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?