Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Step 3...Construction.


We look like HELL!!!!!!

It's no wonder, we have been working for weeks from the crack of dawn 'til the wee hours of the night.

We have all tried our hand at home repair. It is the Age of HGTV and DIY!

Well, let me tell you, laying a dozen tiles is not the same as laying 600!! My hat is off to those people in the Construction trade!!! How you do it every day is beyond me!

The first thing we had to do was Paint! We chose a Beautiful Blue color that many of our Customers have liked so much that we had to get color chips to hand out. It is Behr Paint from Home Depot. The color is Spring Rain.

Painting is easy, right! Well, it isn't terrible, but it is time consuming. We decided to use a sprayer since we were doing the ceilings as well as the walls the same color.

I will post photos later.

Ken and Kevin signing off from Passiflora, Hillsdale...Upstate New York!!!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Step 3...A Preview...Passiflora, Hillsdale in Upstate New York


What the Hell are we doing?

Step 2...The Gift Show...Passiflora, Hillsdale...Upstate New York

Have you ever been to the Jacob Javitz Center?

It is Massive!

I have grabbed a couple of Photos and a description of the event so that you can get an idea of what we were about to take on!

The New York International Gift Fair
, the premier gift and decorative accessories market in the United States, has opened its doors at the Jacob Javitz Center. This semi-annual event fills 638,000 net square feet, including the entire Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and the Passenger Ship Terminal. The 45,000 national and international attendees are drawn from major retail outlets, specialty retailers, distributors, catalog companies and others. There are more than 2,800 firms exhibiting in eleven major merchandise sections of the Fair, including international sponsored groups representing Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Guatemala, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Canadian Province of Quebec, South Africa, Thailand and United Kingdom.


Wow! We need to pick enough items to fill our measly 600 square foot store from 600,000+ square feet of merchandise. How do you edit? Where do we begin? Row One? Booth One? Hand-made?

Take a breath, and make a plan.

We new that there were a few Lines that we wanted to carry. We decided to start with them and then fill in the holes after that.

We started with Lampe Berger. The first Lampe Berger lamp was created in 1898 by Maurice Berger, a pharmacy dispenser, to purify the air in hospital wards. Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso were the first “well-known people” to appreciate it.

LAMPE BERGER, the leader in innovations for air care, cleanses the room air by destroying unwanted odors and providing long-lasting fragrance, due to its exclusive diffusion system.

By eliminating unpleasant smelling molecules (tobacco, cooking, etc.), LAMPE BERGER cleanses the interior air in your home.

The Lampe Berger comes with simple instructions and is safe to use.
Just add fragrance, then insert the wick/burner, and allow the wick to soak for 20 minutes.
Light the burner for two minutes and extinguish.

After the purifying process occurs (destruction area), the fragrance then disperses into the air.
45 minutes are all that is necessary to fragrance a room of up to 300 square feet.
To stop fragrancing, simply place the cap on.


Next, we went to Votivo. We have been buying their candles for years. Our Favorites are the Tomato Leaf and the Champaca.

Since its inception in 1994, Votivo has built a worldwide reputation for high quality home fragrances and distinctive packaging. Each Votivo product is a culmination of care and commitment to detail. Each candle is hand-crafted. Each tissue is hand-wrapped. Each pewter seal is hand-pressed. Each candle is specially made. At the heart of every Votivo candle is a unique fragrance meticulously formulated and layered to reflect depth, richness, and complexity. Our candles are famous for their ability to quickly fill a room with wonderful fragrances. As one of the original domestically made luxury candle lines, Votivo passionately pursues excellence in the art of candle making.

After that we went through several rows, grabbing Catalog after Catalog. Our plan was to take them Home and search through them over a glass of wine from Tony at B&G Wines in Hillsdale, NY, so that we could decide where to go the next day.

We happened upon an amazing Company called Fringe. They were the sweetest people and we fell in Love with their Product. Vases, Candles, Magnets, Trays, all of which were amazing!



A Collection of beautiful printed glass decorative pieces. Fringe Studios relies on nature for the inspiration for many of its products. Most items come in gift boxes.

This Company has brought an amazing presence to our shop. We can barely keep them on the shelves.

By the end of that first day, I thought I was never going to make it back the next morning. My shoulders were killing me. We had so many catalogs to go through.

Despite being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the Javitz Center and the number of Vendors at the NYIGF, we had a blast! Laughing at each of us complaining about our feet, our shoulders, and the strange mix of people we were shoulder to shoulder with.

That evening over a bottle of wine, we made a plan and for 3 more days we created "Passiflora"! Picking and choosing the things we love, and the things we thought our Friends and Neighbors would love!

Little did we know, this would be the easy part!!

Ken and Kevin Signing Off from Passiflora, Hillsdale in Upstate New York!