FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY

A message from Yvonne our Founder & Creative Director

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My dream of opening my own business started long before my first store,

the dreams/ideas altered over the years to finally become

Tamzyn Angela in 2001 when I opened in Old Swan, Liverpool.

But the concept was born and developed long before at the beginning of working life my in 1985 straight out of high school I went into retail, working for Lewis’s in Liverpool, here I learnt the value of giving great customer service and it was where my training in window dressing began. During my retail career I continued to use my creative eye becoming a visual merchandiser,

 I was young and eager to learn and became obsessed with knowing every role within the company so when I moved to work in a pharmacy, not only was I trained in merchandising, window dressing and customer service; I then became a dispenser and was soon training dispensary assistants for the entire company.

During a break from retail I decided to take my A levels in Accounts, Mathematics & Law.

Upon completing this venture, I was itching to be creative again and lucky for me

it coincided with the Disney Store opening in Liverpool.

Employed months before the store opened to undergo intensive training on all things Disney 

 whilst the store was being created then working day and night to bring the Store to life.

It was Disney’s ethos that I have brought with me into my own business,

it was here were I began to understand how important product knowledge was alongside customer service and building relations.

Rising quickly through the roles/ranks in Disney with my creative and academic acumen I was chosen as part of a team to open all the new stores in the UK.

I travelled around England and Northern island, spending a few weeks to bring a new stores up to standard, training staff ready to open and be competent to continue the journey themselves.

My role(s) where as visual merchandiser and window dresser as well as office management and cashier trainer, this was were I learnt to multi task and began to realise I could run my own business as I was able to achieve all the roles necessary myself. 

Once married, the thoughts of having my own business were growing and when I was having my first child my parents where managing a family hotel, whilst visiting during maternity leave I began helping out (whilst mum cooed over the baby) I again learnt so many roles,

but it was working on the in-house events that I really loved,

being able to create my own designs was so exciting and it then that I knew I wanted a

creative business, but what? I continued helping at the hotel, doing flowers and balloons

but with no formal training, it was only when a family friend's daughter was getting married everything got real, when I was asked to do everything (bridal flowers too)

I met with the family and received the brief, I was both excited and terrified

to create my first wedding as the bride wanted a shower bouquet.

So after having a mini breakdown I headed to the library and collected as many books

as I could to learn the skills to get through.

This was when I realised even though I was stressed, I wanted to be a florist;

so after the wedding I enrolled to become a florist and started planning how and what

my business would be. I had another surprise in my final year,

becoming pregnant and having her just after I completed training.

So during maternity leave, again. I started to conceptualise what my business could be,

deciding to complete the NABAS balloon qualifications alongside completing the first of many forms of the business in April 2001 with the opening of my firsts store in Liverpool. I won’t pretend it was easy, running a new business as well as being a new mum with two babies under 4 and a husband working away from home, but with the help of my amazing husband, doting parents (and parents in-law) my business began and I loved it.....every part of it. 

It was giving me opportunity to use all my skills as well as meeting people and not only did the business grow, I did too. With my ethos to bring designer weddings (& products for the home) without the designer price tag I started my journey. During my time in my first store I built up a wedding & event business as well as a wonderful clientele for homewares & especially Christmas trees/decorations, it was here that my husband helped me build mybut I was constantly working within the city centre & felty I needed a presence there too. This is when I decided to open another store in Liverpool’s famous Albert Dock in 2005..... being there was both a joy & a challenge. It was hard though we were running the business & bringing 2 children up, running them to & from school, activities & friends parties etc thanks god for our parents. Starting out though the shop was so busy, people from around the country & world buying from us, sometimes they admitted they wanted to have a bag off us...it was hard work, long hours, stressful but amazing. Our flower business grew, we started doing more giftware & home accessories whilst still building on our wedding & event business, we loved it....for a while. Everything changed when the Liverpool Arena started building, the footfall died off & we had to make a choice....as the retail side of the business was falling off & the wedding/events growing it was now time for the business to take on another form, so we closed in Albert Dock in March 2008. Taking a little time to decide how everything could work we started up the wedding & events business in an industrial unit in Knowsley in mid 2008 and began another journey. I was in my element again, meeting people, planning decor & designing beautiful weddings & events, here we grew not only within the business but we had so much too so our stock/props grew too & after 9 years we out grew the space & we were off on another journey. This is when we found ourselves in Aintree.... moving into our new space in January 2017, we gave ourselves 3 months to close one unit down & have the new business ready for clients, opening the doors in spring 2017 every moment here has been a delight & we feel at home. Obviously we haven’t stopped there we have continued to develop, we have added so much more stock/props including supplying Christmas decor to Hilton Liverpool & Hull, as well as building on the relationships with clients, suppliers & companies we can trust impeccably, counting some of these  as friends. We were still growing when March 2020 came about & put a stop to everything, but being away from the day to day has helped us, this worldwide pandemic has made us re-evaluate & although we loved what went before, we missed so many other things....so a new work-life balance has been brought about by this event. We have re-branded, re-structured & re-built, we have brought back things we loved at the beginning, like floristry (people don’t realise we are florists) balloons (no-one remembers we did these) a web-shop (a lot different from our first one) and we’ve become more focused & excited for the new form the business is about to take. We can’t wait for.....  

  

Our Journey To Continue