Mother's Day SALE & Ice Cream Social Book Signing

L. to R. La Von (partner/visual manager) Kim (floor manager/Chalk Paint instructor) Renate (clerk) Trisha ( partner/main buyer) Colleen (visual display) Janice (bookkeeper/office manager). Not pictured: Amber (clerk) & Abby (clerk).

Hello Everyone!

Just wanted to stop in and say how much fun we had with all

you our wonderful shoppers at the other night's

Mother's Day SALE

&

Ice Cream Social Book Signing!

The Grandiflora Girls were in full Soda Jerk attire

for the evening ready to serve up the

Grandiflora goodness that you

just can't find anywhere.

(Don't they look so cute?!)

We are so thankful that our employees

are always so willing to play along with

our hair brained costume ideas for

our fun evening events!!

*****

The night was gorgeous!!

Perfect to be

O P E N

 late for an ice cream social!

We dolled the place up with adorable polka dot balloons too!

 

If you didn't know....

Miss Koralee Tiechroeb of Bluebird Notes Blog

&

Where Women Cook Magazine

recently released a wonderful book entitled

"Everything Goes With Ice Cream"

 

We happen to sell this book title at our shop

Grandiflora....and on top of that,

one of our owners

Trisha Brink of Trisha Brink Design Blog

to contributed to the book as well!

Trisha & Koralee

just happen to be blogger buddies & chat often via the internet.

We thought how nice it would be to have

Koralee come and sign her sweet book for not only

our employees...but our shoppers as well! 

Author; Koralee Tiechroeb

Koralee was more than obliging to do so.

We are so excited that she was too! 

 Shoppers were greeted with tickets good to win

door prizes & 30% off coupons to the shop!

Did I mention the whole store was 10% off as well?!

Whoo hoo!

On top of all that,

we served fresh ice cream from the wonderful local dairy

Edaleen Dairy!

There were yummy toppings....

.... including glorious cherries on top to boot!

 

 Oh my stars...my mouth is watering all over again!

So much work went on behind the scenes by our

wonderful employees and family to make this

little dream a reality.

Did I mention you could win more prizes by coming dressed up as your favorite

color of ice cream?

(eg: strawberry = pink, bubblegum = blue, etc...)

But we reserved gift certificates for our 3 top costume contestants.

AND THE WINNERS ARE:

Elise & Brenda for these adorable

ice cream cone costumes!

Thanks so much ladies for making our night!!!

We LOVE when people get into the spirit of things!!!

For heaven's sake; life's too short not to.

And,

here's our cutie pie runner up contestant:

  Congratulations to you too Cory!

A happy winner indeed!

(Stay tuned ladies, we will be contacting you with gift certificate details soon!)

Colleen drawing door prize tickets.

 Many happy folks were blessed by door prizes provided to us

by the Thymes Company.

Rich lotions, candles & other body care products walked out

with very happy customers.

 Our sweet girls behind the counter just kept everything flowing soooooo smoothly.....

Kim & Renate....the ladies who made it all run so smoothly for our customers.

 ...we are so thankful for our wonderful employees and customers alike!

*****

Upstairs we were serving

Strawberry Lemonade. 

Customers were able to leisurely wander around and shop

with their 30% off coupons and 10% storewide discount.  

 We were blessed to meet another one of Koralee's friends:

Authors & Contributors to Everything Goes With Ice Cream; Koralee, Trisha & Carol.

Carol was also a local contributor to Koralee's book!

( She did the ice cream snowballs)

Trisha was able to catch up with Koralee in between signings.

Partner, buyer & contributor Trisha Brink enjoying a good chat with friend & Author Koralee Tiechroeb.

It was a great night all around!

If you were unfortunate enough to have missed it....

make sure you head into the shop and snatch up a copy of the book for yourself!

THERE ARE ONLY A FEW SIGNED COPIES LEFT...

.....SO HURRY IN TODAY!!!

We look forward to serving you with all the new goodies in the shop that

keep arriving everyday!

Cheers to all of you who came, and hope to see you again soon.

Thanks to our employees for a wonderful job again;

we appreciate you!

(Also, a special note of thanks to Emily Visser for the wonderful job with photography! Emily it was a real pleasure for Trisha to be out from behind the lens and enjoy signing books with Koralee!)

*****

But,

most importantly....

a HUGE AMOUNT OF THANKS goes to the lovely

Koralee

for spending time with us at Grandiflora!!!

We wish you all the best

&

maybe even more books to come!?

Cheers!

Trisha Brink (partner/main buyer/contributor) Koralee Tiechroeb (Author) & La Von Vander Werff (partner/visual manager) all enjoying a fun moment before the festivities of the night began.



How Would You Like to Count an Entire Store?

 I'm judging by the look on Colleen's face....she'd really rather be displaying with this candle holder than counting it... wouldn't you?

:)

Oh YES, it's THAT time of the year again...

INVENTORY!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

 One person sits and tallies, while the other gets on hands and knees....

or up on a ladder to count every little thing!

BELIEVE IT!

 Of course, that is why we have inventory reduction sales at the end of December...

the less there is, the less we have to count!

The good news?

We are way ahead of the game by having lots of lovely new items either here already, or on their way to redo the store!

Yippee!!!

:)

So, to recap:

We will be finishing off our inventory today.

Then we will spend the next week putting the store back together while doing maintenance etc.

Some of the girls will be doing nothing but open new products and get them priced and ready to go out on the floor.

Off to market to order even more to keep the flow of product coming too!

We are super excited about how this is all going, and are excited to see what the New Year will bring to

Grandiflora Home and Garden

&

Grandiflora HOME

online as well!

Speaking of which, we are also working diligently to find new products for the online shop.

REMEMBER,

there is often a different selection in the online shop as there is in the physical store.

If you are local, you can choose free in store local pick-up with a 2 day wait

(to allow time for funds transfer and the pulling of merchandise)

We are so excited to offer two ways to shop Grandiflora's Goodness!

Keep us in mind for all your new projects and home decor changes in 2012.

We are happy to serve you in any capacity that we can!

Cheers to the New Year,

may you be richly blessed by all that matters most!

:)

The Grandiflora Girls

Our Progressive Christmas Party Fun

Pictured from left back row: Val (Accounting), Renate (Associate), Kim (Floor Manager), La Von (Partner/Visual Display), Trisha (Partner/Buyer), Jan (Partner), Janice (Office Manager).
Front Row: Abby (Associate), Colleen (Visuals).
A really great crew!

Well it's official...we've already partied for Christmas!

What a wonderful time we had!

First we headed out to Karen's and Abby's adorable homes for appetizers!

(Both Karen and Abby are treasured Grandiflora Shoppers!)

Karen & friend Janice.

Karen has a sweet and cozy home. Don't you just love the tree in the bedroom?

We were also in love with this sweet lighted tree in the bathroom....love those birdies!

Then we tip toed over to her daughter Abby's home for more adorable decor ideas.

We thought the branch over the kitchen sink with ornaments was great!

I love the combination of the vintage windows (below) with the wreaths.

Simple + Cute!

They had the absolute best spiral staircase...I've always dreamed of having one of those!



Colleen is such a cutie pie huh?

We ADORED the Oh Holy Night wording in sparkly letters....

....what a fun night we had there!

They were so gracious to share their homes with us.

But Wait....there's MORE!

From there, we ventured off to Judy's beautiful home!

Stay tuned for more to come.....

Do Not Open Until Christmas???

So do you think it might be glamorous to be a

Grandiflora Girl?

T h i n k   a g a i n !

Well, ok....

let me clarify:

Being a Grandiflora Girl is a wonderful thing:

1. We love what we do.

2. We work with great people, both on the floor and behind the scenes.

3. We get to "play" with beautiful things.....

PLAY????

Hmmmmmmmmm..................

Play you say?

There is one day of the year where you find out who has the grit it takes to

TRULY

be a real life box totin'

rootin' tootin'

Grandi Girl!

THE DAY WE ORGANIZE THE STORAGE UNIT!!!

Christmas Timeline:

1. Order all the decor in January (yes...JANUARY!!!)

2. Start receiving the product between March and May....yep...FOR REALS!

3. Continue receiving & pricing and bringing to the storage unit all summer.

4. SEPTEMBER: ORGANIZE THE STORAGE UNIT.

Truly,

this is an all day affair, and takes NO LESS than 4-5 people to pull it off within one day.

Every box needs to come out, be opened and have a decsision made as to what

"look"

it will fit into....and then packed back up and put into well catagorized groupings.

It's a big job...but must be done in order for us to completely transform

Grandifora

into a veritable winter wonderland

in

OCTOBER!!!

It's so fun to see all the goodies we've almost forgotten about since ordering in January.

Much forward thinking goes into making the decision what to buy and what not to.

If you don't buy early...you won't get the best of the best...

&

Grandiflora aims to please!

So....

Be prepared for one of our best Christmas' yet!

The new looks will inspire you, the traditional looks will comfort you...and the cute looks will make you feel like a child all over again!

We just love Christmas decor!

The good news is, we've completed the task yet again....and we are still smilin'

Whoo Hoo!

Now,

just wait until you see how it will all look in the shop!

Major Holiday overhaul begins mid October and finishes late in the month....

it's a process....

so please be patient with us.

Hope to see you in the shop soon!

:)

Behind the Scenes at Market with the Owners of Grandiflora!

 Oooouuuuuooooooo!!!

If you like bags, jewelry, scarves, & hats...then you're gonna LOVE this post!

We took off last weekend to:

 Seattle!

We love to attend market to hunt down all the latest and coolest new digs.

This time we spent most of one day searching out all the cutest new looks for fall and winter!

We are so lucky to get in and shop for you, our customer in the department which is called

"Cash & Carry"

 You see, most of "Market" consists of going into a showroom & looking through hoards and hoards of candles, home decor, and silks. You spend days and days marking up order forms, sitting in front of computer screens, with tired eyes....and even more tired feet.

THEN,

YOU,

WAIT..............

&

WAIT>>>>>>>SOME>>>>>>MORE!!!

It can take up to 9 months to get orders placed in January!

It makes it kinda hard for folks to understand how things work in the store when they

"....want just one more???"

We try our hardest to keep on top of things, but it's always a bit difficult when a reorder is involved.

HOWEVER...

:)

"Cash and Carry"

is just that:

Pay NOW & GET NOW!

Whoo Hoo!

:)

We LIKE it alot...it's SO refreshing from the norm of order now.....get in 6 months.

 So,

we take a few trusted employees along & start pickin'

We think long and hard about what we need to find.

This trip we had taken hours to look for the perfect new floral bags (see first photo), and a new purse line (come to store to see!).

Then we spent hours shopping for jewelry in all the best finishes & styles.

Scarves are always on the top of the list for us at this time of the year...you should see the cute ones in the store already!

After that we wandered around and decided we needed some

SUPER CUTE HATS!!!

 Here's Janice our Office Manager in a sweet hand knit warmer.

 Kim joined in with Janice....

 ....she was looking quite chic, so....

...we all listened to the owner of the company give us some tutorials to take back for all of you about hats! 

 She was quite the wiz bang with the way hats should compliment your features...and how there is a hat for everyone!

Small head, short hair, big head, long hair, even folks who fight with wearing glasses...

 We found the cutest hat that looked different on everone!

You can scruntch it and tweak it to look good on anyone!

Don't believe me?

See below!

Amazing how two sisters that are SO DIFFERENT....and yet very similar can look real cute in the same hat worn very differently.

( Yep, that's La Von my sister and partner & me Trish looking oh so dashing in our new found fave hat.)

SO,

we are working VERY hard to get all these goodies priced and out for your shopping pleasure.

Please be patient with us as it takes alot of work to do so.

We are still buried in boxes galore from all the new products we are deperately trying to get out everyday.

We hope to see you in soon for all the new discoveries!

Cheers!

:)

Shop til you drop

This last weekend was the Seattle Gift Show and the Grandiflora girls went with you in mind. I got to go along and it was amazing to watch their creative brains at work! They spend countless hours, meeting with reps, looking at catalogs, discussing trends, and trying to figure out exactly what it is our customer will be looking for. They do such a great job at picking out things that will meet the different styles and tastes of all our customers.

Lunchtime and more catalog browsing........

Ordering from a new line of product..............whatever will it be?? You'll have to come check it out soon!

Some of our merchandise is cash and carry so we can bring it right home for you - it was a longggggggg walk back to our hotel!

We have boxes galore waiting to be opened and new items are being put out on the floor hourly right now! We are receiving everything from spring florals, wall prints, & mirrors to jewelry, watches, scarves and purses.

It's amazing how a new pot with a fern and some tulips can brighten up your home on these gray days.

We hope to see you soon and look forward to helping you brighten up your home!