Throughout the fall season, we all worked on painting fixtures, such as the gondolas and pegboard, in addition to planning out the addition of home & office decor. New merchandise started rollling in from our orders from the July gift show....and what a mess it was! We were just barely able to get out the Halloween things, but were really too late for it to show well and the same thing happened to Thanksgiving. Formally taking ownership of the store on October 1st, we discovered we were too busy to do it all so fast. Keeping that in mind, and aware that Christmas was quickly approaching, we made a snap descision to have a "small" open house in mid-December. Nothing like an immediate deadline to crystallize plans, eh? We called on some neighbors, Miller-Hawkins Event Planning, to help and Inger Miller pulled it all together for us. Through their wonderful services, we contracted costumed carollers to circulate through the crowd and served samples from our new gourmet lines, including Wind and Willow dips and spread mixes. The best thing that resulted from our collaboration was meeting Doyle Borden, principal of My Flower Guy, to help me pull together our displays. He and his fellow designer buddy, Ali, did such a lovely job....you see their work in the banner photo and in the smaller photos, above. Talk about meeting the nicest, most talented designers....it was truly kismet that Inger pointed us in their direction. It's not often that you contract someone that mirrors your own design sensibilities on the first try and I'm forever grateful to Doyle and Ali for being so selfless. These guys stayed for one marathon afternoon/evening decorating spree.....they even opened merchandise boxes and tagged it before placing.....I owe them a heartfelt thank you. His website and My Space addy are found in our links and I can't recommend him highly enough.....just take a gander at our Christmas photos and you'll see just how talented he is. Miller-Hawkins is also listed and if you're in the greater L.A. area, these folks can help you plan a fantastic event when you don't have the time to do it yourself. Enjoy the pics and stay tuned for more later!
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