Potter Royce Yoder will be here Saturday, June 13, from 6-9 pm. He'll be showing a slide show of his work and explaining his technique. Please join us for a fascinating evening's insight into how a studio potter does his work.




As a bonus, we will be serving our wonderful Tea Forte iced tea. Don't miss it!

I'm in the process of an update on the website right now. You can see newly updated slide shows on these two pages:

http://heartofthehome.com/jewelrynew.htm
http://heartofthehome.com/potterynew.htm

I'm also working on a private online site for our good customers. If you're interested in getting access to that site, I suggest you sign up for our mailing list on either of the above pages.

Looking around the shop, I see so many incredible things I'd like to share with you. Our clothing is particularly lovely this year. We have Giselle Shepatin jackets and scarves decorated with coins, ribbons and velvet flowers. They're a funky, artsy look in a weight that's perfect for fall and spring. Heck, with global warming, I've been wearing my fall coat year-round!

Come in and try them on!

Yes, the weather is not particularly nice. It's drizzly here. But the festival is still on. And it's probably easier to park today here in town because of the rain. You should put on a raincoat and wellies, grab your umbrella and come here now. Really.

As I may have noted before, we decided this summer to add several lines of niche perfumes to the store. We brought in four lines, all by American perfumers. One of them, CB I hate perfumes, was on a tv show recently talking about his fragrances. He suggested that people combine them. So, for example, if you like I am a Dandelion, but wanted the dandelion to be in the middle of the forest, you might add Wild Hunt to the mix.

As I thought on this, I pondered other combinations. For example, if you combine In the Library and Burning Leaves, do you get Burning Books? I can see a niche market for that. How about Memory of Kindness and At the Beach in honor of that nice stranger who put suntan lotion on your back at Sandy Hook? Or even Mr Hulot's Holiday taking a detour to the Russian Caravan Tea?

Just a thought...

Here in New Hope, spring is a very busy time. Though we're open year-round, business really starts to ramp up as the weather warms. With the trees in bloom, we need to sweep our walk more often and vacuum the floor more assiduously.

Our deck opened last week, with some really nice new items. We've changed our vision for that part of the store. Now we are showing fewer and finer works out there. I am particularly fond of the iron "totems" for want of a better word with sayings cut into them like "Dancing in the Moonlight" or "Shoot for the moon, if you miss you'll land among the stars". I'm trying to decide what saying I'd like to have specially put on one for my new garden at home, since the artist is happy to do custom work.

In front of the store, our big new insect sculptures are holding court. Made of scrap metal and glass, they are elegant and funky all at once. One has a basket for plants. All three would be great in any yard, large or small. They can be made with security measures if you live in an area where you'd need to lock it up. Definitely a must-see.

Our new jewelry show, Inspired by Nature, got set up today. Cornelia and I worked for a couple of hours reshuffling the other jewelry and making room for it, and it is truly lovely. Unfortunately, we sold a piece before I could snap any pictures, but here you go:









Obviously, it's much nicer in person! Come in soon to admire it.

Yesterday I spent the day in NYC visiting several perfume stores downtown. We're trying to figure out exactly what we want to do with the Niche perfumes we want to bring into the store in the summer. It's very exciting. I was with a group called Sniffapalooza which was about 150 mostly women going into all sorts of great stores.

I took an early train into NYC and headed downtown to Bond No. 9 in Soho. Fantastic store. It's fascinating, really. They basically sell like 30 items in the whole place, and they have at least 1500 square feet of prime real estate to sell it in. Gorgeous space. I highly recommend a visit there. I walked away with a small bottle of West Side and a whole mess of samples.

From there, I joined a few other women and walked to Le Labo where I was treated rudely and then largely ignored by the girl behind the counter. Stupid on their part. We had namebadges on and they knew we were coming, and they just basically blew us off. And we were seriously looking at the most expensive item in their whole store, a kit of single notes so you can train your nose--$520. If they'd paid attention to us in the slightest, they'd have sold three of them (to the others, it was out of my price range). Instead, we walked out annoyed and insulted.

We grouchily stalked the few blocks to Lafco where we were treated like the goddesses we obviously are. They welcomed us, gave us loads of samples and I bought a soap and a very nice candle at an excellent discount. Nice store, but I can get Lafco in New Hope, so it's not that big of a deal to me.

Then it was lunchtime. I sat with a couple of nice 30-something women and a perfumer who I liked very much, The Pink Room. The food was decent (included in the price of the event) but took a long time to come. So we had good conversation instead. Lovely. And mimosas! After lunch, we were meant to go across the street to L'Artisan Parfumeur, but it was tiny and jammed full of people. I stayed for probably 5 minutes listening to the very nice owner talk about his new scent and then left by myself.

Two doors away was a terrific chocolatier, Kee's Chocolates. I was waited on by Kee, himself, a charming man who packed up my dozen truffles (which I had watched being made an hour before--now that's fresh!). He gave me a coconut truffle to sample and then I was off.

I strolled uptown towards our final stop, Aedes de Venustes (I've probably mispelled at least one of these stores' names, sorry). Honestly, we could have just gone to Bond and here and we'd have seen almost exactly the same things. This store was the best. Tons of selection. Charming salespeople who were happy to decant any samples I wanted. Boudoir-like environment. Free bellinis. What's not to like? I bought a sample set of the newest Diptych perfumes and was gifted with a bagfull of samples. I love this! I have so many scents to try now that I probably couldn't reasonably sample them all in a month!

By now, I was getting kind of loopy from all the smells (and maybe the free drinks) so I decided I was done. I hopped a cab up to Penn Station and was back at my car by 5:15. Here are the samples I picked up:



And here are the things I bought:

Don't miss it! The work is all here and waiting to be marked and displayed and let me tell you: It's GORGEOUS. You must find your way in here to see it! It'll be here April 15 to May 15. Don't miss it! I'll post snaps when it's all out and displayed.

It was another busy Tuesday with lots of boxes arriving. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so check out these.

First we have our beautiful handmade belts by Marjorie Baer. This is the best selection we've had in quite some time. We tend to get them in once or twice a year, and they're always different.



Then I unpacked the Them Bugs. Wonderful order including some fabulous butterflies and bugs.



This bug in particular I thought was gorgeous:



Stop in and check them out while the selection is good!

One of the wonderful things I can do with a blog like this is to show you snapshots of things which just came in. Like these wonderful wooden cutting boards, for example:



And in Hearts Afire, our jewelry store, we got a shipment from one of our fabulous jewelers. Here's a taste:

I know, it’s not a news flash, really. But it does get annoying. After telling us the whole week that today was going to be the less-nice day of the weekend, he reversed his opinion this morning, saying it might rain tomorrow and today would be nice. Sigh. If you’re out there somewhere, teetering on the brink of coming to New Hope today, you should do it. It’s not raining. Heck, it’s not even busy here yet. You could probably get a good parking space.

In other news, we’re receiving a new artist’s jewelry today. Lovely, very sculptural work in PMC (precious metal clay). This medium is very nifty. It’s a malleable clay made from reclaimed silver from the photo processing industry. The artist forms it in its clay state and then fires it in a kiln. The firing burns away impurities leaving nearly pure silver behind. Here's a photo:



We also put out some fantastic new candles this morning. They’re eco-friendly, soy based candles. Wonderful scents, too.

Every year, we try to evolve our store a bit. This spring, we’re thinking of adding a new category to our store–fine, niche perfumes. I’ve been researching the topic heavily in the last few weeks, and it’s very fun. I’m going to an event next weekend devoted to perfume and hope to come home laden with samples.

Any favorite lines? I’d love to hear from you. Obviously, we’re looking for smaller perfumers that make very high-quality scents. More when I get back from the event, of course.

It’s a drizzly Friday here in New Hope, and I’m taking the opportunity to spiff up the website. Take a look and feel free to send any comments or suggestions. I’ve added content to the Visit New Hope page, and of course linked out to this new blog.

Maybe I should take a moment and introduce myself, since I’ll probably be the main contributor to this blog. My name is Catalina Castells (friends call me Cat) and I’m one of the owners of Heart of the Home and Hearts Afire in New Hope, PA. We just passed our 14th anniversary, and we’re still going strong here in our beautiful building in the middle of this arty, historic town. I’m the webmaster here, and in charge of the all of the technology in our store. I’m also in charge of the jewelry store, Hearts Afire. I do buying for all departments, but I’m a jewelry specialist. I have a certification as a jewelry professional.

From a personal point of view, I’m a mom of a lovely little girl, a voracious reader of every topic that captures my interest, and I organize events for a non-profit organization in my copious spare time (ha!). I’ll post more in a bit. Time for a lunch break!

Heart of the Home is a store in New Hope, PA, still owned and operated by the founders, mother and daughter team Phyllis and Catalina Castells. First opened in another location on April 1, 1994, the Hearts have operated in their current location, 28 S Main St, since 1996. We carry the work of over 300 American artisans in a home-like setting.