That’s right, the Christmas trees have arrived! It really does feel like the festive season is here once the trees are filling the shop with their amazing smell. Now we can officially start decorating and preparing the home for Christmas, surely the best bit?!
Oh, and for some tips about buying your tree this season, check out last years handy hints post here.
Hello! It’s been a while, not through want of trying but every time i sit down to write a post i’m inevitably distracted with orders, delivery’s and the minor job of transforming our Ice Cream parlour into a festive wonderland, which is no mean feet i can tell you! So we have indeed opened our doors once again this year to all our lovely customers in Newark and the surrounding areas. Despite being open for just one week we have been visited by customers as far afield as Staffordshire, Scotland and even Sydney, Australia!
So whats in store? Well we’ve got lots of lovely Christmas treats once again, some one-off hand made goodies and this week we are expecting a delivery of fresh wreaths and our locally grown tress, plenty to keep us busy and for you to feast your eyes on!
A few snaps from the shop this year – we painted the walls grey and we’re really happy with how they turned out. If only we could have used Abigail Edwards snow crystal wallpaper, alas it may confuse our Ice cream regulars! But we have got her beautiful napkins which are not a bad alternative..
We hope to see you soon! TOPUS xx
We seem to have fast forwarded to Autumn somehow but here at The Original Pop Up Shop we thought it a good time to pause and reflect on the summer before we hurtle towards Christmas, eek!
Well, what a summer it’s been, if we can call it that. The main topic on everyone’s lips, besides the Jubilee and Olympics, has to have been the weather!! As an Ice-cream shop for most of the year we certainly feel the effects of the weather more than most. Luckily we did have a few sunny days and we thought you might like to see the shop in its Ice-cream Parlour guise before we transform it into our Christmas Pop Up Shop in just 7 short weeks!!
Hello and a happy new year to you all! We are very late with our new year post but we have been thoroughly enjoying having a little time off! Christmas was a very busy time as you can imagine but we had the most fun and are so thrilled at how well our little venture online has gone, everyone’s feedback has been really encouraging. We especially loved meeting everyone that visited the pop up shop in Newark and do hope to see you all again next year!
We are already working on next years collection and have been getting very excited about all the lovely new products we will be bringing you this Christmas, only 329 days to go!! If you want to keep up to date with our news and progress – pop back from time to time and also make sure you sign up to the newsletter {in the left hand sidebar} so you can be the first to see our new products at the end of October.
With love,
The Original Pop Up Team
x x
Hello there! We figure lots of people will be buying there Christmas trees this weekend, although i know some of you have yours already, but we thought it would be useful to give some handy hints about buying and caring for your tree this Christmas….
Fresh is Best!
Ensure your tree is nice and fresh, with green needles and few brown ones. They should be flexible and not fall off when you run a branch through your hand. Most Christmas trees from your big DIY stores and garden centres are shipped over from Denmark, therefore they are cut pretty early so are not always that fresh. Check the British Tree Growers Association website for your nearest local seller, their members are guaranteed to grow trees sustainability and in the UK, so you should get a fresher tree that has travelled a bit less. We use local grower, William (seen above), from Fillingham Trees, he’s a stickler for quality and will never cut his trees too early (even if we want them for photo shoots!) so that way we know we are getting the freshest trees possible for our lovely customers, many of them come back year after year so we know we are onto a good thing!
Potted or Cut??
There are a few different types and options out there but the main choice is whether to go for a potted or cut tree. If buying potted double check that they are grown in the pot as opposed to being dug up and then potted. The latter tend to have their roots destroyed when dug up and so often don’t take up as much water and therefore have a shorter life. If you want a container tree that you can keep afterwards always go for the pot grown option, you can then replant into a bigger pot or out into the garden once Christmas is over. Potted trees tend to be smaller sizes, never really bigger than 5 ft so if you want a larger tree go for the cut option. We sell cut Nordman Firs, the most popular tree in the Uk, as they have a great shape, colour and the needles are non-drop. Other options include Fraser Fir, a dense and narrow tree, or Norway Spruce, a lighter green that does drop its needles if you don’t keep on top of the watering.
Keeping your Christmas tree happy!
Whichever tree you go for, best to keep it outside in cool spot sheltered from wind and freezing conditions until you are ready to decorate it. Once brought in remember that central heating is any real Christmas tree’s worst enemy so try and place it in a spot away from heaters or radiators. Potted trees should be treated like any houseplant and need regular watering. Cut trees should be treated like a cut flower. Before you bring it in saw around 2 inches from it’s trunk, this helps open up the pores, and then place in a stand that can hold water or in a bucket with pebbles/stones or even screwed up newspaper, make sure the water level covers the base. Top up daily, you’ll be surprised at how much water they need!
If you live near Newark don’t forget to stop by the shop for your tree this year, we have lots of different sizes, potted and cut starting from £24. Happy tree shopping! {image courtesy of Country Homes and Interiors}
Phew, what a week it’s been here at The Original Pop Up Shop HQ. With the shop launch last Saturday we have been super busy playing shop and we’re having so much fun! We had a lovely time, meeting lots of our customers and for most of the day our little shop was packed to the rafters with bodies sipping mulled wine and munching on mince pies, yum!
We managed a few snaps in between serving people but we do hope you may pop down for a peep yourselves in the coming weeks…
Lots of patient husbands making the most of the mulled wine whilst the ladies did some serious shopping!
And we were very happy to meet Sam our youngest and probably cutest customer of the day!!
We hope you have lots of nice festive things planned for the weekend, we expect to be selling lots of our locally grown Christmas trees, the smell in the shop is amazing right now. Pure Christmas.
Hello, hello! Are we looking forward to the weekend? We have our first Christmas market to attend so we certainly are! Hope to share some pictures next week. We’ve also been busy busy this week packing up orders for our lovely customers and also trying to get some prep done for the shop opening, only a week to go folks!
Finally, we are trying to get round to sharing with you some more of our press clippings. House and Garden did a very cosy christmas feature using our handmade vintage music garlands, we really love the way they have hung them along the mantle, around door frames and grouped with other garlands, they look beautiful!
So, this weekend I set about making my first Christmas pudding. I chose a recipe that requires leaving the pudding in a dark corner and feeding with alcohol regularly, this way it feels like I’ve worked harder for it!
The recipe was actually really easy to make – just putting all the dry stuff in together then adding the eggs and brandy. The aromas were fantastic when it was all mixed together, my whole kitchen smelled like Christmas, lovely!!
Wrapping it up with foil and baking paper was a bit tricky, an extra pair of hands was useful to help tie the string (thanks Rich). The steaming took five hours (!) – which meant hovering anxiously over the pan checking it wasn’t boiling over or boiling dry. Good for the skin though i reckon?!
I have to admit i cheated a little as the recipe said you needed to buy sultanas, currents, raisins and candid peel. I didn’t want bags of the stuff in my cupboards for a year so I picked up a mixed bag of it all – I’m just hoping the ratios were all right! As for the brandy – I of course didn’t want to scrimp on that aspect, but, there is quite a bit of that left over – enough to treat myself to a little night cap after all that hard work and steam!
How about you, did you make your Christmas pudding this weekend? The Original Pop Up team would love to hear how you got on…..
{we used the recipe found here}
Firstly, huge apologies to anyone that visited our website today and couldn’t see all of our product images. We experienced some kind of techno hitch but thankfully it is all sorted, phew! Thank you to our lovely customers Bea and Harry for letting us know and to Rare Company for being absolute stars and getting us sorted!
Secondly, we are rather pleased to be featured in this months Elle Decoration magazine. Our porcelain Keys and Feather decorations are proving to be a big hit with the press and customers alike! Thanks to Emilio for thinking of us..
Hello there, how are you? We’re very excited here at HQ, as the magazines Christmas issues are now on the shelves and we are lucky enough to be featured in quite a few! Here are a some of our products in Good Homes magazine. Thanks to Emma for thinking of us…spot our porcelain feathers on the cover.
This could be our favourite shot, with our handmade crochet snowflakes hanging behind the bed, it looks very serene and calm in there.
Our porcelain keys look great tied to these presents – we love seeing our products used in different ways.
We will bring you more of our press coverage in the coming weeks and we’re also thinking Christmas puddings, have you made yours yet?
