New Christmas Cards and a HUGE Giveaway!

 Introducing, our new Christmas Card Set with Dayspring!

It's simple and adorable.  Which makes it pretty much irresistible!

Take a look:

available exclusively here and on sale!

It's hard to tell, but there is just a bit of gold foil detail in baby Jesus' crown and in the star and letter patterns.  It looks awesome with the blue night background!

personalization available too!

Speaking of simple, today we're over on Dayspring's blog for women, (In)courage, talking about ways to regain joy and focus during the busy Christmas season by having a "Pared-Down Christmas."  We're also sharing an inside look at the design choices behind our new Christmas nativity.

*Dayspring is generously hosting a giveaway on their (In)courage site! They're giving away FIVE sets of our new Christmas cards to five different winners, along with a Christmas item from "This Thing Called Family" of your choice!

Did you see our post on (In)courage from last week?   We shared why we create art and how we got started with DEMDACO!

Dayspring is still offering 25% off your entire Christmas order using the code INCHRISTMAS25, through 11/15.

Do NOT enter here, go now to this post on (In)courage to enter!

Thanks, Dayspring!

We Love a Good Quote

(in)courage

Are you familiar with Dayspring?  They are a leading Christian greeting card company who have a heart for connecting people with the heart of God through messages of hope and encouragement every day, everywhere.  We feel blessed that they love our line, "This Thing Called Family!"

How about (in)courage?  - Dayspring's blog and marketplace for the hearts of women?  It' has also become a meeting and connecting place - with community groups, book clubs and conferences!  It's grown so much!

Today we have the honor of sharing our story over on (in)courage!!!  So exciting!  You will learn about how we got our start with DEMDACO which is a God story you'll want to read!

All this month Dayspring is offering 25% off of our Christmas collection with this code: INCHRISTMAS25

Head on over and check it out!

photo courtesy of Dayspring

We Love a A Good Quote

Custom Classroom Art

A while back Laura made a few pieces for a teacher friend to hang in her classroom.  They turned out great, don't you think?

Teachers have one of THE most important and hardest jobs in the world!  I was reminded of this last week when I went to my first time of volunteering in my kindergartener's class.   Man, those kids are busy and so much more is expected of them academically than when WE were in kindergarten!  I was super impressed by how his teacher has everything organized so that they can work independently, quietly and the whole time! (their 3 rules of workboard time.)  ....and they do it!   It's so fun to see my 6 year old excited about learning and starting to read.  It's really a magical time that sets the stage for his entire academic career!

The ABC's and XYZ's

We love our new alphabet collection for "This Thing Called Family" because it's so versatile and personalize-able  - is that a word?

In case you were curious about what each of the individual letters look like, here you go:

There are also a few key words available to help you create just the right message for your home.

We love the idea of creating a focal point - a unique wall in your home that can be a conversation piece that tells a story, welcomes guests, or portrays who you are and what you value most. You can go a step further to personalize the wall by adding photos of the important people in your life with these frames that coordinate:

There are shelves in 2 sizes if you're interested in creating a "mantle" or a more linear grouping:

3ft shelf

2 ft shelf

Here are a few more examples of how you could use these pieces to create something awesome:

If you're interested in learning more about the inspiration behind this collection (involving Green Girl's unique welcome wall in her own home!) go check out this earlier post.  It's our goal with DEMDACO to create products that are meaningful and that help families to connect - so this collection is super dear to our hearts!

If you want to build a message for your home,  head over to Gabby's Gifts online store or Clevershoppers.com.  They both have just about everything you need and are great to work with.

If you've already created a special wall in your home using our alphabet program, we'd love to see it!!! We want to feature you in a future blog post!  Send photo(s) and a short description of the meaning behind your message to me, Jill, at paperprayers@hotmail.com

We Love a Good Quote and Instagram

Here are some recent instagram favs:

Washi tape is perfect to combine with brown kraft paper to wrap art that's getting mailed!

posted on Sept 11.

A special order Laura did for a teacher friend to hang in her classroom!

ok, this isn't from Instagram, NOR is it a quote.  But it IS major cuteness. Mabel, after a bath.)

Love this quote.

Artapalooza 2013

ARTapalooza in Cedar Falls was hot, hot, HOT this year!  Fortunately it has cooled down around here since then.  It is FINALLY starting to feel a bit like fall!  

But man, oh man was it hot.  At ARTapalooza we sold our original, handmade, one of a kind pieces.  Here are some photos of what our displays looked like:

Here are a few fun new pieces from Mama Winger:

kid-sized chair

We adopted this katydid as Green Girl's new mascot.  He entertained us (and scared a few unsuspecting customers) as he travelled all the way around our booth.

Our local DEMDACO rep, Leslie kindly brought us some Look Books to show people what else we do!
When people ask us if we have our own store in Iowa City, we always tell them about "This Thing Called Family" so it's nice to have the visuals!

We always hang up this sign too at the front of our booth:

Our katydid friend travelled over to our table and kept the birds company:

We were blessed with a visit from Emily whose story continues to blow us away.  We wrote about her wait for a heart and lung transplant and the art she bought to put in her hospital room while she waited here. And we celebrated and gave thanks to God here when she updated us that she'd gotten her transplant! Last year she stopped in at ARTapalooza again, almost a year after her transplant, to buy something for her hospital neighbor who was still waiting.  See what she bought her friend here.  Now it's been 2 years since her heart and lung transplant, and Emily stopped in just to tell us she's doing great!  Yay!  It was great to see her face!

How about you?  Did you make it to ARTapalooza?  What did you buy?!

We'd LOVE to see your new Things With Wings art in your home ---- you are always welcome to upload photos to our facebook wall!     It would make our day!!!

September Sale Today on Facebook!

That's right!

We're making room for new creations and having an online sale today!

Join us on our Things With Wings Facebook Page
-  we'll be adding one of a kind originals to our "September Sale" album all day long today!

The first installment is up now!

Good news for all of you far away folks who can't attend a show!

We Love a Good Quote, Mabel, School, and an Upcoming Art Festival!

Hello Beautiful People!

Here's a recent "We Love a Good Quote" for you:

This idea has been showing up in a lot of my artwork lately(as you can tell!)  

Did you enjoy your Labor Day?  The boys worked and played in the yard,  I painted, we opened our windows (gorgeous weather!) made pizzas to eat out on the deck and got the kids ready for another week of school.  Very relaxing!  What did you do?

Yes, school is back in full swing!  My youngest started kindergarten!  Which means it's now very quiet around here during the day,  just me and Mabel!

My kids were (mostly) excited to go back to school - by the end of summer they're bored and ready!

We LOVED hearing that a special young lady we know brought along this little piece of reassurance (made by Mama Winger) in her pocket for the first day of school:

Last week we had early 1pm dismissals EVERY single day, due to the heat.  It was brutal. Yesterday and today we're enjoying more fall like temps with highs in the 70's ---- it's absolutely GORGEOUS! Yay!  But I guess it's supposed to get hot again. Booo!   We're hoping for fall whether on Saturday because we'll be doing this festival outdoors, in downtown Cedar Falls:

Click here for more info!

*FYI, we are NOT going to be at Riverssance this year in Davenport, so this is our one and only fall show!

Remember the welcome sign we made for my kids' school?  The other day when I was in the school office, I snapped a few more photos of what it looks like now that it's hung up!

Mama Winger has been hard at work on a huge school project too!  Remember this teaser that she gave us on facebook?

She made a very looooong sign for our church preschool's new outdoor music area.  Now the kids can bang on the pots and pans with different spoons and whisks to discover the different sounds they can make!  It's like they've got their own mini Stomp!