We are excited to announce our new partnership with WeddingWire!  A couple of brides-to-be reached out to us and asked if we were connected with The Knot or WeddingWire. To be honest, we had not thought out about connecting with a site like WeddingWire.  Neither Richard or myself come from that background in the industry, but it makes complete sense to create the relationship. The service is free to couples who are getting married and would love to keep their planning within a single tool. There are 1,000s of small businesses like ours on the site, and you can peruse the site even if ..read more

We are VERY excited to announce a new partnership with the Amani Women Center Atlanta (AWC). Because the AWC provides skills, training, and support to local refugee families. And the AWC Sewing Academy teaches refugee women to sew.  Since we wanted to find a way to ethically produce sewing projects for our online store, this partnership checks all the boxes.  Local volunteers provide their time and expertise to help the refugees on building their skills. Between the team at AWC and volunteers, the refugee women are empowered to take their skills to either start their own business or ..read more

Everyone's been on edge over the last couple of years and we are all hoping for a return to some sort of "normalcy" soon.  And while families have been trying to figure out how to balance work and life with working from home, anyone who has recently been looking to upgrade their furniture/furnishings has also experienced empty showrooms or online stores. The pandemic has had an effect on shipping with port staffing shortages and shortages of long-haul truck drivers...everything has been chaotic over the last couple of years. And while things are kind of improving, supply chain interruptio ..read more

What an incredible find!  By Tiline is a small, woman-owned business based out of Paris.  It is a mother and her two daughters who own/run the business.  The mother is an accomplished ceramics and glass painter, and she hand paints each and every one of the 1L/1.5L Jars and 1L Carafes.   These are truly beautiful pieces that will make a statement in any kitchen.  We carry a selection of colorful wisteria blossoms (Blue, Red, White, and Yellow) and blue lavender. By Tiline has also crafted a set of small glass jars that comes with a set of French nursery rhymes. Th ..read more

Our objective is to source products from smaller artisan shops from just about anywhere other than Asia.  Nearly 90% of the products offered through our extensive network of distributors here in the US originate out of Asia.   And that works out well for finding products that are "reasonably" priced to offer on our site and in our showroom.  But there are also 1000s of other companies offering the same items, including the likes of Wayfair and Amazon...and as a small business, we simply cannot compete with those advertising budgets. Soooo, we have been doing what we can to ..read more

Our original online store front was performing okay, but it was cobbled together by our team...and we are not experts by any stretch of the imagination when it comes to creating great user experiences with online tools/shopping. So we connected with another Atlanta-based store development team and had them give our online store the refresh that it desperately needed.  And the end result has far exceeded our expectations! We're still working out the mechanics of keeping our stock levels accurate, and we are likely around 80% there.  The pandemic has clearly wreaked havoc on not only e ..read more

Here we are just about through the first month of 2021, and things are finally starting to look a bit brighter.  Oh, we are still working to get our business even close to where we were at "normal"...but we keep hope alive that things will begin to improve soon.  They simply have to. We get some business off of our online store, but there is clearly something we are missing to attract our local customers.  And we have not been able to adequately promote any specials or promotions due to our relative lack of technical knowledge regarding the Shopify platform. So, we made the deci ..read more

We are very excited to finally bring on several varieties of botanicals to the online store. These are not the dime store variety of faux plants...we have some items that are preserved boxwood or cypress and some that are very nice quality silk/faux reproductions. Our team is working to identify even more options, but we have been able to get quite a few uploaded this past week. You can find options for ferns, orchids, herbs, cypress, boxwood, fiddle leaf fig, and even one using olive branches! There are a few centerpieces, some topiaries, and a few that would work well on bookshelves or table ..read more

To say that things have turned drastically different over the last several months is an understatement.  Just like most businesses our bottom line has been significantly affected by the shutdowns - our primary lines of revenue are our property staging and interior design projects.   Both of those lines of business continue to have some activity, but they are down nearly 85% from pre-pandemic levels. The EIDL we received from the Small Business Administration has helped us keep payroll going and so far has kept us in our warehouse/office.  But that will only last so long, an ..read more

As one holiday ends we prepare for the next, and Valentine's Day is just 4 weeks away! Don't be a last minute shopper scrambling the week-of, picking and sifting through remnants of forgettable and completely uninspiring mementos (that are sure to get tossed out anyway). Choose a gift that is uniquely thoughtful, long lasting, and a daily reminder of your special bond. This is all-around great advice, but I must confess, there is an agenda here.... and that is to promote our exquisite collection of Alixx Candles! They make the perfect gift (a no-brainer really) because they can be enjoyed time ..read more