Cote de Texas/Skirted Roundtable

I was thrilled once again to see my lovely rolling cart full of flowers on the Cote de Texas Blog. Joni and her team at the Skirted Roundtable did a feature on giveaways and, I think, dished up some great advice for readers and bloggers about how to run a successful giveaway. The post and audio can be found here:

http://www.skirtedroundtable.blogspot.com/

Here is the cart again; the cart belongs to and was arranged by the lovely Jennifer McColm, who is an ardent Green Advocate and runs many Farmers Markets in the LA area; Jennifer invited me to her exclusive Pacific Palisades market to bookend Elle Magazine last spring, along with her own booth; we've been there ever since; here is the link to Jennifer's site:

http://jennifermccolm.com/web/


and here is her cart again:




The roses came from the Palisades market; there is a man in the area with 5 acres of roses, mostly old roses; he sells pre-arranged bunches, and they are all to die for!!!
Here is the bunch I bought last spring:
The same day of the Elle shoot, we had a demo by Pali High students against plastic bags; here is the Plastic Bag Monster; they went through the market to raise awareness against plastic bags; he was pretty shy about having me take his photo!!

So that's some of the background to the photos.

I have been a follower of Joni's blog for about a year, though I never dared to leave a comment, until Mr. Slipper Socks went out on New Year's Eve. If you follow her blog, you'll understand the humor! I had done one blog giveaway before, with modest results, and wasn't really looking for another. But I LOVE Joni's blog, and I spontaneously offered up that maybe she'd like to do a giveaway of a basket, then I said, no, let's go big, let's give away a rolling cart. It was a way for me to thank her for all her posts I have loved, and I for one know, EVERYONE wants a real French rolling cart, though the price is usually prohibitive.

As I mentioned, Joni is my Oprah of the Blogosphere, and the rolling cart was a perfect fit with the style and authenticity of her blog. It wasn't a matter of "doing a giveaway," for me; it is always good to reach out to a new circle, but it had to be a circle of readers that I knew would be receptive to my quality French products. Joni is all about quality & style, and I am so honored to do the giveaway through her blog. Though I sell in 19 states now nationwide, not everyone gets to those retailers. I sell direct through my website, but of course we are always promoting our business and want to drive new eyes to our sites!

I knew she would do the post sometime soon, so I started to watch more frequently, several times a day. I was floored when I saw her post: as a testament to her thorough nature, Joni posted the most amazing collection of photos and lead-ins to set the stage for the giveaway; she posted not one photo of the cart, but several. Not one photo of a basket, but many. She combed my blog over the past year for the best photos; Joni's rank in the upper echelons of the design blogosphere is well deserved: she blew me away with the detail, research and authenticity of her post. Where did she find that shot of the guy with his dog and cart with matching hankie and scarf??!!

The power of the Blogosphere is amazing! I was thrilled with the response to the giveaway, though frankly, I was sure she would hit 1,000+ based on her weekly stats on eyeballs. I gained a lot of new direct retail orders, as well as a good number of retailers; I don't double up on retailers in any one area, and it was great to fill in on some areas I have wanted to be; my favorite retailer from the giveaway is Olivine in Houston; Helen is now carrying some of our line and she will have the rolling carts in stock soon with lovely liners.

Here is a shot from Palisades, my usual wall of baskets; this is what we will look like this summer!

Many thanks to Joni for hosting the giveaway; I hope we will do it again sometime soon; stay tuned to cotedetexas.blogspot.com!!!