"This Thing Called Family" Tour, DEMDACO Showroom, Atlanta Market

We love how "This Thing Called Family" was displayed in the DEMDACO Showroom!  

Can we take you on a little tour?

 What a fun job --  to go shopping for all of the furniture, props, and repurposed items and then arrange them in a way that they become a part of the scene in a fun but not distracting way, and help convey the look and feel of the line. Cory and the team that display the showroom are very talented and creative!  It must take a lot of work to make it all come together!

The "I love us" picture frame (above, bottom right) is one of several new ones - the first time frames have been added to the collection!

And don't you love the old projector screens?! 

The new mom rules looked so great mixed in with everything else! (There's even a "Grandma" rule, they do play by their own set, you know!)

Also new are some small sitting houses. (Above, bottom left.)  The dimension on these are really cool- the bases have a bit of decorative wood trim for "grass" and the words, heart and starburst are bumped out.

 Notice the one "DAD" rule pretty much covers all the bases.

Then there are some laundry and bathroom rule signs too!  The display was quite entertaining - a rotating sign perched in a basket of laundry, and a whole vintage-looking bathroom scene in one of the showroom windows!   Notice the soap flowers?!

Laundry signs:
"It's ok to say your prayers {even if it's in your underwears.}"
and
"Do laundry today (or go naked tomorrow.)"

Bathroom signs:
"Wash your hands.  {Use soap}"
...Because that's not always a given.
and
"You don't have to brush all your teeth (just the ones you want to keep.)"

Here's the new Christmas line!  It's the cutest stuff and even though Christmas just happened, we can't wait to decorate our homes for the 2013 holidays!

Also in the window - this giant green tree-shaped book shelf and a lit wreath displaying ornaments and the 'Believe' garland.  The three trees would look great with the Christmas houses - you could make your own Christmas village!

We're pretty excited about the new nativity and countdown to Christmas calendar!  They're pretty cool - and totally family friendly!  Wall art says, "Meet me under the mistletoe" and "Don't get your tinsel in a tangle."

A Christmas Lazy Susan! And "Fa la la" bird art (which also turned into a similar ornament!)

Christmas houses and lots of ornaments!

The view from the hallway.  We sat in this little outside corner for a meeting and it was kinda fun to peek over and 'spy' on sales executives and retailers as they looked everything over! :-)

Connie, Jill, Laura

So that's what our little corner of the DEMDACO showroom looked like in Atlanta!  Thanks for coming on the tour and indulging us!  Be sure to check out our last post for more market goodness - we met and/or reconnected with some of our favorite DEMDACO artists and we showed off their fabulous collections!  So super proud of them all and glad to see their faces!

Also while at market, we found out that DEMDACO had a full page ad right inside the front cover of Gift & Decorative Home Accessories Magazine that featured TTCF!  (The cover image of the magazine overlaps with a little half-flap cover and our ad was right inside that front flap! A very good place to be!)  This monthly magazine serves retailers and manufacturers in the gift industry and provides industry news, trends, trade show news and product intros.  We are so excited and grateful that DEMDACO has that kind of confidence in our line!

You should start to see the newest TTCF pieces showing up in stores in the next few weeks!  To find a retailer in your area who sells "This Thing Called Family," you can use the store locator on the DEMDACO site by entering our line name and your zip code.  Don't be afraid to ask your favorite gift and home decor shops to order our line, your word of mouth is amazing!

Retailers interested in ordering these new pieces can find out how and who to contact (and see the rest of the line!) by visiting our TTCF page, or the DEMDACO Retailers website.

Atlanta Gift Mart 2013- DEMDACO

We've been back from our trip to the Atlanta Home and Gift Market for a week now!

We are so grateful to all of you shop owners who have an overwhelming amount of choices and decisions to make at market time.  It's amazing and humbling to us that anybody ever chooses "This Thing Called Family" when there are so many talented artists, cool products and awesome companies to choose from.  BIG thank-yous from all three of us Wingers!

Today we're sharing some of our personal highlights.  Later this week: a tour of the "This Thing Called Family" area of the DEMDACO showroom, a closer look at some of the new products joining TTCF, and some more cool displays in the showroom.

We were THRILLED to finally meet Dave Kiersznowski - owner of DEMDACO!  Such a genuine guy!  We just wanted to thank him for everything that this experience has been over the last couple of years, but guess what?  He said, "thank you for choosing DEMDACO!"---- um, Dave?  It was a no brainer!  When DEMDACO comes a knockin' you answer the door!

  

DEMDACO hosted a reception to celebrate and it was so good to spend time here and in the showroom thanking all of the sales executives for all of their hard work.  You can tell that they love their jobs and are passionate about TTCF!  

We gathered for another artist picture - just like last year's!   There are tons more artists in the DEMDACO family than pictured, but we tried to get everybody together who was there.    

It was so fun to hang out with our kindred spirit, Holly of Colorful Devotions (she's in the front with the yellow cardi and her sweet baby belly!) and meet her mama this time!  The more we learn about each other, the more we realize we have some really specific, unusual things in common!  It's a little bit spooky!  Not really, it's more like it's a little bit of the Holy Spirit!  Here's Holly's new Christmas line!

Also in the front with the leopard vest is Caroline of Multiple Blessings - so talented and busy!  She's always such a sweet source of advice and encouragement!  Here's Caroline's line:

Over on the very left front is Sherri Ohler, who we met for the first time - her line, Words to Live By debuted this month!  I mean c'mon, what's not to love about a gal who dyes a stripe of her hair?  Ahem.

 Peeking out behind Sherri in green is Dee whose Demdaco line is called Urban Soul and she also works under Red Letter Words.  We first met her 2 years ago at the Chicago market.  She lives in Michigan but was telling us that this year they're spending half the year in California, working remotely, enjoying being close to the kids' grandparents, homeschooling, and enjoying the beach every day.  How wonderful does that sound?!

Next to Dee in the back is Kelly Rae Roberts who is always her beautiful self- wish we'd gotten to visit longer - just never seemed to be in the same place at the same time!   She has beautiful new bags, a new Christmas collection and a jewelry collection that is just wonderful!

In between Kelly and Caroline is Cori Dantini, who we wanted to meet because we love her work, but only realized afterwards that we were at the same event, and in the SAME GOSH DURN PICTURE, (only us...).  NEXT time for sure!  Her new line is called "Happy the Future" and it will make you happy to see it:

Way in the back (the only one with facial hair!) is Dan Dipaolo.  I am told that when we met him, "it was like you were meeting a rock star!" .... so I guess we must have been drawing attention to ourselves?  Maybe a tad bit loud?!  Hope we didn't make too big a scene!  Anyway, we've known his work since his days at Lang under the line "August Moon."  If you have ever set foot in a Target, you'll recognize his chef collection.  He has a new line with Demdaco called "Around the Block," which we already loved, but had no idea who the artist was.  When we realized it was Dan, there was much shouting and rejoicing in the land (evidently!) and we hadn't even been drinking!  This is all natural, baby.

We just love that this group of artists, new friends and old, continues to feel like a supportive family!  Love celebrating and cheering them on, and hope there will be many more opportunities!

Another great highlight of our trip was meeting Emily of Little E Studio and then introducing her to Holly.

Holly, Laura, Jill, Emily, Connie

Can you tell we were all having just a tad bit of fun?! What smiles! We felt it best to take ourselves out in the hallway so we could be loud and giggly! 

We have been a fan of Emily's work for awhile, since stumbling across her blog.  Since then we've followed her journey as she quit her job, started painting, and got discovered by the head guy at Creative Co-Op who saw one of her originals in a little shop. This last year Emily and Josh lost everything in a house fire, and still have the best attitudes!  We five have some things in common: loving Jesus and entering this licensing world by invitation, not active pursuing. We agree that when God orchestrates the whole thing, it turns out so much easier and better than anything we try to force! We couldn't have imagined all of this if we tried! Which also means we're doing a lot of trusting and learning and growing. We also agree that it also means that when people trying to get licensed ask us for advice, we pretty much got nothin! :-) except just keep doing what you love! :-) Lastly, we agreed that someday we have GOT to get all of our husbands together (we met Matt, Emily's husband) because the banker, accountant,  2 engineers, + machinist would all get along really well too! So glad to have these new friends to share this all with + cheer each other on, now and in the future! I feel a tradition starting! Her new line is huge and doing amazing!

Later this week we'll show you our little area of the showroom, where our new mom rules and Christmas line were displayed so cleverly!  

Did you go to the Atlanta Market?  As a buyer, artist or exhibiter?  What were your highlights?  

Off to Market!

Today we leave for Atlanta!   Woo Hoo!!

We'll be attending the International Gift and Home Furnishings Market to visit the DEMDACO showroom on Thursday and Friday!  We can't wait to connect with retailers and see all of the new "This Thing Called Family!"

We are THRILLED to be able to meet some of the retailers who have made "This Thing Called Family" a success!  You deserve our utmost thanks and appreciation!  If you see us (we'll have some artsy, things-with-wings-decorated lanyards for our badges!) and we're being goofy, or just acting like we don't know what we're supposed to be doing (that happens a lot) please put us out of our misery and introduce yourselves!  We'd love to find out more about your shop, where you're from and what your customers are looking for!

We also hope to run into some of our favorite artsy friends who we met last year- like Holly, Michelle, Caroline, Kelly Rae, Leigh, Jessica, Emily (who we have yet to meet in person, but cannot help admire after watching her lose everything of monetary value this past year in a house fire, but gain the heavenly perspective I so deeply desire) and Cori (another new demdaco artist + friend from cyberworld who we hope to meet in person!)  I'm sure I'm forgetting people....   Some of these gals are DEMDACO artists, some have their OWN (!) showrooms (we've just been long time fans of their work) and some are artists who work with other companies, who we've connected with through Facebook this year and have become their cheerleaders.

It's such an inspiring time - can't wait to plan for the future of TTCF and feed off of the creative energy of so many talented people!

If you'd like to follow our adventure over the next couple of days, join us on our Things With Wings facebook page!  There's bound to be something that happens to us that will either be funny/embarrassing/confusing/slightly disturbing/ or mildly entertaining.  You can pretty much bet you'll either be glad you're not there, blushing for us, laughing at us, smiling with us, or cheering us on.  At least several of those I can almost guarantee.

2013 Is Going to Rock!

Happy New Year from Things With Wings!

2013 is going to rock.

Lots to learn, lots of things to do, lots of love to give and receive.

Don't be afraid of all that God has in store for you.  Embrace it.  Live it to the fullest.

Love to all of you!