Giveaway #5 is a Doozy!

Giveaway #5 is brought to you by mother Connie, of Creative Works. She's giving away this original mixed media piece that measures 18x22 inches. It retails for $49!!! It uses patterned paper, acrylics, matboard, and wire. It would look especially great on a colored wall.

Anyone out there who has children KNOWS what a "circus" home life can be - why not embrace it?!
Can you believe that our Open House is THIS Saturday?! I know - me either! We're busily working away this week to get ready!

There are at LEAST 2 more giveaways yet to be announced! (Scroll down to see Giveaways 1-4).

So keep checking back!

Getting Ready For the Open House of THE Year:

Here's some stuff I've been working on for the open house:

Open House Giveaways #3 AND #4!!!!

Giveaways 3 and 4 are brought to you by Kami and Lisa of The Dreaming Dragonfly. These two friends create a variety of fun and cute things including photo albums, greeting cards, tutus, aprons, hats, hair bows and lots of hip, girly fashions. (Go look at their Dreamy Dresses - they are adorable!!!) This is the first year they'll be joining us for our open house and we're super excited to have them! And GET THIS: They were generous enough to offer us not one, but TWO great prizes for our open house giveaways! The first one is this Dragonfly Book photo album:

It is cleverly folded and put together to open accordian style:
There are triangular and square panels inside, and the kit comes with directions and the templates to easily insert your own photographs!

Here are some other examples- they sell two different sizes - notice the finished one:

Giveaway #4 is a tutu set that includes a matching long sleeve tee - the winner can pick the appropriate size. The tutu is made from the softest tulle. Fit for any princess and makes a perfect gift for birthdays, photo shoots, or even to play dress up!
Close-up detail of the shirt:

Even if you don't have girls, (like me) I bet you have someone in your life who you need to buy a Christmas gift for.

Remember, the only way you can win any of our fabulous prizes is to come to our Holiday Art Event on December 5th and enter your name in the drawing. If you're local and want an invite, email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com and we'll send you one!

Be sure to scroll down and look at Giveaways #1 and #2!

And don't forget - there are MORE giveaways that have not been announced yet - so check back soon!

Hello Monday!

Just thought I'd throw this guy out there today.

Are you all getting excited about Thanksgiving?! We're excited because the youngest Thing with Winger is coming home on Wednesday! She's bringing one of her best friends along and we love her so much too - so it's going to be a guaranteed, fun and laughter filled 4 days!

Stick around - more open house giveaways will be revealed soon!

Want more info about our open house on Dec 5? Email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com

Giveaway #2 is Announced!

Our friend Jenni will be joining us for our open house Dec 5. This is her first time joining us, so we're all in for a real treat! She will be selling her mixed media artwork and promoting her photography business. The thing I love about Jenni's work is that she uses all kinds of recycled materials. Here's some examples of her work that I love:

You really have to click on the one above to get the full effect!

cards using handmade paper:
And I'm just betting that she hand carved that tree stamp.

Plus she's an amazing photographer. She can even combine digital artistry with her great shots to create these digital templates - I wish I knew how to do this. Just look:
That's one handsome family right there, by the way.

Travel journals using old maps!LOVE that she incorporates sewing elements into her work.

Speaking of sewing elements, because Jenni is a nice person, she's offered to add this cute hand stitched embroidery piece to our list of GIVEAWAYS for the open house! This owl is in a 5x7 wood frame and could only be YOURS if you come put your name in the bowl during our open house Dec 5! (Need an invitation? Email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com.)


Be sure to visit Jenni on her blog Root Me Down and say hi. She's got lots more fun things to look at and will be adding more new stuff soon that will be for sale at our open house. If you're interested in finding out more about her photography business, you can email her at jennilobb@gmail.com.

Come back soon to see Giveaway #3!

The First Open House Giveaway in a Long Line to Come!

Well I suppose by now all of you local people have received your invitations to our Holiday Art Event open house. That means it's time to let you all in on the great prizes we'll be giving away at our Holiday Art Event! In the days to come, we'll be posting information about all of the artists who will be joining us this year, as well as sneak peeks of all of their great giveaways. And let me tell you - this year the prizes are bigger and better and there's more of 'em than ever before! Man, these guys are generous!

I'll start us off today, with a peek at an original Paper Prayers that I'll be giving away. And since you already know as much as I want you to know about me, :-) I won't bore you with any other details.


Any one who's ever had a "not-so-normal" day - and who hasn't? - can appreciate just what a gift a normal day can be. It's a matter of training our hearts to be grateful and thankful - to be able to RECOGNIZE and ACKNOWLEDGE that a normal day is truly a gift from God. If you're like me, and you're not sure if you remember what "normal" even looks like anymore, then just remember it's all relative.

This piece measures 11x24 inches and has a value of $59! And I could totally picture it in YOUR living room. The only way you can win this, along with all the other items we'll soon be featuring, is to come to our open house on Dec 5 and put your name in the fishbowl! We'll be drawing the names at the end of that day. (Winners need not be present to win.)

If you're in the Iowa City area and have not received an invite, email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com for more information.

Be sure to check back soon for the next sneak peek!

Jamie, this post is for you!

Shown in this post are the alphabet artpieces that I have left and available for sale. These first two alphabets are 12 x 16 canvas board and sell for $37 each.

The next 3 are 12 x 12 canvas board and sell for $27 each.

Let me know if you are interested in any of these. Other followers may want one also! Connie

Owl Underpants.

So, my Mom came over the other day, walked through my kitchen, glanced over at some owls I was working on and said, "Are those underpants?" It's true, underpants is all I see now when I look at it. Underpants. With eyeballs. A poll was quickly taken at our house, where it was unanimous in the outcome. My husband was quoted as saying "Yeah, I thought that too, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to get hurt." Now, I must mention that there is a woman in the Des Moines area who now owns "Owl Underpants". And if you're reading this, whoever you are, please don't be offended. Owl Underpants has worked its way into our hearts, here at Things With Wings and actually might go down in history on the list of Things With Wings Memorable Moments. In fact, since it has been the source of much enjoyable conversation it may be the token Greengirl Christmas gift this year. We'll see. You now have two options, Mrs. Des Moines, you can :
A. Stick your Owl Underpants in a closet and hang your head in shame.

OR

B. Hang your underpants with pride!

(We, here are Thing With Wings think you should go with option B!)

(sold)

P.S. Someday, we'll have a discussion about the owl below and it's choice of undergarments. I'm getting uncomfortable just looking at it. But, we'll save that for another time....

(sold)

Beaverdale was Great!

We're back from a great time at the Beaverdale Holiday Boutique in Des Moines!

If you're a new visitor to our blog, we WELCOME you!

Be sure to sign up to "follow our blog," and if you're a facebook user, you can become a "fan" all over in the left hand column! This is an easy way to stay in touch, because we'll be updating you all on where we'll be, when new things are available, and occasional giveaways!

Stay tuned in the next few weeks because we'll be featuring all of our friends who will be joining us for our annual Holiday Art Event open house. They are an amazing group of artists and crafters and we'll be giving you a sneak peek of the giveaways that you could win if you come!!!!!

In the meantime, here are some pictures from our time in Des Moines. Let's start out with some of the new things that my mom made. These are my favorites of her new ones. She only has the circus left, the rest are SOLD!:




Here are some shots of our booth. The spaces are long and narrow, so we always get 2! We're always in the same room: "North Pole 1" - which is normally a kindergarten classroom! :-) Not the best quality pictures, but you get the idea:

Here's an overall view. Notice my brother-in-law "Green Guy's" shoes. He came along as our "muscle." Snort. It was his first time helping us on a show weekend. I hope we didn't scare him off.

Love Birds

{SOLD}

{$45}

Don't you Wish You Lived in One of These?

Here are some houses I'll be bringing with me this weekend:

Let Go and Let God

...or if you're really tired and not paying attention, you scramble your cutouts and glue down the lesser known, but still valid, 'Let God and Let Go."

Here's another little peek of some the new goodies that will be available this weekend at our Beaverdale show. This heart and hands idea has been popular lately. It all started with this piece that I did - which is still available, by the way :-) Several people easily assumed that that piece was just of a heart and hands, when really it's a whole girl holding her heart up. Those are my mad etsy skillz for ya!

(Yes, I just said "skillz" with a 'Z'. I'm nothing if not down with the kidz' lingo theze dayz.) What?....
too much?!

I just reminded myself of the dad in that new tv show Modern Family. It doesn't work so well for him either.

Anyhoo, several people have since requested I do just the hands and heart. So I did some small ones here. Now I'm at it again for another special order! The piece below was a request to use brown, green and purple. The three above will be for sale at Beaverdale!

Getting Ready....

We're busy getting ready for our show in Des Moines this weekend, November 14. If you live in the area, we'd love to see ya! More details about the Beaverdale Holiday Boutique can be seen here (click on it to make it bigger:)
For directions, look for the link over on the left in our sidebar under "Where We'll Be..."

Ornies, Ornies, Everywhere!

A whole bucketload of ornaments are ready for the season! I didn't count them, but I bet I have more than you, Jill! But since it's not a contest, who cares? Hers are much more elaborate than mine, so there's something for everyone. Can you just hardly wait to get your hands on some?!

FYI

All of our artwork that's been at First Assembly in Cedar Rapids will be coming down on Monday morning November 9. If you saw something that you were interested in purchasing, email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com and we'll work something out!
****some of the pieces have already been sold, which will be noted in the post that I've linked to above. Sorry for any confusion.

HOPE

Canvas + paper + paint + old sweaters = This! by Connie