About Us...
Cherrydidi is the brainchild of Jean and Ade Harmer, building on Jean's background in social enterprise: including running an eco-travel business in Nepal and supporting women to get a start in selling their own homemade products. Through delivering business start-up programmes in rural Cumbria, Ghana and India a project called 'Trade in Action' brought five Cumbrian and five Ghanaian small creative businesses together, from this Cherrydidi was born.
'Didi' is a term of respectfulness given to older women in Nepal. 'Cherry' was chosen after a gift of cherries from Ade to Jean.
Lake District...
The first Cherrydidi shop opened in Priest's Mill, Caldbeck, in 2012, with a focus on helping artists and makers from across Cumbria and beyond, to start up their own businesses and grow sustainable careers, with their brilliant and individual talents at the centre.
We moved to Keswick in 2014 and opened a second shop in Ambleside in 2018. We remain proud to provide beautiful and ethically-minded products to customers old and new. We use local, British supply chains wherever possible, and we support our artists to do the same. We use recycled materials for our in-house products, and our packaging.
We continue to champion start-up arts and crafts businesses, offering them not only a space to sell their work, but also commercial wisdom and support.
The next chapter - the 'CHERRYDIDI ONLINE SHOP' (from Oct '23)
After 11 successful years on the high street we have closed our physical doors but are FULLY OPEN ONLINE - building on our already successful ‘Cherrydidi Online Shop’.
Despite our turnover being a whopping £750,000 in 2022, the management and overheads of running our physical stores became untenable. 'Cherrydidi Online Shop' offers the same great gifts and art, from the same artists and makers but is a more viable business model.
You can still support Cherrydidi, OUR ARTISTS & ZAK THE COLLIE DOG & CO (& his charities) by buying online.
Going forward, please see Cherrydidi as the gift shop / gallery it was, but instead of being looked after by the lovely Stevie or Lesley et al we pass your 'shopping cart order' on to the different artists. They then prepare/make, pack & post your order directly to you – in return we
manage the virtual shop for a minimal fee to the Artist.
95% of what you spend in the ‘Cherrydidi Online Shop’ is paid directly to the artist helping make their business more viable!
Email: info@cherrydidi.com
Phone: +44 (0)17687 71170
Instagram - Cherrydidi & Zak the Collie Dog
@cherrydidikeswick