We have been getting ready for our first craft show! If you live in the DC/Maryland/Virginia region come out and see us and all of the other crafters and artists at the Annapolis First Sunday Arts Festival next weekend. 

In addition to designing and making Paint My Trip kits, we've been busy getting our booth ready. If you follow us on Instagram (@wehgoshop), you've probably seen a sneak peek of our booth. As a self proclaimed interior decorator, I'm definitely taking an interior design approach to our booth. It feels comfortable and homey and is speckled with accessories including vintage suitcases and globes. 

A couple of weekends ago the kids and I went to a garage sale in our neighborhood and after a bit of haggling we walked away with several treasures, including a vintage globe. The globe has a small dent and some paper was pealing  off of Australia - so I decided to paint it. I thought it would be fun to paint it to mimic our Paint My Trip logo and use it in our booth. 

After cleaning the globe I outlined all of the areas I wanted to fill in with paint with a thick sharpie marker. I didn't outline every country and I added some areas to be filled in with different shades of blue to the ocean. 

Next, I covered the globe with a light coat of primer.  I didn't want the primer to be too thick because I wanted my sharpie lines to be visible through the primer. 

Once the primer was dry I started painting. I filled in the outlines with a few different shades of green and blue (to match the logo). I also painting a few areas with white paint - just like the logo. The lighter colors required more coats than the darker colors. To finish it off, I outlined all of the regions in black and added little numbers to the white areas. This required a very steady hand. Painting on a round, moving surface is a little challenging. 

I love how it turned out - ever better than I envisioned. I'll probably spray it with a coat of poly to protect it when we hit the craft show circuit next month. 

Another "spin" on this globe theme would be to outline all of the countries and paint them all white - then add colors as you travel the world. 

Wow, I can't believe we are doing this! My husband and I came up with the idea for Wehgo and the Paint My Trip kit while we were on spring break on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Inspiration struck while we were out and about shopping for ourselves and for souvenirs. Finding something affordable, tasteful, and special was tough. Somewhere on a random sidewalk in between shops the idea of souvenir paint by number kits was born. We thought about it for weeks and weeks. We hired someone to design a logo, we researched packaging and pricing, we figured out how to make and assemble the kits in our home, we got our business license and other ducks in a row, oh - and we came up with a name.

Picking a name was one of the most challenging parts of the start-up process. All of the names we initially came up with were already taken as domain names. Some were already taken by other businesses while others were for sale - for way more than we could afford. This was super frustrating - especially when we felt we had found the perfect name. 

After a while we gave up on existing words and made up our own,  wehgo, pronounced way-go. It's a play on the German word Fernweh and the phrase "away we go." The definition of fernweh is "a craving for travel; being homesick for a place you've never been." We define wehgo as "the desire to take a piece of a place with you." For now, you can take a piece of life's travels and experiences with you when you purchase a Paint My Trip kit - we are working day and night to add more destinations. We also hope to add additional Wehgo products down the road. 

Thanks for visiting our website and this blog! Check back regularly for updates on the business, musings about running our own business, stories about our own travels, and artsy and crafty content that we think you'll enjoy.