Shopping mania

I didn’t buy anything, but I loved hanging out Wednesday at the "HLGH" booth from Kilgore, Texas, at the Junior League Trends & Traditions Preview Party at Shreveport Convention Center.

Owner Leonor Heynes, who wore an exquisite layered crystal choker, said she makes most of the products herself.

As for booths, I give top honors for elegance to the Hedge Farms of Red Banks, Miss., booth. Owner John Loftin set his candles — cached in heavy stone miniature urns and pots — on a table layered with spring green linen, burlap and deep green silk strips, also layered for the booth’s backdrop. Two silver trumpet-shaped vases filled with formal red gladiola bouquets center the display. When shopping there, you feel as though you are in someone’s home. (It wasn’t available at the show, but, because I have two bois d’arc trees in my yard, I coveted the bois d’arc candles featured prominently on a poster.)

The most fun booth? Oh, hands down, Donna Collins Frog Pond where Harold and Donna Collins of Attalla, Ala., sell hand-carved wooden frogs in the colors of the rainbow — and beyond. And, with a little help from you, they — the frogs — sing. Uh, make that croak.

According to the Collins’ handout, their Musical Frog was invented 400 years ago as a musical percussion instrument, part of the box percussion family.

But one of the hot spots all through the show is "Under Wraps" of Dallas, where Bruce Einsohn peddles raffia and tulle to tie up the wrapping paper packed in boxes.

Best sellers? "No. 1 is the pastel dots and plaids. It is reversible. And leopard. Last year, it was zebra and giraffes," said the affable Einsohn.

Did you go to the party? What was your favorite booth? And why?