Owl Doorstop WINNER + an EXTRA prize!

 It's time to announce a winner for our owl doorstop!   This was a challenge to tally!  A few of you were having trouble commenting and got an error.  So I added your facebook entries to the end of the line.  We also made sure to be accurate with everyone just getting one entry, since there were a few accidental 2nd entries by people.  Just want to make sure everyone knows that this was done as fairly and accurately as we know how! 

So with out further ado....The random number generator picked number 31!

So the winner of the owl doorstop is Mod Podge Amy!!!!  Congrats Amy!  Amy is going to name her new doorstop Hubbard!!!  Congrats to Hubbard.  We will miss you - may Amy's 3 dogs be kind to you!

And since you facebooked about our giveaway Amy, you also get this little handmade owl plaque thrown in too!!!

ALSO we were SO overwhelmed with your enthusiasm, thoughtfulness, and humorous owl names, so we decided to pick a special EXTRA gift for the owl name that we liked best.  It was HARD to choose - there were so many good ones!  In the short list were Pudge McHooterson, Whodat, Punkie Doodles, and Owlove. 

But, we finally decided on......
 
"Holdadora" by Karina as our winner!  Here's exactly what Karina said,

"He's really cute :) The most brilliant name I think would be " Holdadora" cos that what he does :) You could call it Dora for short:) Think Im tired :)"

Karina, sometimes brilliant things come to us when we're half loopy!  :-)  You've won an owl plaque as well!

Amy and Karina, please email us your mailing addresses!  paperprayers@hotmail.com

THANK you to everyone so MUCH for taking the time to stop in and play along with us!  We will be starting ANOTHER giveaway soon!!!!

*Disappointed you didn't win the doorstop?  Go to the store locator and find a retailer near you that carries This Thing Called Family! 

Name Our Owl Giveaway!!!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.  ANOTHER ONE WILL BE HAPPENING SOON!!!

So what would you name this guy? 

Well, if you win him, you can name him whatever you want!

We're giving away our chunky, hunky Owl Doorstop!

He measures 8 inches high and is made from 100% cotton, weighted with sand and has polyester fiberfill stuffing.  He's built like a tank with a weighted bottom, so he's not going anywhere!  I hope that he doesn't cost a fortune to mail to the winner!  His eyes and beak are stitched on in a way that's really cool and add texture.  He gets along quite well with this crazy bunch from This Thing Called Family.


To enter, listen carefully:


Leave ONE comment - and tell us what you would name this owl.  Your comment will not be visible until we've approved it.  Be sure to leave a way to contact you.


*But WAIT!!!

IF in your ONE comment you ALSO tell us that you facebooked or tweeted about our giveaway, I will personally throw in an extra handmade Things With Wings surprise!!!!  I even promise you you'll love it, or at least really, really like it. 

Remember, only ONE comment per person.  BUT you could also get a lil sumpin'-sumpin' extra for spreading the word about our giveaway!  If you don't feel like sharing the news, or aren't a facebooker or twitter-er (tweeter?) that's OK, you'll still win the doorstop....  You'll just always have to wonder what that extra Things with Wings thing could have been.... 

To make it super quick and easy, cut and paste this, including the link:

Things With Wings is giving away their owl doorstop - just for giving the owl a name!!  Enter here: http://thingswithwingsartjournal.blogspot.com

This is going to be a quick one!  We will choose a winner tomorrow- on Friday, April 29 at 10 pm.

*please understand that due to the weight of this item, this giveaway is open to US residents only please!

Wish Star Winner!

We have a giveaway winner!

The random number generator picked #7 ------Heather --------whose wish was this:

  "I wish I could lose weight without trying! :)"

Don't we all, Heather.  Don't we all....

Email us at paperprayers@hotmail.com to tell us your mailing address!

Congrats, Heather on winning our Wish Plaque!


***You will all DEFINITELY want to come back tomorrow and see what we're giving away next!  We're ready to start the next giveaway!

New Giveaway Today - Make a Wish!

*THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.*

Here's a new giveaway for you!  We're giving away our wish plaque - one of our star ornaments from "This Thing Called Family!"  It is made from wood composite, canvas, and iron wire.  It measures 10" w x 9" h.

To enter, leave a comment here on our blog and make a wish on our star.  Big or Small.  Funny or Serious.  It doesn't have to be anything monumental.  Right now, I wish my three year old would stop trying to get me to smell his blanky.  It's not pleasant.

(Be sure to leave us a way to contact you too!)

{Ya'll know WE aren't wish granters, right?  God isn't a magic genie either, but we do have a God who cares and hears each time we call, and knows our hearts even when we don't have words.}  There is something special about writing a wish down, though.  It focuses our hearts on something we are working toward.  And it'll get you entered into our drawing!

One entry or "wish" per person please.
Your comment will not be immediately visible until we've approved it.


If you want to see all of the other ornaments in our collection, (there are more stars, houses and hearts!) take a peek on Gabby's Gifts.  And if you can't wait to see if you've won and need to buy one NOW, they are all available for purchase there as well!

We will choose a winner Wednesday night, 10 pm CST.

*Tell your friends to come make a wish too!  One simple way you can do this is to copy and paste the following, with the link included, to your blog or facebook:

Make a wish on a star and enter the Things With Wings giveaway!
http://thingswithwingsartjournal.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-giveaway-today-make-wish.html

Happy Easter!

Wishing you all a peaceful Easter weekend!  We are getting ready to have a big Things With Wings family dinner today, complete with a 175 plastic egg hunt outside for our 6 kids to find!  The sun was peeking out earlier, but it's overcast AGAIN now....  It seems spring is taking its time coming! We are celebrating the miracle and wonder of new life in all its many beautiful forms this weekend. It all points toward One Divine Source. "Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time." ~Martin Luther  


We have SO much to be thankful for.  Celebrating Earth Day too: for the earth He so creatively created! And the stars as well - He knows them EACH by name!  This video is amazing.  It was filmed by TSO Photography on Spain's highest mountain between April 4-11, 2011.  The milky way is amazing!  What a beautifully complex, creative and wondrous world God has created!
 


Happy Easter!

We have a Winner!

We have a giveaway winner!  The random number generator picked #30:  Andrea G. who said this:

"So exciting! It is so wonderful how the Lord has blessed you ladies with you talents and how you keep using them to glorify Him and He keeps blessing you and then you keep blessing others. How beautiful!!"

Those are sweet and humbling words.   May we never forget why we're doing this!

 Congrats, Andrea on winning one of our winged ornaments!   Thanks to all who entered - there are going to be a lot more chances coming up!  We will be starting a new giveaway very, very soon!

GIVEAWAY TIME!!! Peace Plaque from "This Thing Called Family"

 THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED! Andrea G is our winner!

We have been overwhelmed and so grateful to God and all of you for the positive response that "This Thing Called Family" is getting from everyone!  DEMDACO is busy trying to keep up with the demand, and retailers are reordering!  We know that it's truly an honor and a privilege that someone would choose to grace their home with TTCF when there are so many excellent choices out there! 

We can't help but want to spread the love to all of YOU who have followed and encouraged us on this journey. Therefore, we are SO excited to be able to bring you lots and LOTS and I mean a LOAD of giveaways in the weeks to come! And they are just going to keep getting bigger and better!!! We're going to have all kinds of pieces from our DEMDACO line - something from all of the different formats - and we're gonna get creative with the giveaways to keep things interesting!

For this first one though, we're going to keep it simple -  just the way we like it!  Here's what we're giving away:  our Peace Plaque from our line "This Thing Called Family."  It's one of three winged house ornaments in our collection.  It is made from wood composite and canvas with an iron wire hanger.  It measures 11.5"w x 7.5" h. You can see the other two houses here and here.

 Here's a close-up of the details:

TO ENTER:

No hoops to jump through!  Just simply leave a comment here on THIS blog post and a way to contact you.  One entry per person.  (Your comment will not be visible until we've approved them, so be sure to just comment once.  Trust us - it's there, you just can't see it yet!)   We will choose a winner on Tuesday night, April 19 at 10pm CST.

This is so exciting!  Who knows WHAT we're going to be giving away next?!  

*Special thanks to DEMDACO for helping us make these giveaways possible!

*If you want to see who carries our line in YOUR area, go visit the store locator and find a retailer near you!!!

A Great Idea....

I just finished this special order for someone and thought I would share what a cute idea it is. She saw some word block signs I had for sale at our Holiday Open House and wanted to duplicate that idea in the above sign. She is going to hang this on her wall and then hang her family photos beneath it. I think I might just steal that idea. I need to go take some family pics, though. I'm terrible! The other day, my mother-in-law reminded me she needs a new family pic as her grandaughter who is 5 is not even in the picture. I politely reminded her that she IS in the picture as I'm 5 months pregnant. I don't think she was buying it. A few years back I had everyone do a painted self portrait and it is still one of my favorite things hanging in our house. That would also look cute hanging under here....oh, wait. This isn't for me, is it.

Before and After

 Canvases from Hobby Lobby.  Plucked from the clearance rack.  10x10, with deep sides! Loud designs, enhanced with gems...so fancy!

Before:  

Gems picked right off!!!

After:

Some closer ups:

I love how they turned out!  I painted right over the existing designs, not bothering to prime first.  That way I could purposely let some of the original patterns and colors show through underneath, which makes the finished artwork much more interesting!  Hard to capture on camera, but it's a really neat effect!

{I still have all 6 of these.  Email me at paperprayers@hotmail.com if you're interested and I can tell you what the sides say!  $45 each.}

Iowa City Retailer to Carry TTCF!

Good news for all you local Iowa City folks!  We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Ben Franklin's first shipment of "This Thing Called Family!"  We hadn't been in there in awhile, so imagine our surprise to find this display!!! Actually Mamma Winger found it and it went a little something like this:  a sign catches her eye. "Announcing Local Artists Make it Big!"  Local artists?!  I wonder who that could be?!  So she went over to see....

Oh!!!  Holy Smokes!  It's us!  :-) 

The display included text from the Gazette article we did, (left)  and the Hoopla article (bottom right) that featured Green Girl and Mamma Winger.  My husband joked around that it was a good thing that my picture wasn't on their poster - I could still live a life of anonymity!  snort.

Ol' Ben even used some of our favorite pics from the DEMDACO catalog:

Be on the lookout for more info about this exciting upcoming event:

Ben Franklin is located in Sycamore Mall, Iowa City and we'll let you all know when their shipment comes in and when the event will take place!  (I wouldn't be at all surprised if there will be some kind of giveaways happening..... you'll want to come!)

A Day at the Daisy!

Last Thursday we had the opportunity to be featured at a great shop we love in Cedar Rapids called The Crazy Daisy!   Heidi Sills (owner) is a vibrant and creative business woman.  She is a joy!

Heidi and Us!

She organized a special Ladies Night to promote "This Thing Called Family" - with food, wine, Itty Bitty Cakes and giveaways!   In addition to selling and signing some pieces from our DEMDACO line, we had a one day only, special trunk show of some of our original pieces.

Leslee and Us!

One of the Iowa DEMDACO sales reps - Leslee - she is so friendly! - was nice enough to come and bring a few pieces from TTCF for giveaways!   It was our first time meeting her in person and we had a great time!











We also had a silent auction of these three pieces -proceeds went to breast cancer awareness:

It was so much fun to see TTCF displayed in such a creative way, along with other lines and products that we love!

we love the apron from Donna Downey's collection!

Here are some pictures of our original pieces that we brought along for the day:

If you've never been to the Crazy Daisy - go.  The Crazy Daisy is a fun upscale consignment boutique consisting of the latest trends in furniture, clothing and household goods. Visit "The Daisy" room - where you will find "This Thing Called Family" - located within the Crazy Daisy building.  It's a boutique of NEW unique merchandise: home decor, gifts and accessories. This place is SO. MUCH. FUN. and combines all of our favorite kind of shopping!

If you like the Crazy Daisy as much as we do, you can vote for it on KCRG's A-List!

Iowa People! This is the Info You've Been Waiting For!

Here's a list our local Demdaco rep was nice enough to put together for us of some retailers in Iowa that carry "This Thing Called Family."  This is NOT a complete list!  We'll be adding more!  If you've spotted our line (in Iowa) and it's not on this list, please let us know!!!

• Among Friends  - Tipton
• Becky's Cards and Gifts - Iowa Falls
• Ben Franklin - Sycamore Mall, Iowa City!  (coming soon)
• Coach house Gifts - Jordan Creek Town Center, Des Moines
•  Country Friends - Burlington
• Crazy Daisy - downtown Cedar Rapids
• Culver's Garden Center - Marion
• Deck the Walls - Merle Hay Mall, Des Moines
• King's Hometown Furniture - Ackley (Coming Soon!)
• Leah's - Parkersburg
• Mainstream Boutique - Valley Junction, Des Moines
• Nook an' Cranny - Lindale Mall, Cedar Rapids
• Peck's Green Thumb Nursery: Cedar Rapids
• Right Frame of Mind - Mt. Vernon
• Schueth Ace - New Hampton and Charles City
• The Wood Cellar - Hampton
• Vintage Iron Co. - Cedar Falls
• Wicker and the Works - Valley Junction, Des Moines