Winner of our Beautiful Mendala Giveaway

Congratulations to the winner of our Mendala Giveaway -- Annie the Nanny!  We thank you all for participating and look forward to offering more giveaways in 2010.

As for a few updates:

We are happy to report that Adonna's surgery went well, but was certainly significant.  She now has a plate and 10 screws in her upper arm.  Recovery is slow - we rejoiced over her ability to tie her shoes the other day by herself. And sleep is very difficult - so your continued prayers are appreciated. 

Business has been booming and for that we are incredibly thankful!  Our windows with our vinyl graphics have been a big success this Fall.  They are a great reuse for our old windows and make such a dramatic statement.  The color of the wall shows through the glass and a 3-dimensional affect is created with the shadow of the lettering.  BEAUTIFUL and so much fun to create!

Enter to win -- Beautiful Mendala Giveaway!!!

Become a follower of our blog and you will have a chance to win this beautiful leaf mendala.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32404567

 Don't worry, becoming a follower of our blog will not add to your e-mails or spam.  It simply helps us with our numbers and awareness with marketing.

The drawing for the winner will take place after 9 pm. on Dec. 17th, and the decal will be shipped out in time for Christmas.  This would be a wonderful Christmas gift or great addition anywhere in your home.  Thanks!  -Jan and Adonna

A big "THANK YOU"!

We want to extend a big thank you to all of you who came to see us at the Ladue Chapel Holiday Mart.  It was a huge success and so much fun to see so many repeat customers and meet new ones.  Interacting with you all is truly one of the greatest rewards of our creating.

Final show of the season

We have one final show of the season this Thursday and Friday:

Ladue Chapel Nursery School Holiday Mart
9450 Clayton Road, St. Louis, 63124
Thursday, Dec. 3 from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
Friday, Dec 4 from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Inventory is moving quickly, so we will not be having a Holiday show at Jan's home this year. We are working hard to create more. Our website is not updated at this time with the new inventory, so the Holiday Mart will be the first viewing and best opportunity to buy.

We hope to see some of you this week.

Thanks again for all your support and business.

Surgery Day

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33003633

Our thoughts and prayers are with Adonna today as she has surgery on her arm.  She has quite the recovery ahead of her and we wish for it to be trouble-free and speedy. 

Good News/Bad News

We will start with the good news:   Adonna and I had so much fun creating while she was in town again. We worked non-stop and into the wee hours of the night.  It is a good thing, too, because the John Burrough's show was a huge success! We are glad we had so many new creations to share, and it was rewarding to see so many of them quickly snatched up!  

Now for the bad news:  Saturday morning, as we were taking out the last box before heading off to the show, Adonna fell off our stairs and broke her arm.  CRAZY and soooo awful!  My husband came to the rescue and took Adonna to the hospital while I had to go and run the show by myself.  

Saturday night I came home so thrilled for the business and so sad for Adonna.

The doctors here said she would need to see an orthopedic surgeon within the week back home and gave her pain killers and wrapped her arm in a sling.  

She went home early Sat. morning (complete with wheel chair assistance) and will meet with a orthopedic surgeon tomorrow morning.  Please say a prayer for her and her recovery.  Certainly not the way we would have liked our week to end.

We're thankful this holiday week to take a break and have Adonna rest, and we are thankful for our customers whose appreciation for our work remind us why we love what we do.

Back together again!

Adonna and her suitcase and purse packed full of old tiles flew in from Spokane on Monday for a week of creating!  This means burning the candle at both ends, laughter to the point of tears, and double the creations.   Here are some of the results from the wonderful tiles she flew in (and yes, she did have to explain herself to security):

Be sure to come see us at one of our upcoming shows to capitalize on some of these great one-of-a-kind gift ideas. 

John Burroughs Unique Boutique

Sat., Nov. 21 & Sun., Nov. 22, 2009

10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

755 S. Price Road, St. Louis, 63124

$5 admission fee

Ladue Chapel Nursery School Holiday Mart

9450 Clayton Road, St. Louis, 63124

Thursday, Dec. 3 from 9 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Friday, Dec  4 from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.

WINNER OF OUR "WHEN LIFE GOES BANANAS..." CONTEST

Thanks to everyone who participated in our first giveaway! It was fun to read the different outlets we all have for life's frustrations. I must say, that our cutter drama continued well into last week, but on the bright side, when it is all said and done,  Adonna will now have a cutter in Spokane as well.

You will also be happy to know that I quickly resorted to CREATING as my next frustration outlet. It was incredibly therapeutic creating new merchandise for our upcoming shows with our vintage materials! Here are a few results:

Ok, but without further delay.... The winner of the adorable monkey face wall graphic is Jamie from Savings in Style!   Congratulations!

Again, thanks to everyone for participating and keep following as we will have more giveaways soon to come!

Monkey Face/When life goes bananas...Contest

I have found myself in the midst of a very frustrating technical problem with our vinyl cutter. The cutter went out last Thurs. while cutting a wholesale order. Two overnight shipments, a motherboard, a power supply, and a power switch later, we now find ourselves awaiting yet another motherboard overnight shipment! I have seen parts to our cutter and learned things about the cutter I really never cared to know. Needless to say, frustrating! And all I can do is wait yet another day while orders sit and accumulate. So, feeling the need to distract myself, I was thinking through good frustration outlets. Eliminating several unproductive options and noting another cold, rainy day, I decided to put in some music and bake cookies. It's called chocolate-chip-cookie therapy!

Tell us your healthy-frustration-outlet suggestion and we will put your name in a drawing to receive a cute little monkey face graphic in honor of the inevitable times that we find things in life sometimes go bananas. (Please include your e-mail address, so we can e-mail you if you are the winner!)

This 9x9" monkey face will come in our brown matte finish vinyl with installation instructions. We will draw names for the giveaway on Mon., Nov. 9th (because we will be up and running by then, or have a brand new cutter!)

I love fall!

I love color, therefore, I love fall! The color combinations outside my window right now are phenomenal and inspiring. So... I find myself creating with color in mind. -Jan

Fun to create again!

It seems like we took most of the summer off from creating with Adonna's move and kids being home -- so I have truly enjoyed the past few weeks rediscovering all the vintage materials we have stored up in my basement.

I found this little clear flower-shaped "dish" we had collected somewhere and knew I could find a great use for it! And you can never go wrong with a vintage glass door knob! It is so much fun to recycle and reuse!
-Jan

Every Child is an Artist

I definitely have a little artist in our family and always want to encourage her amazing creativity. I love the idea of framing artwork, however, we have plaster walls and I can never narrow down which artwork to frame. So we began creating these versatile artwork hangers for people like me. So fun to create, reusing old molding and fun old fuses! -Jan

Winter is in the air

Okay, where did fall go. I know it is supposed to fall between summer and winter but it didn't show up here. It is positively freezing outside. I'm trying to bbq tri tip and I can't feel my hands. I've seen the pictures of winter in Spokane and frankly, I'm a bit scared. Already bought our snow tires and our snow thrower and thought we were all ready but now we heard about a thing called a snow rake. It's used to take the snow off your roof so it doesn't collapse under the weight of all the snow. So, now I'm even more intimidated by the upcoming NW winter. I'll have to just stay inside and design away. I think our customers might just be really thrilled that snow is in our forecast!! I'll post a picture of my lastest before I go out and check on the meat! Adonna

Been a long time

Okay, we must admit that we do not possess the blogging skill gene. Going 4 and a half months between blogs is just one small example of our ineptitude. BUT, (and I know I'm not supposed to start a sentence with "but") we are going to try overcome all our feelings of inadequacy and jump back in. Part of our sporadic-ness comes from the fact that after living in St. Louis for 7 years and working side by side with my partner in crime, Jan, my family and I have moved out West to the Spokane area. We actually bought a piece of land with a really old red barn! Though we absolutely love it out here I miss Jan every day. We are, however, continuing our work with both the wall graphics on our etsy site (www.oldbarnrescuecompany.etsy.com) and all our fun "stuff" on reclaimed wood (www.oldbarnrescue.com). I'm actually flying out in November to work on inventory and join Jan at the John Burrough's Unique Boutique (the weekend before Thanksgiving). We will have a ton of new merchandise so be sure to come by our booth and say "Hi"! (our website lists the address, dates and times!) See you in November!

We are now on Facebook

Join us on facebook and we will keep you up-to-date on what's new.

Article on wall graphics in St. Louis Post Dispatch

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/homedecor/story/00F1F5CDAF5222F1862575A100678F6C?OpenDocument
Our custom wall graphics are noted in this article on the hot, new trend in home decor.

If you haven't checked out our etsy site: www.oldbarnrescuecompany.etsy.com, please do so. Adonna is continually adding new designs.

Bloom Event

We had a great time Sat. participating in the Bloom Event put on by St. John's Mercy. It was fun to meet new people, add customers, and have such a great response to our creations! Look for new items this week at www.oldbarnrescue.com.

"Count your blessings" in a giveaway!

Beep

One of our new creations for our upcoming show.

Doing my own beeswax

I just finished these signs last night and the credit goes to my 7-year-old daughter... She wrote these words on a piece of paper and put it on her bedroom door awhile back. It made me laugh. I showed it to Adonna and we decided it was worthy of being shared. You can find them on our etsy site: www.oldbarnrescuecompany.etsy.com under children's graphics. Hope these bring a smile to your face.

Love you to the Moon

This has quickly become one of our most popular wall graphic designs!

Visit us on Mom Made That! and view some of our new designs.

We welcome you to share your reviews of Old Barn Rescue Company on mamasource.com!

No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed for your wall

The popularity of this No more monkeys jumpin' on the bed quote is responsible for the lauching of our wall graphic division. Visit www.oldbarnrescuecompany.etsy.com to see all we have to offer. We are adding new designs all the time so come back often!

New Wall Graphics Divison

Visit our new Wall Graphics Division at http://www.oldbarnrescuecompany.etsy.com/

This past fall, we took the plunge and began our new Wall Graphics Division! Due to high demand, we began searching for an avenue that would allow us to offer Adonna's hand-lettering and our popular quotes at a lower cost and quicker speed. We explored many options but were not able to mass-produce our truly vintage materials and did not want that compromised.

Our exploration eventually led us to vinyl wall graphics. We decided to give it a try, and we are certainly glad we did! We are thrilled to be able to offer Adonna’s beautiful hand-lettering with such ease, versatility, and affordability.

Vinyl wall decals are the latest new trend in home décor because they can change the look of any room in minutes without mess and extravagant cost!

Now you can choose elegant hand-lettering in vinyl directly for your walls or on recycled wood, depending on your preference or budget needs. This second option is great for ready-to-go gifts, for those who have textured walls, and those who value the beauty of old materials.