As customers mill about the Twigs gift shop to say goodbye and check out the sales, owner Christi Bounds said she is both happy and sad to know her popular downtown business will be closing soon.

“It’s bittersweet. I’m so looking forward to retirement, but I’m going to miss my store and my customers and this creative outlet,” she said.

For about seven years, Twigs has filled a void in the Vicksburg market, selling “garden gifts” from its 1409 Washington St. location formerly occupied by Sage’s Bootery. Though Bounds opened her store in 2001, she has been in downtown Vicksburg since 1985, when she was co-owner of Cinnamon Tree, another gift shop, with Karen Ruggles.

Bounds was a downtown entrepreneur before and after the city’s $8.2 million renovation.

“When it looked like Baghdad, I was here,” she laughed. That renovation revitalized the area, bringing more shops and restaurants.

But now Twigs’ shelves are increasingly bare as shoppers snap up the remaining wind chimes and other garden goods. Her shop’s departure from the downtown scene is likely to leave a similar void to the one she filled seven years ago.

“They’ll miss the line of merchandise we carry,” said one-year employee Julie Flowers. “We’re known signature-wise for fountains and chimes and birdhouses.”

Bounds said she was astounded by the number of well-wishers and customers stopping by after she put up her sign last Thursday.

“(Monday) was emotional, but today I’ve got on my happy face,” she said.

Though garden gifts have been her speciality, Bounds said the products didn’t mirror a personal interest.

“I have the brownest thumb,” she said. “I am proof that you don’t have to know anything about gardens to sell garden stuff. I had a garden store, but I never sold anything you had to nurture.”

Bounds hasn’t set a date to close Twigs’ doors officially, but once she does, she has big plans.

“I’m moving to the Virgin Islands,” she said. “I have wanted to live on an island for 10 years and now I’ve found one.”

Once there, she plans to take it easy, diving and sailing. She might work in a gift shop, she said, but not own one. “I just want to show up and fluff the shelves and smile at everybody and then go home,” she said. “Everybody tells me I’m kind of high-energy, (but) if you put me around water I’ll calm down.”

“It’s lovely working here,” said Flowers. “I’ll miss opening freight and seeing what’s new; I’ll miss the Christmas rush; I’ll miss doing the window displays.”

Leaving downtown Vicksburg after 23 years may be bittersweet, but Bounds has a few hopes for the continuing improvement.

“Maybe since I did not sell my business, maybe it will be that someone who sells something similar will come. It’s good to have specialty shops.”