Fall is finally here!!! The past few days have been glorious. It will be in the lower 40’s tonight with rain forecasted tomorrow. It will be a perfect day to make a pot of soup and paint. I will be painting a great deal in the next few months working on a new booth set up, new patterns and new samples for 2007.

The Nashville, Columbus, Houston and Providence Shows are now a fond memory. My last seminar of the year was our annual Texas "Gathering of Folk Art Friends Seminar” with Rosemary West teaching with me last week. This seminar is my favorite seminar of the year. We have painted each fall in a special little village for twenty plus years.

Plans for 2007 are on the drawing board and the adrenalin is really flowing. We are excited that our booth will have a new look for the first show of the year, Creative Painting Convention in Las Vegas. This is a fun show with great teachers and an excellent mix of exhibitors. There is still time to register. My class filled quickly and another one could be added. Click here to request a catalogue of classes.

FOLK ART TIN ™ PUFFED TIN ORNAMENTS, LOT’S OF THEM !  

Have you been to our website lately? You will find many new and unique ornaments in several shapes and sizes have been added.

The most popular ones at the NET Show were the small Trio of Trees Ornament and the Colonial Tree Ornaments.. Both are replicas of our large trees. We sold out of the flat trees in two hours at the New England Show. The Luggage Tag Ornaments (rectangles with arc tops) and our Victorian Cones were equally as popular as the Trio of Tree and Colonial Tree Ornaments.

In addition to the ornaments we have four styles of trays, each in 3 or 4 sizes. These have been received very well, especially the Peter Ompir Trays. They are nice, heavy weight, round replicas of the ones so many of the Ompir pieces were painted on. Our new candle boxes that will sit on the table top or can be hung on the wall also sold well.

Take a look at our opening page to see patterns by both Della and Rosemary that are new since June. We will be adding more before the next Folk Art Journal arrives.

Della Wetterman
Four new ornament patterns have been added to the web page. Other pieces of tin are waiting to be painted and will be added to the web site in the next month.

Rosemary West
Many of you now know that we have Rosemary’s patterns on our web site. These have sold well and we will be adding others soon. Rosemary painted a wonderful Door Ornament for a “Serendipity Project” for the recent Texas Seminar. Hopefully we will have this pattern on our web site soon and other patterns that she has as well
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A new Victorian Ornament Series has begun! Four new ornament patterns in this series were designed for the recent Texas Seminar and are now available on the web. There are eight more new ornaments either in resent magazines or in a soon to be released issue.

The last two issues of Paint Works magazine feature five of our new ornaments. Two in the last issue are on puffed luggage tag shaped ornaments. Photos of these are on our web site. The larger of the two has an old world Santa and the smaller one has a dove with greenery. The current issue has the set of three Trio of Trees ornaments that we sold out of at the New England Show. We have a new shipment due in next week. Place your order Online so you will be on the waiting list. They will be shipped as so as they arrive.

When you receive the next issue of the Decorative Painter there will be three more ornaments from our Victorian Ornament Series. You will have ample time to paint these before the holidays. These shapes are sure to become a classic addition to your families ornament collection. There is a 9 ½ inch long stocking with an old world Santa, a snowman on a large oval and a Christmas Cardinal on a large luggage tag ornament. As soon as the magazine is out we will have photos of them on our opening page.

All of the ornaments in the magazine articles will be available as patterns.

An excellent reference book for the folk artist that is interested in old tin or old painted tin. Each page has photos and information about tin. You will find it listed with our books in our shopping cart here .

Always, at each show, I am repeatedly asked three questions: How do you prep your tin? Why don’t you have rusted tin? How do you antique and varnish? We do not sell rusted tin as the rust will continue to grow beneath any product that you seal it with. Yes, even rust inhibitors. To learn more about these frequently asked questions and other information go to our web site here.

If your group is interested in booking Della for a seminar now is a good time to consider it. Any group or shop within a three or four hour drive of a trade show can book a seminar before the trade show starts and save a sizable amount on the travel cost.

In some areas a seminar can be booked after the trade show. Contact us for more information on combining a seminar when we are on the way to any of the shows listed below:

2007 Trade Shows
February Creative Painting – Las Vegas , NV
June SDP – Anaheim , CA
July Artists Expo – Houston , TX
August HOOT – Columbus , OH
October New England Traditions – Providence , RI

Special perks for those on our Folk Art Friends mailing list will be added in 2007. Tell your chapter members and painting friends that they should join our mailing list and take advantage of the perks we have planned exclusively for them.

The first perk is starting in this issue. You will receive a free ornament for each order placed for $25.00 or more in November. After the order is placed in our shopping cart, you will be taken to the checkout page to fill out your shipping information. Under that you will see the Additional Information box where you can write a note to tell us you are a Folk Art Friend member and you would like the free ornament. We will include it with your order only if you identify yourself.

The second perk is a drawing for $50.00 Gift Certificate on December 1. The Folk Art Friends that take advantage of the first perk will have their name entered in the drawing.

The third perk is a “HEAD’S UP” to be emailed to our Folk Art Journal readers a few days before our Online Sale Flyer is published on the web site. Your orders can be placed before it goes to the web for everyone to see. Having first choice is important when quantities are limited on some of our sale items and your orders will be shipped first.

The fourth perk will be the addition of retired patterns complete with instructions, patterns and photos to our web site for Folk Art Friends to download and use. This will start early in 2007.

The fifth perk will be special sales for only members of our mailing list. We hope to have a sale in the next few months of misc. items that are discontinued in the warehouse and a few old “as is” samples.

Expect more perks to be added

A new addition to our opening page was added this past spring, a Sale Flyer link was posted in the information box in the right hand corner of the page. We will continue to do this from time to time. If you are on the mailing list you will know when the sale is going to be posted. The rest of our customers will have to check our web site regularly or they might miss the sale.

This is an online sale to encourage you to use our new shopping cart. It frees me up to paint more and not answer the phone so much. You can take advantage of the sale by ordering online, by using our shopping cart or print your order from the shipping cart and mail it to us with a check, cashiers check or credit card info. Printing the order and faxing the order and all credit card info to us is another option.

Be certain to follow the instructions for using the discount code mentioned in or Sale Ad. At check out time it is important that you add the code word (if there is one) so the shopping cart will give you the sale price. After the sale is completed we cannot change the way you checked out. PayPal charges us based on the amount of the sale they processed. So check your shopping cart total to make certain you have received the discounted price. If not, be sure to add the necessary info into the shopping cart to make that happen.

Earlier this year one of our tin suppliers discontinued several of the tins that were popular patterns for us. We purchased as much of the tin as we could when we heard about the pieces being discontinued. Recently we discovered several cases of the Goose Neck Coffee Pot, Mercantile Box w/glass insert and the Small Spice Bin that were discontinued. So, once again theses products are listed on our web site.

If you purchase any of these tins we will include a free pattern for each of the items ordered. Please do not order the patterns or the shopping cart will charge you for them. We will send the patterns with the order.

Check the opening page of our web site if you have not been there in a while. You will find both old info and some very new info, all of which deserves a look.

I have sad news to share. You may not know that three painting greats and friends of mine are no longer with us, Susie Saunders, Ellen Stamillio and Gene Prewitt. Each painter was unique in her own right, each talented and definitely not the average painter. Actually there was nothing average about any of them. We were blessed to have them share the legacy of their designs and to have touched our lives.

Closing thoughts…

Mother often says: “as you age the years go more quickly”. It is happening to me!!! This year is a blur, where did it go? Time and again a newsletter was written and before I could get it out too much time passed and it was out of date. At the top of the Must Do List for 2007 is to have our Journals out more frequently.

We are considering a “One or Two of a Kind Warehouse and Sample Web Sale ” in January. Our mailing list will be the first to know when a date is set.

Happiness sometimes comes as a small, white curly and cuddly bundle. There will be a new addition to our family shortly before Christmas, a Bichon puppy. We will call her Millie. I can hardly wait.

Final thought: “If money can fix it, it is not a problem.” Hold your family members close to your heart as you think about what this means.

Blessings from the Wetterman family to your family,
Della and Bill