Signs of Spring

By looking outside, you can tell Spring is coming. Actually, the jonquils have come and gone and it's time to mow our yards. We are waiting for our outdoor benches to arrive. They'll look great on the front of the shop along with some pots of flowers. However, the seasons change much more quickly on the inside of our building! Spring has been in high gear for a few weeks now on the inside of Madison Lane.

Here's a closeup of some of our "Signs of Spring".

Wooden Tiles by Karen Deans http://www.woodentiles.com/

Visit Karen's website and read about her artwork. It's another great example of original artwork carried by Madison Lane Interiors.

Glass bell jars are a great way to show-off your little signs of spring. We put some of our chickadees out for spring.

How about some bunny bookends?

Is it Spring at your house?

Original Art

We like to add things to the store that aren't found on every corner and on every shelf. Shoppers like to go out of town to find the unique, but that's not always easy to do. And why should they always feel the need to leave Joplin to find something different. A town this size should be able to offer more than just the "regular fare". That's the reason anything "original" is appealing to Madison Lane. We just purchased several pieces of fused glass to add to the store. All of the jewelry and night lights in the collection are made by an artist in Bentonville, Arkansas. Although she occasionally takes her "show on the road", we convinced her to make some things for the shop.

The jewelry includes necklace/earring sets and a few bracelets.




The night lights can be custom made to match fabrics or the theme of a room. The possibilities are endless. They would be a great addition to baby's room, or add just that extra something to a powder room!

We hope to keep adding to our collection of Original Art.

What about March?

Where did this month go? Well, let me see, there were a couple of busy weeks, Spring Break, a week of catching up, a week of unpacking new things for the store, and now it's the last day of March! Whew, guess I better show some of the new inventory and talk about that.

Remember back in January I posted a couple of pictures from the Chicago Market? Our order finally arrived and we were able to place it in the British Traditions Hutch. The packaging is beautiful and perfect for gift giving. We started with three great scents and are hoping for this to be something we can keep reordering for a long time! The company has a baby line, too.
Here's a link for Michel Design Works:
http://www.michelpublishing.com/home.html
You'll find many more scents are available. We hope to order more of them next time.

There's more new things to talk about, but we'll do that on the next post. It'll include our new candle line and some one-of-a-kind fused glass jewelry.

We are feeling BLUE

It doesn't take very many pieces of colbalt blue to make an impact. Just the small amount of blue glass on the table really stands out, making an otherwise plain setting "pop" with a fresh, spring appeal. Colbalt blue never has gone out of favor. But what is this? Looks like something from the beach, but smells so much better!!

It's our new line of potpourri, and it all smells just as good as it looks. Just a little something we picked up at the Chicago Market last month. We are very happy to report that our customers are loving it as much as we do. The scents are: Green Tea Bamboo, Mango Ginger, Pomegranate, Vanilla Ginger and Ocean Breeze.

The Installation!

Well, check out the "before" a few pages down and see if it looks like the after. It was difficult to get the detail in the picture. The shadow from the folds are hiding the tiny red/tan check fabric that is just below the tassel fringe. The black valance took about 15 minutes to install. The blue valance above this one took about 45 minutes. Each little rosette had to be attached to a post, which had to be attached to a double-ended screw, which had to be predrilled, which then had to be screwed into the perfectly painted trim! Whew, there's not room for error on this little window. Then, by adding little rings to the posts, we were able to hang the valance from drapery hooks! Notice the glass beads in the fringe, they really look good with a little sunlight peeking through the blinds. What you don't see below is the window seat cushion (guess I forgot to take a picture), that is trimmed out in brush fringe. It's the best looking closet interior in town, I'm sure.

We love going to market

We had a great time at the Chicago market. We managed to find many things related to home decor but small enough to set on your coffee table. I was too caught-up in the moment to remember to take all the pictures I had intended, but do have a couple of one display. We did purchase from this showroom, and took a picture so we could remember how to merchandise the product for ourselves! There is a lot to be learned by looking at the displays the vendors have. They pay the pros to help them! We come home and try to copy much of what we see----I call it continuing education.

Traffic patterns

According to the required reading for store owners, you should not have a boring traffic pattern in your shop. We moved our bed to the front window and placed our round table in the middle, making a kind of "round about" walkway. Maybe it will make people want to linger a little longer or take two trips around the store to see everything! We still needed the height we gained with the little chair (originally from a local funeral home, hope that's not bad luck!). The round rug can be shown off much better in this location.

I think every rearrangement will be better than the last. With more inventory being added on a regular basis, we may be doing a lot of redesigning. Maybe eventually we'll have it down to a quick hour or two (in our dreams)!

What is a computer rendering?

r
ouYou've heard about "Before and After", but how about "Before, During, then After"? A computer rendering of a window treatment or a room layout is actually the "During". It is the proposed design. You get to see it before you make a final decision. It is what we are working on "during" the whole process. We have the ability to place window treatments with your fabric choice on YOUR window. It is not necessary for every job---some things are easy to see. However, some ideas just don't make sense to the customer until they can see an example. It helps us determine the proportions and make the treatment we are ALL envisioning!

Keep watching for the "After".