Besides being comfy and cozy and your best friends when you’re exhausted,  pillows can make a great style statement.  The storefront is brimming with them so we decided to do a photo shoot to stimulate your creative juices when decorating……..

What’s your passion?  Here are some of ours……..

A pile of vintage linen to plop into with just a pop of subtle color in the embroidery

Support our British buddies with this combination, masculine enough for a man cave too!

Show your love for all things floral with this mix

Don’t be shy, try different combinations; neutral and bright, or vintage and new.

Create a theme or go for an eclectic look because don’t forget changing out pillows is as easy as

Now go play!

You can find our pillows here, here and here.  Oh, and here too!

What a fun and colorful way to please Mom. This Sunday give her an easy way to grow some beautiful flowers with a gift by Bloembox. Unroll the tissue ribbon embedded with organic seeds and off you go……the container is a precious gift box on its own – so no additional wrapping necessary!

Those adorable and useful watering cans are by koziol, a company known for its clever and quirky items. Purchase a tiny yellow one for a child or just someone young at heart. Durable and flexible they also make great carrying containers for your freshly cut flowers!

If you are in the area, drop by the store…….there’s still time before Mother’s Day!

If you love the smell of citrus, bring the scent closer to home with a few citrus based finds…

Ines de La Fressange Lemon Tart Gourmet Candle

Orange Castelbel Room Fragrance Spray

Lemon and Sage Soap Triple Milled

Lavender, also called “the scent of sleep” is one of the oldest aromatherapy scents known to man. If you’re in need of a little soothing and relaxation, fill your space with all things lavender…

Lavender Scent Millefiori Natural Diffuser

Lavender Dryer Sachets and Wash

Hand Embroidered Lavender Sachets

Tea isn’t just for drinking. Enjoy the sweet yet mild scents of black tea, green tea, and white tea in your home and on the go…

Marianne Guedin Hand-blown Black Tea Scented Candle

Epi de Provence Green Tea Scented Solid Perfume

Pink Lily & White Tea Castelbel Candle

The Tent Sale last weekend was a success! We had a lot of fun and hope our customers did too!

Many visitors to the sale were first-timers so that is always a good thing. So, we have decided to continue these events but on a smaller scale. This Friday, May 4th will mark our first Sidewalk Sale.

This month’s sale will highlight Mother’s Day gift ideas as well as items for the teachers or graduates in your life.

The Tent Sale was a huge undertaking so we believe that a monthly, theme based Sidewalk Sale will be slightly easier to prep for and will make these sales easier to put on every month. If there is a theme for a sale that you would like,  please drop us a line and let us know. We love to brainstorm with our customers on all kinds of topics!

The sun is out, the flags are flapping in the breeze……stop in to see us and visit a bit…….

lots of new goodies to see and pick up!

The front door to the store is open and the air is absolutely lovely…..fingers crossed that we have this weather next weekend. Why? Well, because  it’s our 2nd anniversary and we are celebrating with a TENT SALE!!! We have been reorganizing and sorting through the warehouse to make room for several large shipments and have unearthed an abundance of goodies that will be 50% yep, all of it will be  50% off at the register.  There is bedding, linen, pillows, dishes, candles, seasonal items, even some flip flops and the list goes on and on…..

We are a very dog friendly company and lots of us have rescues for our furry kids so we are donating 5% of the proceeds from the sale to the Walton Animal Guild.

Annie’s Baked Goods are making a special appearance and will be available from 12-4.

So, set aside some time next Saturday, April 21st from 10-4 (the store will remain open to 6pm as usual) and stop on by for some fabulous bargains!

Looking forward to seeing you!

Why do cell phones always choose the worst possible moment to conk out?  On a Sunday, in the middle of nowhere?  Ugh. My new one is charging now and hopefully I’ll have a phone this week!

We had a wonderful drive down.  In my opinion this is the absolute best time of year to visit Southeastern Texas.  So gorgeous.  More Bluebonnets and wildflowers we’ve seen in years.  Everything so green and fresh, gorgeous blue skies.

Bluebonnets

Our B&B is delightful.  It’s in Burton, same as La Bahia where we have our booth, so quite handy.  The owners are charming and the space is great.  So peaceful!  That hammock in the garden has our names on it – until Thursday anyway.  That’s when set up begins.

The house this is in was moved, lock stock and barrel to this area after being cut in 2 to do this.  The European in me can’t quite fathom doing something like that.  But it’s wonderful – high ceilings, old wood floors, and details like windows above the doors that open to help with air circulation, pressed ceiling tiles, beadboards and more.

It’s definitely going to be difficult to say goodbye.  And of course the vendors here are always good for a laugh – how about a gate:

Donkey chairs (I'm too polite to say what it really says)

When we posted on the blog that this would be our last show, after 7 years, we were amazed at the reactions.  They were not via the blog!  On the phone and by email, asking for details!

First off, this is a good thing for us, not a bad one.  There.  Now, moving on.  Basically we can’t clone ourselves and we aren’t getting any younger (don’t we wish!).  And our time was getting too difficult to manage with the growth of the business.  So it was with heavy hearts we had to decide to give up this show.  Mainly because it’s a huge time investment, time we just don’t have anymore.

Touch of Europe has had tremendous growth over the past 7 years, and while the Texas show continues to grow for us, everything else is growing even faster.

Just to put it in perspective: the show last 9 days (La Bahia runs from a Friday to a Saturday included).  But before that, it takes us months.  First it’s coordinating the pickers in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Italy.

Then it’s coordinating the shipments, and also occasionally picking items out ourselves (that’s the best part as we all know!).

Once the shipments arrive in the US, it’s prep time. This is the huge time investment part.  It takes us 3-4 weeks to prepare for one show.  The it’s coordinating the trip (we travel like European do, we don’t drive straight through – it’s 950 miles, and it takes us 2.5 days….).

The day before departure we pick up the truck – 26 feet, the biggest you can drive with a ‘regular’ drivers’ license.  Loading takes 2-3 hours. Yesterday it took 6 people and one person to check the list and verify we didn’t forget something essential (like one year when we forgot extension cords for example)

Loading the truck

Departure is on Saturday (it was today!).  And then the drive.  Long drive for us, and quite boring, but that’s OK, the evenings are for relaxing and the weather today was gorgeous.

Following our truck down the road....

We will arrive in the Round Top area Monday, time to settle in, unpack, and get organized for 2 days of shopping for Touch of Europe’s store in Marietta, and for visiting friends and just hanging out.  This is the best part of the show, it’s a mini-vacation!

Soft colors

Cake Stands

Think green!

Slow cookers - more time for you to play while dinner is on

Garden in a box, a tin, a bag!

French Red and White

French Red and White

Spring Florals

If you haven’t met Grace, she’s the therapy dog training program dropout we adopted last year.  She and Daisy are best friends.  Well Daisy is Grace’s best friend.  Daisy tolerates Grace….

Grace is the black lab mix