Feliz Navidad!

How do they celebrate the Holidays in the Southwest???

Santa and his elves do a line-dance to a disco version of Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" song on a busy streetcorner, of course!

(The other version is that this is an 'ancient Native snow dance' - but since we left the snow behind in Seattle, we are hoping for nothing but warm sunshine in San Antonio!) Wishing you all a most Happy, Healthy, and Successful Holiday...

Christmas Eve Eve

On the eve of Christmas Eve, we would like to thank all of our customers and neighbors that have come out to shop and share with us this season. In our unofficial poll of shoppers, we have seen people who are willing to shop around for things that mean something to them.

Fair trade is not so foreign a word this year, and hand-crafts are making a comeback. I love seeing people who are wrapping their presents in re-usable bags and giving local art as gifts. I really believe that if we take the time to shop around for things, we will spend more carefully and buy things we really need or love.

Christmas parties this year have taken on more meaning as people seem to really want to connect with friends and prop up each other in these tough times. This Christmas we want to take time to thank those that open their homes to us.

Last minute tips:
Alternative wrapping is the norm now - newspaper, aluminum foil, and paper shopping bags are all great alternatives.
Can't think of a gift for someone close? Burn a CD of your favorite tunes or songs that remind you of them. Music makes a nice gift that reflects your personality and doesn't involve big boxes and waste.

Counting Down...

It's a week before Christmas.... and all through the store, it's time to freshen and rotate your displays galore!

Take the ornaments off of the decorated trees and put them in baskets, bowls, and on platters to make shopping easier. Leave one or two main trees decorated for effect, but focus on making product accessible.

Restyle some displays by simply removing the holiday merchandise & props. The scene shown above has hot red silk fabric swags and glass ornaments in it. As shown below, taking them out makes the look crisp, clean, and ready for the New Year.

Consolidate lines that have sold down - combine them in a cross-merchandised display according to color, use, or style. And always always give your customers inspiring ideas to recreate at home: Only have six or seven of those glass ball ornaments left? Take them off the slatwall and heap them in a glass bowl on a tabletop. Just one handmade Santa left? Group him with a small tree and a heaping helping of stockings - maybe even display some great candles with them as a suggestion of a last-minute Hostess gift.

Start your markdowns on Holiday-specific merchandise. Decor, gift wrap, cards should all be on sale now to help nudge customers to buy. If you have a huge overstock of an item - a certain ornament, or card pack - you may want to consider giving away one free with a minimum purchase: "Receive a Free Gift with any twenty dollar purchase" works wonders to motivate! Just be sure the gift is commensurate with the minimum purchase requirement. And make sure you start promoting any after-Christmas sales now, so your customers can plan on coming in for them.

And one last thing: clear a space and create a display of NEW product near your entrance. Whether it's a classic line, a new design, something for Spring or home organization items (always hot after the New year!), you want to provide brand spanking new merchandise for your customers to buy with their gift certificates & cards. Don't offer them leftovers!

Photo Credits: Faded Elegance & retreat

Columbia Winery Project (or, 'Wine & Margaritas'!)

What have I been up to lately?

I've just completed the design for the Columbia Winery remodel project. It's been a few months in process, and there is always a cheer and a sigh of relief when I reach the end of a project.

When I design for a client, I create visual concepts...which means, all of the ideas and materials and specifications that are included in the design illustrate what the final product will look like. Drawings, floorplans, perspective views, detail close-ups, color swatches, style sheets, et al combine to present my vision.


I based it on the brand image of the winery, as I do all of my clients, and I also call upon my knowledge of how the staff and guests need to be able to use the facility on a day to day basis. Any other designer could draw up a floorplan or cabinet face, but since I've been working with Columbia for five years developing their brand image through visual persentation, and watching the staff activities each day, I have an advantage that Columbia is benefitting from.
There's a saying that goes 'Form Follows Function' - have you heard that one? It means that design for design's sake isn't always successful. You have to start with the purpose, and move on to the appearance. How much room do they need over here? How many ways can we use that space? Lighting has to be on dimmers for the many ways the rooms are used. It's not just picking a fabric for the chairs (which can take heavy use and hide dirt, like the carpets) and paint for the walls (which is an expression of the colors on the wine labels)!
From the design specs, an architect will develop the floorplan according to codes and such, a contractor will build that into reality, and then the painters and woodworkers and furniture makers and electricians and carpet guys will converge to add the details. And when all is said and done, I'll probably be going in to help arrange the furniture and lamps and flower arrangements and merchandise displays. I love that moment when the drawings spring to life and I can stand in the space in 3-D, and the reality is exactly what I've seen in my head for months.

That point of time is a way off, but for now, I'm done - I hand the binder filled with info and stack of catalogs over tomorrow. Then I can focus on getting ready for a trip to see my new grandson and enjoy Christmas holding sweet baby, and sippin' margaritas on the RiverWalk in San Antonio! (Not at the same time!)

ALL images Copyright 2008/9 DWK, all other use prohibited.

TSM at the WMNF Holiday Bazaar Saturday Dec. 13th

Just a quick note to remind everyone of the WMNF Holiday Bazaar and Record Sale tomorrow in Ybor at the Cuban Club. The weather report is sunny and cool! We will be set up outside with the food vendors and the music. Oh yeah! Live music! Not only do we get to commune with fellow WMNF lovers, we get to to listen some great bands.

According to the radio station's website:
10:00 AM Maggie Council
11:00 AM Juniper
11:40 AM Talk to Mark
12:20 PM Acho Brother
1:00 PM The Human Condition

Come out and support this great radio station, and get your Christmas shopping done in style. Where else can you shop to live music at one of the most beautiful historical buildings in Tampa? If you haven't been in the Cuban Club - do yourself a favor. Get down there. The tile work and those awesome stairway banisters are amazing! There will be tons of great records and books, music equipment, and artists and crafters. We will bring a few pieces of furniture for examples of our stuff, and lots of our fair trade ornaments and gift choices.

Hours are 10 to 5 - See you there!
Charles

It Takes A Village...

I've seen countless retailers create massive village scenes with their Department 56 collectible houses... setups that span a surface the size of a pingpong table or more. And as charming and awe-inspiring as that is, it's not really the best way to inspire customres to buy more. There is a difference in showing the whole collection and in showing how to display it in a home. I don't know too many people who can spare a space or table the size of a pingpong table for the whole season...do you?!

I advocate showing people what to do with their collections. In the case of Department 56, separating it into segments is easy for anyone to do - in a retail display, or in a home.

Every year, my decorating crew and I create the holiday decor in the residence of a Microsoft Executive. The collection of Department 56 buildings is staggering, but it is made charming and inviting by separating it into two parts, and placing it in several places within the formal living room and kitchen. The first part is the old fashioned villages - Dickens, Edwardian, Victorian, etc. You can see a table behind the sofa and two bookshelves beside the fireplace that are filled with the houses set into small vignette scenes.

By using unique props with the villages, it becomes a personal expression. Beautiful wood boxes serve as bases for some of the houses, and the collection of churches sit on old family Bibles. Appropriate! The props also provide variances in levels within the display, making it much more interesting than just a flat row of houses.

Having the pieces that light up the most (conservatories, observatories, etc.) on lower shelves is twofold: the light from them brightens up this dark area, and the triple-shelf arrangement really adds sparkle to the room by bringing interest all the way to the floor.

On top of another bureau, snow-covered boxes lift a few houses up and provide the feeling of perspective. It doesn't take mountains of snow, either - just a little bit covers the boxes and lends a mood.

In the kitchen, we group all of the 'childlike' buildings...

They are shown here near the window. Santa, Rudolph, and loads of candy-themed buildings bring whimsy to the room... appropriate, because candy relates to the kitchen!

I filled some giant vases with red resin beaded garland, topped them with glass platters, and then started stacking the Department 56 houses all over. (This is a bad photo, sorry!) There are also nutcrackers (about ten from her collection of 200!) that have food themes to them, so they are included here.

My client's family can enjoy the collection in several places this way, and it never feels like it's so huge that it's out of control. (Well, except when my crew and I are boxing it all back up and trying to fit it into storage bins!) In a store, you can do the same thing. Show customers how to use these kinds of collectibles in small spaces for those who live in small homes, or with just a few pieces for those who are on a budget. You'll sell more by inspiring long-time collectors to do something new with their village scenes, and new ones to begin!

WHY?

Not an existential question, really, just an observation.

Why is it when we plan and forecast and schedule and deliberate and use deductive reasoning to make decisions, it is almost certain that something will happen by chance or serendipity that is far better than we could have ever imagined???

I had a plan this weekend, yes I did. Lots of work and designing and writing.

Then my son's baby was born two weeks early. Whatever it was that was on my calendar and 'to do' lists was quickly eclipsed by this momentous occasion. Waaaaay better than my plans, believe me!

Back with more design inspiration soon!

Biggest Shopping Weekend of the Year

As the analysts tally their numbers and the big box stores sharpen their pencils, the holiday weekend was kicked off in our neighborhood with a sputter. Luckily I don't have to wonder if this last weekend was the biggest shopping weekend of the year for us. I know without a doubt that there will be better weekends to come. For one thing, we were closed. What? Closed? Didn't I just say this was the biggest shopping weekend of the year? If you weren't one of the many disappointed shoppers that visited us this weekend then let me catch you up. Our building is old. How old, nobody seems to really know that we've talked to. I will concede that old buildings have flaws and can occasionally let you down. That was clear on Friday, when we opened our doors to the flickering lights of an electrical problem. I had to use an extension cord to hook up our computer so that we could make a sale. When customers ask if you paid the light bill, nobody is laughing. Our landlord was incommunicado and the only shining light was our hero the helpful Teco electrician that offered me a flashlight while we diagnosed a nightmare of mixed up wiring. We made it through that in time to salvage the afternoon and have a pretty decent day. We have very patient customers! Then Saturday we arrived at our aging storefront to find a puddle of sorts on the floor... a very smelly puddle. After digging into the wall nearby in search of a source, I came to the realization that the water was coming up from the floor. We had not found a well, but noticed a sloppily patched piece of flooring with pinholes spewing water. My landlord of course did not want to pay weekend rates for a plumber, so I hastily volunteered to pound my way through the floor with a sledgehammer and locate the leak. What I found was some sort of old "soaker" tank according to the plumber that I met on Monday - two days later. I would like to imagine that if Target had a leak, they would have a plumber there about two seconds later, but the little guy is stuck there with a sledgehammer in his hand. Amazingly, no furniture was damaged, as we caught it early and moved everything out of the way. So eventually they fixed it, and now the leak has moved. It is now leaking in the store next door. The plumber will have to come back and dig again! We are still open, but I think we have solved the mystery of why no other businesses could make this spot work. How many mornings do you come in to a smelly puddle on the floor and a landlord that says it is your problem to deal with? Again, thanks for all your patience!

Balance

So. The retail sales forecasts all say less people will be purchasing less goods this Holiday. The news reports that malls are less crowded, and many stores did not sell out of their promotional merchandise on Black Friday for the first time in years. Big Boxes and Mom n' Pops alike are having Going Out of Business Sales and closing the doors. Banks are closing. All kinds of businesses are closing or laying off workers.


And yet, Wall Street has had a few banner days lately. Gas prices are dropping like rain. Ebay and Etsy are reporting an increase in sales. I know several independent shopowners who are seeing marked growth in their sales numbers over last year at this time. Locally, scores of shoppers showed up for late-night and early-morning sales in the cities, and for small-town 'Holiday' weekend events. This dispite a dismal local situation where our largest employers are laying off, or workers are trying to recover from labor strikes.


People are still celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, and other winter holidays. They are still buying gifts and decorations, they are still driving to see family and friends. They still want to create wonderful environments and atmospheres and memories this Holiday season.


SO, at the risk of sounding just a titch peeved, I'm gonna' kick y'all in the BUTTS and say this: For God's Sake, people, put a smile on your face, play some HAPPY Christmas music in your stores, welcome each and every person who walks in your shop with cider and cookies every darn day! Make them happy to be there! Talk to them about their Holiday plans, their Holiday memories, their gift needs - just please oh please oh please, don't regale them with your tales of woe over slow days and how low the register reciepts are!!!


It aint' as bad as the naysayers say it is, folks. So if you get customers coming in your doors, for goodness sake don't ruin the experience for them. They came to browse? Make them feel wonderful and they'll come back to BUY. Never fails. And those regular folks coming in once a week - are you showing them anything NEW? Have you foofed your displays to make them fresh and appealing? Have you made some signs to talk up new or special items?


In short, are you doing everything you can with every moment of your day to convert non-buying bodies in your store to purchasing customers???? If not, stop moanin' already....... it's the independent merchants that are the hot ticket this year. It's all about the unique, the handmade, the artisan, the vintage & antique products. They are looking for your stores and your products - go get them!!!