Oh Paris... My first trip to Paris was in 1999. My mom asked me if I wanted to go and I said "sure." I honestly didn't know anything about Paris nor did I care about it. I always thought of it as just a city in France where the people were stuck up and hated Americans. And then I got there. Instantly I was in love with this magical city. The history, the culture, the people! Yes, I said the people! I love the French. I know that is an unpopular decision among most Americans, but I've always found the majority of the French to be quite charming. Sure there are rude Parisians, but not an different than the rude Texans, New Yorkers, Californians or anyone else for that matter. I've been blessed to visit Paris three times in my life. I've gone each year for the last two years. I had planned to go this summer when an opportunity arose to visit the Masion & Object Interior Design market last week. You see, I've decided to launch a business that deals with importing quality home goods that won't break the bank (or even put much of a dent in it). I traveled to Paris to seek out suppliers and WOW! was I surprised by the pricing of items of extraordinary quality. And the kicker? They aren't made in China, Mexico or India!!

Although I went to Paris for business, I wanted to share with all of you some of my favorite finds. As is usually the case, Europe is about a year ahead of us when it comes to fashion - home fashions being no different. So what follows are the trends I saw and some of my favorite items from the January 2014 Maison & Objet show.

The trends I saw everywhere

Without a doubt there were three prevailing trends I saw in the majority of home furnishing booths. Baskets, bird cages and sea life/animals

Baskets were seen most often as hanging lights although I also ran across quite a few placemats made out of the material:

The other trend I saw everywhere were birdcages. Once reserved for hanging or sitting, the birdcage has also been deconstructed and made into shelving:

And although I don't have many pictures to show it, sea life and animals were big:

The item that kept popping up that really surprised me was hooks! They were everywhere!

I love hooks and wanted to buy all of them up (but I knew the hubs would kill me).

Faux plants were also big, but the difference from what you see at most stores is that a lot of these looked real (I had to touch them to see they were faux):