New for Spring

First, if you clicked over here from our eBlast, let us apologize for the typo - Sping/Spring, it's all the same. Funny thing is, we caught the error but iContact didn't update the file. Enough excuses, though. Let's just go ahead with the blog entry.

As we mentioned earlier, we've just returned from several weeks of buying trips. Here are just some of the great items we found along the way. Some of already begun to show up in the stores. We have shipments scheduled almost every week until the end of March.

A fun Tangerine shade of Orange is still a big trend for spring. It's been all over the style magazines for the past several months. You'll see it in our store this season, too. We'll be tempering it with soft shades of gray in some areas, but also turning up the heat by throwing in some bright turquoise and aqua from our Italian pottery lines to play against it as well.

Here now are a few of our favorite new additions:

Rustic Pine Tea Boxes

We love these wooden tea shipping boxes. They'll come in several sizes. The labels are printed in both directions so they can be used as tables or, turned over to the open end, planters or umbrella stands. They're made of rustic pine and have metal edges.

Julia Knight Wood Jewels

Our favorite table and serveware designer, Julia Knight, has come up with a whole new look this year. In addition to her wonderful work in metal and enamel she's now working in wood. We're thrilled to introduce "Wood Jewels", a collection she's been working on for more than a year that combines sumptuous hand-carved wood with her signature enamel and results in an elegant, organic original. The collection includes classic salad bowls, serving platters, and smaller pieces as well. Also new from Julia, a royal "Queen Bee"design that will be all the buzz at your next brunch or soiree.

Our friends at Vietri have outdone themselves with a great assortment of new Italian pots and planters for Spring. We love the mixture of tones in the blue, green, and turquoise shades that work so wonderfully here in Laguna Beach. We'll be mixing these with some beautiful grey, cream, and white tones that work right in with the bleached wood look of a rustic French setting. There are some great new terrace pots in the mix as well.  Mix up all the colors to create a classic garden with the brightness of a Provencal Summer or go soft and tonal to evoke the gardens of the English countryside. Vietri’s rustic garden collection is made of terra cotta in Tuscany. Each piece is influenced by the colors and shapes found at old European villas. The glazes have an aged feel to them and embellishments include medallions, cherubs, lions, roping, and emblems that are all influenced by Italian heritage.

Vietri Garden in Blue, Green & Turquoise flanking some new additions to the Terrace line

Next up is a great selection of natural wood chandeliers - equally at home in a funky beach cottage as they are in a dressed up French farmhouse. These are great just as they are, but look for some extra embellishment once they're in the store.

Click here for more details

We have a lot more to share. Keep checking back over the next few weeks for more updates. You can also click here to see new arrivals on our Stephen Frank Garden & Home web site.

Buying trips and special visits

We just returned this evening from a combination of several buying trips. We can't wait to show you some of the great things we have arriving over the next few months but first we have to talk about a special visitor we had while we were at the Home Furnishings/Gift market in Las Vegas earlier this week. Martha Stewart paid us a visit on Tuesday. We can't tell you how sorry we are to have missed her, however our associate David couldn't stop talking about how gracious and lovely she was. Apparently she enjoyed her visit and has posted some wonderful photos of the store. Click here to link to her blog. We've had a lot of inquiries from Martha's loyal readers about the bright pink bowl that's featured in the opening photo of the blog. It's a large classic bowl in raspberry color from Julia Knight's Classic Collection. Julia Knight's pieces are hand cast metal with interiors of crushed mother-of-pearl mixed with enamel. The Classic Collection pieces also feature inlaid mother-of-pearl around the edges. Here's a link to bowl on our web site. (We'll be featuring Julia's new creations on the blog in a few days).

Check back over the next couple of days. We'll be posting lots of photos of all our great new products.