Our New Home

Imagine our surprise when we came home from High Point and found our new website live! We're so excited and nervous at the same time. We've got an online store there. Yes, you heard that right, and yes, I am yelling, WE'VE GOT AN ONLINE STORE! We've also got a new home for our blog, so if you are reading by subscription or stream, please make sure you change our URL to http://www.vintagescout.com/blog

Please take a minute and jump over to our new site at www.vintagescout.com and check it out. We've got our portfolio there and a little blurb on getting to know us, as well as our new store and blog.

At that, we bid farewell to Blogger. See you at the new place!

These Little Scouts Went To Market

We're finally home from North Carolina, and barely had a chance to breathe. Here's the last of our market round up and some of our rants and raves about High Point International Home Furnishings Market

Saw this great photograph of Barbie and Ken. The vendor promised to send us more information on the artist. He does a series of these.
 
Awesome reproduction sign will be in the studio this December. Other signs included "Drive In" and an arrow. We are also getting a lit Eiffel Tower.
What a fabulous swing arm lamp. We visited one of our favorite vendors, Visual Comfort, to see what was new. Not disappointed! Make sure to call us for your lighting needs; we've got the best sources!

This was the feel good story of market. A line called "Goods Made Good". Goodwill industries of Wisconsin employing people to make construct ah-maz-ing textiles from mens shirting and suiting that didn't sell at the Goodwill store. We loved it and ordered some pillows for the shop. We know you will love it too!

On to rants and raves: Snaps to the people that put on the market. It was well run and the transportation was timely and dependable. More snaps to the restaurants both in the market and the outlying areas. We had really good meals. And best of all, we met some really great people. It is always fun to network with designers and reps from other parts of the country. OK, now for our rants. Hotels: the consensus is hotels in the area are overpriced and not so great. Just a thought: there are probably several dozen designers who would barter some work for a stay at market. Our other gripe is vendors and reps who think they are just too good for the people they don't recognize. You have no idea who we are and what we might become someday. Yes, we might write smaller orders than some of the "whoody whos"; but that's today. Treat everyone with respect. Seriously, what's the fun of having a blog if you can't jump on the soap box every now and then?

We are looking forward to new merchandise coming in soon! Stop by soon or if you're not in the area, check out our new online shop

Day Two- High Point Market

Another fun, successful day, exploring at market. So far, I think this is my favorite find. Acrylic antlers. Hot, hot, hot!

We had a little mini love affair at Bobo. Check out this dining table. Also available in round.

Planters from reclaimed wood, again from Bobo.

We are racking our brains where we can place this sconce from Bobo. It is amazing.

This is the kind of taxidermy Dana approves of. We love the bull. Once again, Bobo.

We found a great new source for some nice priced chandys and tables. 

We noticed a trend toward deep seating. Seems every new chair or sofa sat a little deep for shorties like us. Hi Edith Ann!

Removable and repositional temporary wallpaper. Perfect for apartments or those of you afraid to commit.

Lots of antiques to look at here. This vintage train seat was really fun.

As soon as we post this, we hop the shuttle for another day of discovery. We come back to the hotel each night completely exhausted, but there is so much to say about the inspiration we draw just from being here. We're excited to get back to the Store and start designing! Stay tuned...

Our Favorite Market Finds- Day One

Woo Hoo, We're at High Point this week, home of the largest home furnishings market. Wanted to share some of the fun things we've seen so far.

We love this stone table in the foreground of this picture. Indoors or out. In the background is a large basket with French stenciling. It would be a great laundry hamper. Think we'll be bringing these back to the shop.

Pretty sure you know about our infatuation with Jonathan Adler. Sink your teeth into this shark. Every week can be Shark Week if you had this.

We saw lots of green. And not wimpy green; good green. Like the color of life green. We might be spending some green on some green.

Here's Dana signing our life away on our new pillow line. Seriously, you will love these linen pillows and poofs. You can design your own with different colors of linen, trim and personalize with a monogram.

There was a chorus of angels singing when I saw this fixture. I believe it may be going over an island in a cabin. True Love!

We both immediately thought of Fifi when we saw this moss installation at Natural Curiosites. One of our favorite vendors we saw yesterday.











Finally, after dinner and drinks at our upholstery vendor, Lee, we headed back to catch our shuttle to the hotel. An oldie but goodie was playing at the concert series, so we got to hear Starship (sans Grace Slick- so does that really count?) They sounded good and we jammed to some "Find Your Way Back" before actually finding our way back to our hotel and collapsing for the night. Stay tuned for more of the Vintage Scout Market Experience.

Meet Our Newest Designers

You've been updated on our new logo and website which we started back in the spring. So here we are, plugging along on these major changes, as well as maintaining our retail store and design jobs. Unexpected in the midst of all this, Jean, one of the original Scouts, got a job offer she couldn't refuse. She broke the news to the other Scouts and although we were desperately sad to see her move, we couldn't help but be ecstatic for her. Next thing you know Dana and Debbie are swamped with reorganizing and thankful at the same time that new and old design clients continue to call. We decided we need help to continue growing. Enter our saving grace: Yoko and Lori.

You all may have heard us mention Yoko before. She was our intern last year and we fell in love with her. Yoko is from Japan and has traveled all over the world in her days as a flight attendant for Japan Airlines. Her worldly view and attention to detail make her a great addition to the Vintage Scout team. She is a recent graduate of design school with fresh ideas and a cheerful disposition.

Lori has been designing independently for 10 years. We approached her since her baby is off to college this year, thinking she may want to do a little more work and we are lucky she was thinking the same thing. Lori has done numerous kitchen renovations among many other projects, so she will fit in perfectly with us since it seems like that's what's happening so often these days at Vintage Scout.

Dana and I were laughing the other day, because as much as the two of us want to be organized at the shop, we are just a bit behind the eight ball and can't get out. Well, Yoko and Lori are super organized and they have already stepped up and jumped in, helping us out tremendously; truly getting initiated at the French Flea Market. It's funny how things work out. These two have taken off as Scouts already have design projects going and are filling in several hours at the Store each week. Stop by and meet them; we know you'll love them as much as we already do.

Look For It

OK, so last we caught up, the Scouts have come up with a new logo and tagline. We still need our new signage, but we decided if we were going to "get fresh", our website was the next place to move. Let me let you in on a little secret about our website: I made it on a program I bought for $50 and you can probably tell. Our blog is hosted by Blogspot, and our online "store" is Etsy. Nothing wrong with those two sites- although I've had my battles with layout on Blogger (can you hear my frustration???) And I adore Etsy- it's addictive and a great resource.

Some of you may remember when Design*Sponge launched their consulting branch. To start out, they gave away two free consultations.

From: Grace Bonney [mailto:consulting@designsponge.com]
Sent: Friday, June 18, 2010 1:56 PM
To: debbie@vintagescout.com
Subject: You've won the Consulting Session!


Hi Debbie,


I'm pleased to inform you that you are the winner of one of the two free Design*Sponge Consulting Sessions.


I can't wait to work with you.


I'll be announcing you as one of the winners to the list later today, but I wanted to let you know that when I say Debbie from Ohio, that yes, I am talking about you.


:)


I'll be emailing you next week to plan and schedule our time together.


Get ready to work!


best,
Grace

Grace and AJ were very organized and professional and had some super advice for me. I HIGHLY recommend contacting them to take your design online presence to the next level- whatever that may be. For us, we're just barely starting out. We're full time interior designers with a retail store. Not a heck of a lot of time for anything else if you know what I mean. I guess that's why we're a full year + forward from that lucky giveaway.

OK, so fast forward and we finally save up enough to contact a local company to help us launch our new site, incorporate lots of D*S Consulting ideas, and an online store. Yes, you heard it right, our online store. We're psyched! But lordy, this process takes time. We were really hoping our new site would be up and running by now, but currently there is an issue with the shopping cart software. Stay tuned for the big debut.

So anyway, that's big reason 2 you haven't seen much of the Scouts online. We have been trying to keep up with quick updates on our Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, so don't miss us there.

Where have those Scouts been?

Well, where do we start? There's been so much going on at Vintage Scout since spring. I guess we should start filling you in and maybe we can get caught back up.

Last Spring, the Scouts decided to freshen up a few things. We felt our signage and logo needed to reflect our style and joie de vive a little better, so we called our girls at Pink Ink Design Group, to help us out. We didn't want to lose our original brand and concept, so we just made a few changes.

Our old logo:

Our new logo:

Our old tagline:

Our new tagline:

What do you think? We felt the old logo and tagline were a little traditional than we were. We're all about the MIX!

There's been so much going on with us, I think I'll share in several posts as not to bore you. We've missed sharing with you out there in the blogosphere. On that note though, yesterday I finally got caught up on reading all my favorite blogs. The Scouts rely on the inspiration and camaraderie of the designers and home enthusiasts who blog to help us stay in touch with our own creativity and what's going on in the design world. So hats off to ya!