Challenge accepted!

When we see a challenge sometimes it's hard to resist accepting it. This was the case this morning when we saw Etsy Dallas' tweet offering up a MacGyver type challenge from midnight Saturday night. 

After a brief rummage throughout the studio, we realized two things: 1. we don't have a single newspaper on hand, and 2. someone must have broken in and stolen all our paperclips. Since the paperclip bandit could not be tracked down, we decided to improvise and secured the dental floss, two hair pins, and a paper towel. Close enough right? Well we hope so. We hope our improvisation wont get us disqualified from the challenge.

We busted out the scissors and got to chopping up the paper towel. We weren't sure what we were really going to do, but we pulled through. About 5 minutes later this little guys emerged from the rubble.

We submitted our challenge photo to Etsy Dallas, and with fingers crossed are waiting to hear the outcome. Fortunately, we snapped this photo right before our cats learned of our plan to submit it. I don't know if it was the bird, the fact that the ceiling fan was fluttering the paper towel or their plan to sabotage our efforts, but they had a little party of fun ripping it to shreds. So bye bye birdie. We'll miss you.  

Feeling inspired??? We'd love to see your version of this challenge too!! Send your pics to Etsy Dallas' twitter. 

Cheers!

-Pamela + Dylan

He likes/She likes: featuring Etsy Dallas Members

One of the greatest things about being in a group of 50 local artists is that there's always really really cool handmade items to see. He's some of the one's we're dig'n today from Etsy Dallas:

Recycled drum seat by ReGEARED

The Jackalope print by ChetArt

Bacon Periodic Table Element pillow by Yellow Bug Boutique

New zipper pouches by BUTTER

New tea towels by beethings

Crochet teacup by Sheepish Knit Crochet

A weekend Recap in Pictures

Heya folks! We had a jam-packed weekend of fun. So much fun, that I'm going to try to fit it all in this one blog post. We're even going to make it confusing and start with the end of the weekend and move our way backwards towards the beginning of the weekend. So put on your bike helmet and follow our bike trail through the weekend. 

Sunday we spent at the Better Block Project's 72 Hour Challenge's reveal day on Ross Ave in Dallas. The event showcased how easily and affordably we could turn around a once deserted through traffic street into a more lively and pedestrian friendly meeting ground for the community. The streets were filled with art vendors, interactive games, food trucks, bike lanes, trees, urban-scaping, and so much more! If you missed it, rumor has it that the gang behing the Better Block will be hitting up different parts of town in the near future. 

On a quick stroll through the festivities, I found two of our lady buddies, Vynsie + Jully from We Are 1976, a local shop where you can also find our Dowdy Studio tees. They had created a cozy bus stop complete with a free art trade section and book swap shelves. We were blown away by the cool!

Just a few steps down the road was a huge tented area made from what looked like recycled vinyl advertising. There was seating and bands playing, along with an outdoor gym, photo booth and food trucks.

Sunday was a blast! It was also hot, but we were happy we decided to install fans in the Wagon just in time for the TX heat. We actually kept pretty cool in our breezy shade-mobile.

Ok, so rewind a bit and we find ourselves at Saturday, where we spent the day volunteering at the Etsy Dallas Supplies Me! Sale at South Side on Lamar.  All the Etsy Dallas members cleaned out their supply closets of unused do-dads and who-whats-its and covered over 10 tables in crafty supplies to sell to the public. 

Above is a group shot of all the ladies sporting their newly loved hair bows that Silla Soup was cleaning out of her stash. See more pics in the Etsy Dallas' gallery. Also check out our hair bow glamour shots.  

 

Read more about the show on the Etsy Dallas blog. 

Craft Party Recap

Last Friday Etsy Dallas and all our friends trekked our way to Oak Cliff and partied it up at Oil and Cotton to celebrate Etsy's 6th bday. Here's some shots of the fun we had

A ton of awesome people came together to make this party happen. I want to thank everyone who made it happen! Oil & Cotton graciously provided the space and rocked two free crafts for guests - leather cuff bracelets and recycled landscape necklaces.

Etsy Dallas team members slaved in the kitchen (or at the store) to bring everyone tasty treats and deserts, as well as a big ol' keg of free beer.

Rosemary, from Paper Beats Rock, was the queen organizer of the whole event. She did amazing!! We are so happy to have her on the Etsy Dallas team with us.

All the cute party guests got shot by Larry, the Kessler Craftsman in the Etsy Dallas photo booth. Everyone's pics will be available on the Etsy Dallas web site soon, and they're free to download! yay!

Dylan served up some tasty beverages for our guests, while Pamela shot pics of the event. Dylan claims that he wouldn't mind being a real bartender if all he had to do was fill up plastic cups from a keg while talking to super cool folk.

All in all we had a great time and can't wait to do it next time. Join Etsy Dallas soon for the Supplies Me Sale. Etsy Dallas members will be cleaning out their craft closets for you to shop. So if you're into crafting and want to buy from some talented artists, come on over to the Supplies Me Sale, Saturday, June 25th.

Super special thanks to everyone who helped put the craft party on!

Etsy Dallas Members - Silla Soup, Hi-Fi Jewelry, Paper Beats Rock, Modest Ambition, Red Tile Studio, Both Hands Studio, the Kessler Craftsman, Cut Out and Collect, Bonnie Beads, Sheepish Knit, Art-T-Dolls, Maggie May I, Napkin Art Studio, Jenni20, & Dowdy Studio

Anita Mills for weaving on the loom
June Covington for spinning the night away
D.B. Higgins for demonstrating rope making
Society Bakery for supplying sweet cupcake treats
Tamale Company for rolling in the tamale cart (Yum!)

This Saturday!!

We've been working behind the scenes since late 2010 putting on this event, the 3rd Annual Spring Bash. We invite you to come out and see us. We'll be sans-wagon this time, but we built a really sweet display this week that I think you'll like. Plus, we make a ton of new tees, pillows, prints and more for your shopping pleasure.

See you at the Bash!!!

Cheers!

-Dylan + Pamela

deets:

Saturday, April 30th

11am-5pm

South Side on Lamar

1409 S. Lamar, Dallas, TX

awesome everything handmade

Working hard for the Spring Bash!

Heya folks!

We love planning the Etsy Dallas shows each year, the Spring Bash and the Jingle Bash. It's that final week before show time and we've been working extra hard to get everything ready for show time fun time.

The Bashes are presented by Etsy Dallas, a team of 50 local Dallas artists who sell their handmade goods on Etsy.com. Pamela was fortunate to hop on the Etsy Dallas bandwagon early on and be able to take on some reigns and help steer the group into putting on 2 awesome handmade art shows each year. We love doing this, and we think this is something that has totally benefitted Dallas' art community, or at least we hope it has brought a few smiles to some faces.

Last week we joined about 30 team energetic Etsy Dallas team members, Spring Bash vendors and happy volunteers to all join in and help us make some rocking decorations and prep supplies for our Etsy Dallas Make n Take booth for the Spring Bash.

Mia Maria, Red Tile Studio, Yellow Bug Boutique and DCImaginations whipped out some awesome big ass pom poms for decorations.

They also made a pretty mess. We only got a shot of the yellow and white paper cuts, but later on there was some pretty teal mixed in there too!

This week we gathered the troops again over at Bonny Bead's home studio and stuffed the Bash Bags that we designed and printed for the show. These Bash Bags are STUFFED with so much awesome!

Here's a quick sneak peek of just a handful of the goodies that you'll find in there if you're one of the first 50 shoppers.

We included some of our new coasters in pretty teal and black. These we so much fun to make. Dylan hand cut the wood, sanded and printed our logo on each one, then Pamela designed some fancy packaging and we stuffed one of these babies in each bag.

We hope to see you next weekend, April 30th at the Spring Bash!!! Come on by and say hi + shop cool handmade stuff made by us!

And if you can't wait that long, come see us this weekend at Bolsa Cafe in Dallas. We'll be there Saturday and Sunday in the Dowdy Wagon selling tees, prints, jewelry, messenger bags and featuring our guest artist, One Up Designs!

Printing the Bash Bags for the Spring Bash!

We do a ton of work putting on the Spring Bash and Jingle Bash in Dallas each year. One of our favorite things to do to help get ready for the big day is to print the Bash Bags. These are 50 canvas bags stuffed full of handmade goodies for the first 50 shoppers to receive...for free! Heck yeah!!

For this Spring Bash Pamela made the artwork for the bags and Dylan screenprinted them in our little 2 car studio. We say 2 car studio, because our studio is actually converted from our old two car garage.

What's great about printing in the Studio is that we can open up a whole wall to the outside on nice days like today with just a click of a button. We sure will miss that if we ever move to a different studio.

After Dylan prints the Bags, they get to sit and dry. These are the back sides of the bags with our top sponsor, South Side on Lamar and our logo. This is like their beauty rest before they're big reveal.

If you're interested in getting your hand on a Bash Bag, do make sure you are at the Spring Bash extra early. We have people wait in line hours before we open our doors to get their hands on these babies. Also hit up the Bash website for all the exciting Spring Bash info.

We'll see ya there on Saturday April 30th!

The Official Wagon Dances

Sorry we've been gone, We missed you!

We had a little sickies this week after returning from Austin. After a two day becoming one with the couch and sleep session, we are finally back to walking, talking and dancing!!! Here! We'd like to share:

We just couldn't resist making a couple more dance videos while at SXSW. Above is the forward fist walk with a locomotion rewind. Sounds fancy don't it?

Well if you were wildly impressed with the first dance let me introduce this little move we like to call the shakey shakey leg lift shimmy. It's so fun that even the tees decided to join in as back up dancers. Thanks tees!

Cheers!

-Pamela + Dylan

And Cool Art - Our bio

We did a bio last week for And Cool Art, a fun art show we are putting on happening Feb 5th in Dallas. We got together with a few of our artsy friends and decided to throw a small Valentine's themed trunk show in Oak Cliff. Read more about it here. And check out our bio below. We hope you can join us!

photo by Squaresville Studio

Dowdy Studio combines the talent of collaborative husband and wife team, Dylan and Pamela Dowdy to bring to the world original art and illustration incorporated into handmade items for you to enjoy. Dylan finds pleasure in silkscreening, illustration and crafting furniture out of wood, and Pamela, formerly known as artist Pamela Michelle, also loves illustration, and is crazy for designing wooden jewelry. Come meet them both at the All You Need is Love and Cool Art shopping experience in Dallas.

Music is my Weapon - Mens tee

Double Vision - 5x7 print

See these and find much more at the All You Need is Love and Cool Art show. To get your eye candy on early, just pop on over to the Dowdy Studio Etsy Shop.