PROVENCE EN CŒUR - & Article written ? by " So' files ", October 29, 2025.
Welcome to the PROVENCE en CŒUR website! We are so happy to welcome you. We hope you will have a pleasant time with us. We have done everything to make sure you like it. In designing this site, we wanted it to be user-friendly, intuitive, and enjoyable to explore. We created it with our hearts, a little in our own image and especially in the colors of Provence, just like our logo (also "homemade"!). The lavender purple, the blue sky here... plus, it's different and warmer this way! You will also find shared photos of beautiful landscapes near us, to make you travel, discover our region, and escape for the duration of your visit.
Let us introduce ourselves!
For those who do not yet know us, we are a French family business, created in 2019. We live and work in PROVENCE, in SAINT SATURNIN LES APT, a typical and magnificent village. There are 3 of us across 2 generations, all artisans and passionate about what we do. We hope that this is reflected in our creations! We each have our own know-how, our specialties, and preferred activities, but also several in common, which we enjoy sharing. Passionate about decoration, well-being, nature, lithotherapy (the virtues of stones)... We are, shall we say, versatile and complementary artisans! This allows us to create totally different designs and offer you more choices. We are also very open and curious about new things, which opens up many horizons for us!
We are interested in soooo many things, artistic techniques, old and new, with different materials, textures, small tools and accessories that we love to handle. We are constantly discovering and learning, we also innovate a lot; in short, we have fun while working! As a result, the site is constantly evolving, and we add lots of new products every week! We love to imagine, create day and night... yes, creativity and inspiration have no fixed hours!!!
Our "multi-task" work!
The manufacturing part takes up most of our time, and it's our favorite part of our passionate work! In parallel, it's also us who designed everything entirely, including the complete creation of this site as well as our blog (with our photos, our texts, our ideas...) we managed all by ourselves, like grown-ups! And let's add, to stay up-to-date, without the help of artificial intelligence, because precisely, that goes against our values! We also take care of ordering raw materials, managing stock, and the entire site. The same goes for sales, preparing and packaging parcels, shipping, and of course, the ton of administrative work, as well as a good part of the accounting (yes, it's less fun than manufacturing, but you have to get to it, it's part of the game and there's no choice!).
We often hold themed workshops together (EPOXY resin, canvas painting, pottery, semi-precious stone and fantasy jewelry, macramé... which gives us a hard time! (and yes, I had to!!)).
Among our collections, a large place is devoted to WOOD (original shelves, unique sculptures, paintings, pyrography...). We love making decorations with our NATURE finds (driftwood, shells, sand, ocher, pebbles...).
Resilience
To tell you a little story, not everything came together in a snap of the fingers, far from it! Starting from nothing or almost nothing, without anyone's help, with the strength of our dreams, our values, and our know-how, we managed to build PROVENCE EN CŒUR from A to Z... So yes, like many of us, we encountered numerous and enormous obstacles throughout our journey... we could have abandoned our project 36 times (at least!), but NOTHING stopped us. Yet we really had every reason to give up! Each time we hit a snag, we grumbled loudly, like: "ouch, pffff, grrr..."!!! then we said to ourselves, "okay, another hassle, we're going to struggle, lose time, but there are worse things, we've seen worse, we'll get there anyway!" It hurts a lot, it's unfair, stressful, frustrating, it has caused serious consequences, it's discouraging... but the most important thing is that each time, we all got back up, re-motivated and determined, to keep going and not give up ANYTHING. With hindsight, we realize that we were right, especially since we refused to have done ALL THAT for nothing. Out of the question!!!
We worked hard together, clinging to our goal with all our might... and today, not only are we here, but we're still here, and WE'RE STAYING, because WE'RE TOO GOOD WITH YOU!!! THANK YOU, it's our greatest reward! It almost makes us forget the rest! Now, we are happier, relieved, confident, let's say we deserve it a little, a lot... after all, considering this long, obstacle-strewn road!!! We allow ourselves to feel this way after overcoming all these obstacles for months and years, we have achieved our main goal and we continue our journey.
This has made us stronger and more determined. It has also allowed us to evolve. The result makes us even prouder because despite all the trials, we succeeded, but we had to paddle hard to get there! It goes to show that you shouldn't give up until you've tried EVERYTHING. It proves our strength and determination, to have put all our heart and effort into this beautiful project.
The webmaster's failure
It takes us a lot of time to do everything, but we feel more aligned with ourselves... and who better than the three of us knows our creations?! So it's more logical, and this way, we also have fewer problems! It's crazy, the few times we had to involve a third party, for example a webmaster (since we knew absolutely nothing about setting up a site!), it was a real fiasco. Not only did we have to redo EVERYTHING from scratch, learn to create a complex site in an emergency to catch up due to their mistakes... and on top of that, we took a hit.
This isn't the first time we've been disappointed or taken advantage of, despite our wariness and experience. In the end, we've lost trust in these so-called "specialists" who falsely claim to "be competent and have experience"... only to finally admit that it was too complicated for them!!! This was a huge blow, because if a webmaster (a large group we won't name) feels incapable of creating it, which is the basis of their specialization... then imagine US!!!... even if they eventually admitted their wrongs and apologized, we lost much more than months, with serious technical and financial consequences. For an e-commerce, it's simple: no website = no sales! At least, we were FINALLY able to free ourselves (by denouncing the unfulfilled contract) and unblock the situation to move forward.
In conclusion, we prefer to manage it ourselves; it's very long, but in the end, it's much faster and cheaper! I imagine many understand what I'm talking about, having unfortunately experienced it themselves!
The positive side is having learned new, unexpected things: how to set up an e-commerce site with hundreds of items! At least, if we make a mistake, it's less serious (and logical for beginners!). Let's face it, it's easier to accept and fix our own mistakes than to endure those of professionals paid not to make them! Fortunately, there are many who work diligently and with great professionalism.
The choice of our items and in-store testing
More than 90% of the items on our site are handcrafted by us, then some come from carefully selected local partner artisans who share our values... and finally, we also wanted to offer you products purchased as is, simply resold, to complement our creations and perfect our collections, so that you find what you're looking for, all in one place here! 5 advantages: practical, time-saving, pleasant, and "ECO-nomical"! Indeed, it makes sense to offer you incense, since we make incense holders!!! It saves you from searching elsewhere, avoiding additional costs. The last reason for our choice of items (or the 1st reason!) is that we fell in love with most of them... we operate a lot on feeling.
Before launching the site, we started by selling our products in local stores, at Christmas markets, artisan markets, and the Lavender Festival (...) when there was still space! Since our creations were very popular and we received positive feedback, it convinced us to launch online, a big challenge to make them available throughout FRANCE (mainland only).
Our leitmotif
We attach great importance to promoting originality, uniqueness, personalization (coming soon), and French craftsmanship. We do our utmost to follow this philosophy as often as possible! It is important to us to try and succeed in differentiating ourselves, to bring that "little something extra." We love creating unique objects, imagining that only one person will own it, no one else! Certain materials allow us to do this "more easily," such as resin, through the addition of mica shades and object inclusions. Even if two decorations come from a single mold, it's impossible to perfectly replicate the same colors and inlays (glitter, flowers, stones...) in the same places! With wood, it's even more interesting because each grain, essence, and knot is different, so two shelves of a similar shape will nevertheless remain unique! With our semi-precious stone jewelry, it's the same; each one is naturally different! We love the concept of not finding it anywhere else! Hence the nuance between "looking like" and "seeing all the differences," it's all in the details, generally visually speaking! This gives immense value to each object; the UNIQUE aspect of a decoration is increasingly sought after, as is personalization.
We use several artistic manufacturing techniques, which is a big and diversified job. Some of our creations take hours, even days, for each step to be carried out correctly, not to mention the obvious drying time (paints, varnishes... but also a tree stump that must be stored dry and dried for years before it can be worked and carved...).
Highlighting French craftsmanship
We also plan to create a mini PHOTO STORY to provide more details about certain creations that are more interesting than others. The aim is to show the different stages of production. For a sculpture, for example, the "BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER" is attractive and often incredible! And it's nice, when you have a strong "crush" on an object, to know its story in a few words! Even better if possible to have photos of its evolution! This is a way to highlight our work and especially FRENCH ARTISANSHIP. As artisans, we are very demanding about the quality of our creations; we insist that our finishes are beautiful and meticulous, this is the basic and an absolute priority for artisans!
For those who confuse the two, Art should not be confused with work done on an assembly line in a factory, in 5 minutes by robots, where humans have often almost disappeared! It's simply incomparable. The rendering, finishes, and working methods have nothing to do with each other! Each is entirely respectable, knowing that generally, they will be intended for two different audiences and budgets... which is logical and normal.
Our commitments to environmental protection
Whenever possible, depending on the opportunities that arise, we are very keen to promote recycling. From old olive, oak, or cherry tree stumps from our home, which continue to live by decorating your houses! Passing through beautiful wooden pallets, where we create pieces with an aged, vintage look. We also give a second life to certain objects, packaging... for example, during our manufacturing, we use our empty yogurt pots (cleaned, of course!) for our paint and resin mixtures... we have addresses of stores near us to collect cardboard packaging (only clean and discreet ones) that they discard, even though they are perfect! So we reuse them to protect our stock products and pack some of your parcels... (specified on the box when applicable). It's ecological because it pollutes less and it's more economical for everyone: the store, us, and therefore you! Because of this, it allows you to benefit from free shipping from €59 of purchases, promotions... The best part is that we all win, the planet too!
These are just a few concrete examples of how we contribute to cleaning up and protecting the environment. We aim to do even more and better. Please know that we do this whenever possible and when the objects, materials (...) lend themselves to it! We also often ensure that our decorations are useful, not just "for the pleasure of the eyes" or just to feel good (their primary function). We like an object to also SERVE a purpose, and even better, if possible in several ways! (hence our "3 in 1"... and the fact that we sometimes give you useful tips and unexpected ideas!).
Even if it gives us more preparation work (e.g., pallets, stumps...), it's important to us, especially since it makes sense and has resonated within us for a long time, so we like it!
And then, let's face it, we no longer have a choice but to be aware and react; moreover, we are all concerned; so let's show solidarity: let's act TOGETHER, like a giant cloud of little hummingbirds, and take care of our planet. The smallest gesture is positive, so multiplied by each of us, it can really make all the difference. It is vital for it and for us to act and set a good example, for our children and for all of us.
CONCLUSION
If you haven't noticed already, you'll see that the three of us have a lot of imagination and plenty of ideas! Okay, sometimes too many for my part, my husband and our son often tell me: "Hey, cool, we can't do everything, let's do this first... and then we'll see!"Okay, we'll see!
So much for the history of our family business, our presentation, that of the site and our different collections (and these are just the highlights!!!) We invite you to discover our PROVENCE EN CŒUR website and our hundreds of creations, which we are happy and proud to present to you!
Enjoy your visit and take good care of yourselves!
© So' files
