Hopscotch Designs

Thanks to Jennifer for adorable photos of her daughter taken by Myra Wike Photography!

Back in the day, we’d head to Vegas for a tradeshow looking a bit like the Clampetts.  Dusty car overflowing with funky “vintage” furniture, suitcases, paint by numbers pictures, plastic storage boxes… you name it.  Everything we could hope to need to create a great vintage funky “room” out of our booth.  And it worked!  Every time, every show, a new fun funky booth exploding with flea market charm…. it looked just like us…. totally, unquestionably “Hopscotch”.  We loved it!

Now that our wonderful reps have the rest of the country covered, the only tradeshow we need/want to do anymore is ENK.  So, it’s off to New York twice a year…. on a plane…. yuck!  How are we expected to create a booth with all the fun, funky, vintage charm that we want our boutique owners to see when they come to visit.  I have to admit, it’s been a struggle.  We’re on show number three in the big apple and, while I think each of the first two booths had their strong points, we haven’t been able to recreate that “we just emptied out our sewing studios of all their flea market finds into this amazing crazy booth” feel.  I’m not certain we will ever get to do that again… without a bigger budget! 

However, this time we may just have found something just as charming if not better… Butterflies!!!  Last Spring we intoduced our Fantasy Dress.  A beautiful girly dress with a collection of handmade butterflies fluttering across it.  This Summer we let those same handmade butterflies lose all over out booth…. amazing!  It’s so girly and over the top that we can’t help but love it!  Let us know what you think.

Inspired by a stroll through the English countryside followed by a dash across a meadow of heather!

Ivy Coat - Autumn

Beatrix Dress - Firefly

Millie Dress - Ruby

Charlotte Dress - Autumn

NY in March…. sounds like fun right?…. I mean, March is Spring, right?  Well, maybe in San Diego but definitely not in NY.   So, we checked the weather, borrowed coats and sweaters from everyone we could think of, packed like we were going for a month (layers, right?) and off we went!

Day One - Set up:  Arrive at the hotel at 7am bleary eyed off the red eye and beg for an “early check-in”.  Luckily they had a room and room service.  A few hours of sleep and it was off to set up for the show.  Our good friend Kelly, a former New Yorker, made the trip with us and arrived to mock us for our lack of enough layering (we just wore jackets not coats!)   After set up, a quick trip to our favorite wine and cheese shops for happy hour supplies and we were back to the hotel.  A good days work!

Day Two - Brooklyn:  The highlight of the trip was our day in Brooklyn.  We took the subway over (Kelly’s mom, Linda, lives in Williamsburg) and headed on foot to meet Kelly and Linda.  We were good girls and had on t-shirts, long sleeve shirt, sweaters, coats, scarves, gloves,…. and it was 70 degrees and beautiful… last time we listed to Kelly!  Once we had “un-layered” we headed to Kelly’s favorite vintage shop and spent 2 hours trying on every sweater and jackets we could and making out like bandits… 7 sweaters for $40!!!!  Then it was on to the Brooklyn Flea Market which is held in the old Williamsburg Savings Bank.  A beautiful building and a great Flea Market. 

Day 3 - Rain:  The show begins!  Good to be back in NY and see all of our East Coast boutiques.  The only glitch comes when we head out for the evening and it’s pouring and we, of course, never even considered packing an umbrella!  Drenched in moments, we hop in a taxi, smelling like wet livestock in our wool coats and head the the Eatery for dinner.  Mac and Cheese with shoe string french fries and “would you like to add a topping of maple bacon to that miss?”  “YES!”  who says no to that?  …. and a slab of meatloaf, topped with white cheddar fondue, buttermilk mashed potatos and crowned with beer batter onion rings… OMG!! 

So, it’s back to NY in July/August and I can’t wait to discover the next great shopping find, restaurant, neighborhood, bar, …..????

Hi All,

We are without our favorite lifestyle photographer… she left us for the big state of Texas.  We’re hoping we can find someone locally to work with us.  We were always able to work out some sort of trade with her.  We would love to find someone locally who loves our stuff enough to do something similar with payment in trade or partial trade.  Ideally we do two photo shoots a year.  If you yourself or anyone you know would be interested, please have them contact Michele via email at hopscotchdesigns@yahoo.com

Thanks for getting the word out! — Michele

We’ve fallen in love with NY!  The West Village, Bryant Park, the food, walking for miles, the people, the food, the food, ….  Luckily, it looks like we get to go back twice a year for ENK (a wholesale trade show.)   Here’s our booth -

ENK Booth - March 2011

Our first trip last August was amazing…  We spent an entire day wandering from the Meat Packing district, up and along the highline (www.thehighline.org- if you’re headed to NY, don’t miss it!), over to Greenwich Village and then to our NY home away from home - Bleecker St in the West Village.  We must’ve hit 4 street fairs along the way and taken at least that many food breaks.  Found amazing necklaces for birthday presents for all my sis-in-laws… and one for me!  Cute t-shirts for the kids and hubbys.  Amazing tacos and guacamole at Mercadito Grove… who knew we could get delicious guacamole in NY?  Good thing, since Jenn and I can’t survive a whole week without good Mexican food!  Yummy dinner with great atmosphere at August.  The perfect day! 

The next day - the show was great!  Hopscotch loves NY and it looks like NY loves us right back!

Check back for news on the March trip… rain, vintage treasures and, of course, more food!

Thank you all for sharing your great candids!  Keep ‘em coming and receive a $25 gift certificate as a thank you.  (See below for details.)

Happy 8th Anniversary . . . to Us ! ! !

To Celebrate We’re Giving Away 50 $25 Gift Certificates.

Just send us a photo of your cutie pie in their favorite Hopscotch
Designs creation and we’ll post them on the website and send you a
$25 Gift Certificate.

Gift Certificates available to the first 50 people who email a photo
of their child wearing a Hopscotch Designs creation to
hopscotchdesigns@yahoo.com  through May 31, 2010.

One certificate per household.

Sending a photo authorizes Hopscotch Designs to post the photo in the
blog section of the website. Gift certificates valid 6/1/10 - 6/30/10.

Too Cute In Her Charlotte Dress!

Send us photos of your cutie pies in their favorite Hopscotch Designs creations and we’ll post them here.

Yeah!

The Jane Dress in Cranberry for Fall 2010

My 9 year old daughter Gracie is a girl of many talents… or maybe just interests….  She loves horseback riding, painting - really art of any kind, soccer, reading, dancing, making up songs …. the list goes on and on.  A few of these interests she does seem to have a talent for.  One of those is art.  When she grows up she wants to be an artist and art teacher who rides horses on the weekends.  So, this summer she asked if she could teach some art classes for her friends… she thinks one a week would be good… hmmmmm… I think one period…. we settle on two and invite 20 of her closest friends. 

We just had the second class and it turned out great!  Birdhouse painting 101 was a huge success.  You should gather all your kids and their friends and go for it.  Seriously, Michaels has these adorable little wooden birdhouses for $1 each!  Look how cute they turned out!

In fact I tried to keep them all… but the kids wanted to take home their works of art.  So, I’m off to Michaels to buy a couple dozen more so my back fence can always look this cute!