in the workshop, painting, restoring, waxing furniture & making the shop look ‘special’ & well stocked up.

John & Hazel did the Christmas fair in Llannefydd which went really well.

It was a very well organised event and had the most perfect atmosphere. Lots of special friends and loyal customers added to the magical evening with mulled wine and mince pies and handmade local produce.

Thank you too to Sharon who offered to represent us at Rhewl School Christmas fair (because we had another fair) Thanks Sharon. We also had Llanbedr school fair on Saturday and it’s Llanrhaeadr next week…We love to be involved with our local community and always make sure to donate some lovely raffle prizes!

We will be showing you some Christmas gift ideas in the next week…. We have an irresistible selection for that ‘PERFECT PRESENT’.

Don’t forget that we sell GIFT VOUCHERS as well, VERY popular at this time of year!

More news and updates coming soon..

Hazel, John & The Team xx

This week our lovely friend Caroline who is a professional make up artist walked in the shop with this special CD for us..

She had gone to the trouble of getting all of ‘Steps’ to hand sign this copy for us (she was doing their makeup for Children in Need) and I know that this week she is down in London again to do their makeup again for the Alan Carr Christmas show.
Thank you so much Caroline xx

We have lots of Christmas fairs coming up and last night we did a stall in Rhewl for a fundraising event.

Well the big news this week is that our lovely new shop has finally opened its doors!

The Shop is open 10 – 5 and our fab new sign will go up on Monday!

Sorry for not Tweeting much or finding time to do bigger blogs, It’s all been so full on and of course with the Christmas build up and plan for our new Tea room. Not much time for simple things like sleep!! A big thanks to all the team here at Homewood Bound who have all been so supportive and have worked so hard to retain standards.

Thanks to Beth too who has been a little marvel! She offered to do the shopping and to cook so that at home we could at least have a hot meal at the end of such busy days! Seriously we haven’t had a minute spare.. we are usually busy all the time anyway and as you know Homewood Bound is open every day now!!

Some of this weeks visitors to the new shop…

You can keep up with the latest happenings at the new shop by visiting its dedicated..

Facebook page

&

Twitter Page

Don’t forget we have lots of lovely new things at Rhewl too….

Back soon
Thanks for reading
Hazel John & The Team XX

Just a short blog this week because we haven’t had a minute (truly). The launch of the new shop is imminent. We did say it would be this week but didn’t realise how many last minute things needed to be done…  such as waiting for the sign, etc. Rest assured you’ll be the first to know as soon as we’re officially open!

Last night we went to the Network She awards in Llandudno, during the opening speech, Margaret from Patchwork was mentioned, she really is an inspiration to all!

The guest speaker and presenter of the awards was the outstanding Michelle Mone.

We had this Fab picture sent to us from a really lovely customer. She bought these stunning Lloyd Loom dining chairs from Homewood Bound and don’t they look amazing?
Thanks Sarah xx

Lots of beautiful stock arriving all the time…

Can’t wait to share news & pictures of the new shop with you very soon!!

Thanks for reading!

Hazel John & The Team xx

So sorry about the late blog this week…. couldn’t let you down and had to soldier on regardless of huge workload and the shock of our beautiful and much loved cat Harry who was suddenly killed on Thursday….. It has left a big hole in our hearts and things won’t be the same for quite some time, even our dogs are missing him!

We have been very busy getting everything organised and finalised for the new shop. And of course very busy preparing for another Christmas at Homewood Bound. This week we have had people walking to the shop, cycling to the shop .. plus  I couldn’t resist taking pics of these two unusual cars that called over the weekend…

Two little regulars Arthur & Enid (have been coming since they were knee high to a grasshopper) and their lovely Mummy.

They seem to always eat their sweets in the porch (so cute).

Lovely to see some of the family too and also a visit from another regular customer who is a professional makeup artist (At the moment she is currently working with STEPS). Thank you to Andrea for sending this fab picture of the glass gloche she bought this week…we love to see pics of our things in your home!!

Also a big Thank you to Kate Powell for making this lovely picture and sending it to us, It now has pride of place in the shop (Thanks Phillipa).

Beth is busy blogging, don’t forget to take a peek .. (Beths Blog)

Had a meeting last week with some special Ladies (most of whom I am mentoring) Gosh they are SO TALENTED and they just keep getting better & better.

Bathing Beauty

Jay & Frey

Sarah – “Eat My Flowers”

Fiddlestitch Arts

I love this picture of Tanya & Sarah.

EXCITING NEWS!!

The  eagerly awaited new shop is opening in the next week, will let you know the exact day and details as soon as they are confirmed! Oooohhhh it’s so exciting. We are joining forces with Patchwork Pate (The Traditional Food Company) well known locally and of course worldwide (supplying to British Airways etc etc). Margaret Carter founder of Patchwork was on BBC radio Wales this week and also Main speaker at the ‘I am woman’ conference in Cardiff.

Here are some pics of the new shop unfolding….

Lots more news and pics to come….

Back soon..

Hazel, John & The Team

xx