Custom School Sign and Art/App Mash-Ups

I've been working on a welcome sign that will go in my kids' school office!  It will be one of the first things that visitors, parents and students see so we wanted it to fill up the space and have a big impact.  It is 3 ft x 8ft and certainly big!  It could barely be contained within the walls of my studio and required an "extension" to my already huge table!

My husband dropped it off up at the school this morning. This was such a fun project, but I'm glad to get it out of my art room!  I'll show you another picture sometime, once it's hung up in the office!

finished!

Here are a few photos of our artwork that I recently enhanced using the Rhonna Designs iPhone app and instagram.  (Follow us on Instagram for even more app/art mashups and lots of puppy pictures!)

We already shared these on facebook,  but thought you might like to see them here too:

And, just because she's irresistible, here are a few recent pics of Mabel for your viewing pleasure!

Painted Piano

One of the projects we were most anxious to tackle after moving into our new home was painting our old piano!

We only felt confident attempting this because we had gotten the piano for free from a coworker of my husband's who was moving, we knew from our piano tuner that the piano was not an expensive one, and it was not an heirloom.  I don't recommend this project for expensive pianos!

My husband first did some sanding to roughen up the veneer.  He used his paint sprayer and we asked Sherwin Williams for their advice on what kind of paint to use.  They recommended a tough primer and   a semi gloss trim and door paint for the color.

I love how it turned out!

The color is Sherwin Williams "Drizzle" and it's the same color we used on our front door, the panels of our garage door and studio barn doors, and the insets of our dining room ceiling.  Some of the following instagrammed photos make the color appear more green than it really is, but you get the idea!

I've begun adding pops of orange into our blue and grey color scheme, so I found this orange metal vase on clearance at Gordmans!  The "Home" blocks are part of our line, "This Thing Called Family" and can be purchased here.  I recovered the seat cushion with a cool green, blue and grey leopard print upholstery fabric that I was able to get with a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby!

Here are some short videos of the piano painting process:
Here are a few photos of the same "Drizzle" color in other areas of our home.
Garage Doors:

Studio Barn Doors:

Dining Room Ceiling:

Front Door:

If you're interested in even more house, puppy, family and art photos, follow us on Instagram!  Our user name is ThingsWithWings.

We Love a Good Quote

Made this quote using the Rhonna Designs iphone app and Instagram.  The background is a photo I took of a recent art project. The swatch of paint was still drying and the brushstrokes really stood out because it was in that in-between stage and it  just looked so rich, so I snapped a photo!  Now with the instagram editing, it kind of looks like one of those popular chalkboard backgrounds!   I'm sure I'll be using this background again!

You can follow us on instagram here if you're interested!   If you're a puppy lover, you'll get a kick out of all the pics of our new, 7 week old mini goldendoodle, Mabel!  We're all in love with her and she's a good little girl!

Summer Gift Market Time

The Atlanta and Dallas gift markets have ended, but still yet to come is the Denver and Las Vegas markets!

We are not personally attending any markets this summer because we've been hard at work creating for some exciting NEW opportunities for 2014!  We just wrapped up the creating portion and got 2 large boxes in the mail on Monday and boy did it feel gooooood (and a little scary) to send it out into the world!

We hope that retailers are checking out our brand new alphabet collection and ordering our new Christmas line for the upcoming holiday season at the summer markets!  It never ceases to amaze us and we hope we never forget how blessed we are that out of the bazillions of incredible choices that retailers have, they somehow choose us.  We are truly thankful!

It only drives us a teensy bit nuts to see our facebook feeds light up with other people's market photos and stories - so we are always overjoyed when someone takes the time to share photos with us! 

Here are some photos of our "This Thing Called Family" display in Atlanta:

Our new alphabet collection features individual letter tiles, photo frames and words-of-welcome plaques that can be combined to create your own unique message!

Mama Winger's skinny abc's are new! They come in 3 different themes:  home, family and spiritual.

This photo is currently featured on the DEMDACO facebook page!

Here are some more ideas on how our new alphabet program can be used to create a personalized message in your home:

You can find out more about the story behind how this collection came to be by going here.

If YOU are a retailer attending the remaining markets in Denver or Las Vegas, we'd LOVE it if you'd snap a photo of TTCF in the DEMDACO showroom!  You are welcome to upload photos directly to our facebook wall!  Extra brownie points if YOU are in the photo too, because YOU are what has made TTCF a success!  :-)

*Check out Gabby's Gifts online store!  They now carry the letter tiles, word plaques and frames to create your own wall!  

We Love a Good Quote

It's not that anything particularly "trying" is happening around here - but I ran across this quote the other day and loved the wording, so I wrote it down in my quote journal.  

It's fun to fiddle around with the all of the fun photo editing apps for iPhone.  It's like a little creative exercise you can do anywhere! I made myself  a variety of "backgrounds" by snapping pics of different scrapbook paper patterns.  This quote was made by using the new app by Rhonna Designs and Instagram.

Here's what I came up with---

If you love this quote, pin it!

DEMDACO Look Book for Summer Markets!

If you are a retailer heading to any of the summer gift markets this month in Atlanta, Las Vegas or Denver, be sure to check out DEMDACO's latest Look Book video to see what all's new.  We still can't believe we get to be amongst such amazingly talented artists.  Aren't they all amazing?!  It's always a joy to see all of their newest designs!

You can find out more about our new summer alphabet collection for "This Thing Called Family"  from this earlier blog post.

We also have a really fun new Christmas line and a collection of mom rules too that have been a big hit! So be sure to check those out as well!

Happy Fourth Of July!

May all you Wingers out there have a great day full of family, fun and fireworks!

Do you have any Fourth of July traditions beyond the usual?  Please share!

One year I was FORCED to do sparkler dances.  Some of us were more enthusiastic than others....

"Parade of Homes" Art

Right around the time of the Iowa Arts Fest our town also has its annual Parade of Homes.

We have a friend Kimberlee who, along with her husband, is one half of the Design/Builder team of Rocca Custom Homes.  Kimberlee used to own a gift shop/custom framing business where we sold our originals.  Now they're having a blast designing, building and putting their creative and engineering talents to good use in their beautiful homes!

Kimberlee asked Green Girl if she'd be willing to do some special artwork to decorate their parade home. Of course Laura was all over it!

Here's what she came up with:

God's Top Ten aka the Ten Commandments

For the mudroom:

Kids' Bathroom:

You would NOT BELIEVE how many people came up to us at the Iowa Arts Fest and said they'd seen the parade home and loved the artwork!  I have a feeling Laura will be doing some special order versions of these from all of the publicity! We owe Kimberlee a big thanks for the exposure -  talking us up and handing out our business cards!  It was a great opportunity!

What Is It You Want To Do "Someday?!"

We are obsessed with words and quotes - you've probably already figured that out about us.

Here's a great message I just came across and spent a little time making it into a graphic by using the A Beautiful Mess app on my iphone.  So fun to play around with!

I thought I'd start sharing quotes more often with ya'll so today I took some 'background' photos of patterned paper and solid swatches of paint that would make good backgrounds to add layers of words and doodles on top.

Here's my first attempt:

Let me know if you're interested in more details on how I made this on my phone.
For now, enjoy the message!  ....or resent the message if you're a procrastinator like me.

What is it you say you'll do "someday?"

Feel free to pin it!

VBS 2013

This year our church did SonWest Roundup for Vacation Bible School.  That means that we were in charge of coming up with craft projects with a western theme for 300+ kids, ages ranging from 3 and 4 year olds to 6th graders!  The curriculum came with a book of ideas - which is always a great starting point - and from there we searched Pinterest and other online resources to find projects that we thought were unique, "doable" for a large group (both cost- and time-wise) and would last for at least week post VBS and not head immediately into the trash can once making it home!

This year not only was there NOT the usual week in between Iowa Arts Fest and VBS, but me and my family also moved to our new home.  So planning and purchasing was all Green Girl Laura's doing- and I'm so thankful she was willing to do it!

Here are some pics from our prep:

wood biscuits, used in cabinet making

112 Men's Ties, donated from friends near and far!  There were some doozies - one had rhinoceroses on it!

The weekend before VBS was the Iowa Arts Fest - so the week leading up to everything was.....busy.

Mama Winger sacrificed a finger, but kept on working.

felt

Metal Brads

Here's what we did with all those supplies above.

First we made test products.  Wouldn't want to send any faulty mustaches out into the world.
My five year old was our test subject.  The unicorn was all his idea.

Then we made the crafts with the VBS kids.

On Monday we made ten gallon cowboy hats and mustaches with the younger kids.

Pastor Dave sporting a polka dotted 'stache.

We put together popsicle stick harmonicas with the older kids using this tutorial.

My 9 year old testing his harmonica (above) , me (below) leading a group through the steps.

On Wednesday we made snakes, snakes, and then we made some more snakes.

The younger kids made their snakes from wooden biscuits.  God Bless Laura and her hubby, who spent HOURS drilling holes in preparation for this project.

Some kids didn't like how bumpy they were to color on, so I told them it looked like snake scales - problem solved!

The older kids made their snakes from old men's neck ties.  (Thank you to all of you who donated ties for our project!)

We ran a wire inside the lining of the ties to make their snakes bendable!

On Friday we made climbing lizards with the younger kids:

You tape 1 inch pieces of straws and a penny (for weight) to the back,  run your yarn through, and hang over a door knob (or around your neck!)  When you quickly alternate pulling the strings outward, it skitters up the door!

And string art crosses from Oriental Trading with the older ones.  They can't ALL be prep-intensive projects, so these ready-to-go kits were just the ticket!

It was fun to see what designs they created, while others followed the sheet it came with.

We also designed a "color-yourself"photo frame to put everyone's class pictures in.  

Always a fun crazy week!

Thanks to our craft team for all their help, the laughs, and all their hard work!

How about you guys?  Do you and your kids do vacation bible school at your church?

It's always a fun way to kick off the summer and my 5 year old thought it was very unfair when he discovered on the Friday of VBS that it only lasted a week!!!!  So they must have had fun!!!

Iowa Arts Fest 2013

The Iowa Arts Fest was last weekend in our hometown, Iowa City!  It's always a really fun time because there are always tons of old friends and new to visit with!

This year the festival celebrated its 30th anniversary!

Here are some pictures from our booth!

We always prominently display our sign at the front of our tent - it explains that we are a {Crazy} Family of Mixed Media Artists, Sisters and Mom, and the Creators of the DEMDACO line, This Thing Called Family!



We love it when people ask us where our messages come from or what inspires us.  God gave us the opportunity to share our story with complete strangers. We tell them how important faith and family is to us and how we create these pieces with these particular reminders as much for US as for other people.  They are messages that WE need to hear - daily - because we so easily forget or fail short.  We tell them that we believe your home should be a reflection of who you are and perhaps more importantly, who you are becoming.  When people tell us a piece speaks to whatever they're currently going through too, it's always a precious time with these kindred spirits and it never gets old!  

We had one day of sprinkles.  The other two days were GORGEOUS!  On rainy show days, we use one of the sides of the tent as an extension canopy off the back of our space and use pvc pipes that my husband rigged up for us for the legs.  Works pretty slick!