Anatomy of a Shop Window

Visitors often ask us, "Where do your window ideas come from?" It's a question that gets us thinking—where do those ideas really spark from? The truth is, they can pop up at any time, whether it's during late-night musings, team brainstorming sessions, or just finding inspiration in everyday moments. We have a pretty cute subject to work with – dogs and cats – so coming up with ideas to show them being “scalawags” is a lot of fun.

Our storefront window means a lot to us. It's a sneak peek at the playful side of our pet boutique and helps us connect with our community. Kennebunkport is a tourist destination and many of our visitors are first timers. We want to make a great first impression so they will come back and tell their friends. We aren't professional window decorators but that's okay. We just want to make people smile and laugh.

Window Template & Inspiration Board for Holiday 2023 Window

 Designing the windows is a process and after many down-to-the-wire moments, we have learned to start planning early! Once a theme has been selected, it’s time to create an inspiration board to communicate the direction to the whole team. Thanks to our former store manager, Daly, we have an awesome window template complete with measurements. This is extremely handy when creating our inspiration board and sourcing props to make sure they fit within the window’s footprint and are proportional.

The fun part? Finding props! Luckily, we are close to a flea market that's open almost all year and lots of thrift shops and antique malls. While we're hunting for props, we always keep an eye out for things that might inspire future window designs. Like this cute $10 red wooden rocking horse we found at Goodwill. We didn’t need it right away, but we knew it was an awesome bark-gain and would be perfect for a holiday display someday.

Goodwill Find & Future Window Prop 

These days, we also scout for things online, like on Facebook Marketplace. Recently we found the 21 holiday wreaths currently hanging in our window and in the shop. They were originally priced at $75 for the lot, but when the seller found out where they were going to be used, she graciously gave them to us for free! (Thank you, Lee Ann!)

Of course, after 17 years of window decorating, we have accumulated a lot of items over the years which we frequently repurpose for a new window theme. Our location on the coast of Maine means nautical props such as lobster pots, buoys, seashells, and boats are always in season, so we have quite a “collection” of Maine-themed props.

Once we have collected everything we need, it’s installation time. This usually takes multiple team members to take down the old display, clean up, and put up the new one. It always ends up being trickier and taking longer than we thought but seeing the final display makes all the hard work worth it.

Team Scalawags Hard at Work 

We hope you continue to enjoy our windows as much as we enjoy creating them. As always, thank you for supporting our business and we can't wait to see you the next time you are in Kennebunkport!