Building the Valley: Plum woman's shop brings string art, tie-dye to New Kensington

Creating recognizable portraits of people with one continuous piece of black cotton thread 12 football fields long is “intense,” Kim Denne says.

Running that piece of thread back and forth between 240 nails around the perimeter of a 24-inch diameter circle to bring out images of people like Ben Roethlisberger, Willie Nelson and Martin Luther King Jr. can take 15 to 20 hours.

“It’s a lot of time, and it’s a lot of swearing,” Denne said.

Customers can see and buy Denne’s string art at her New Kensington shop, Yinzpired.

The store in Kenmar Suites on Fifth Avenue, open since Dec. 1, features her string art, which she has done for six years, and her tie-dye, which she started in 2021. She also carries pottery made by her daughter, Maiya, 28, whose business is called Muddy Nature Pottery, and laser-cut charcuterie boards made by her son, Chase, 30.

She holds classes in her shop where people can do string art, pottery, painting and jewelry making.

Denne, 51, owns Yinzpired, and her husband of 31 years, Josh, 54, a property director at the YMCA in Plum, helps out. The couple had their first home in New Kensington for five years before moving to Plum, where they now live in the borough’s Holiday Park neighborhood.

Before starting her business, Denne worked as a consultant for Tastefully Simple, a home-based business focused on sampling food in people’s homes, for 15 years.

Yinzpired was a home business for Denne for more than five years. The initial idea behind the name was that it would be all Pittsburgh items, but the black-and-gold focus was gone in two weeks, as she quickly garnered a following from across the country.

Both Pittsburgh natives, the Dennes are “yinzers.”

On the second part of the name, inspired, Denne said, “I like the idea of positivity and looking forward to things, and being inspired to create things.”

As for what inspires her, she said, “I like to make things that people will actually use and enjoy.”

In May 2023, she invested in a trailer so she could go to outdoor shows instead of using a table and a tent.

She attended the Sizzling Summer Nights in New Kensington last July. It was her second appearance, at the city’s “Shop Small Crawl” for Small Business Saturday in November, that led to her getting a storefront through Olde Towne Overhaul.

Michelle Thom, operations manager for Olde Towne Overhaul, showed her a spot in Kenmar Suites. She signed a lease the following Friday, moved in that night and was open that Saturday, a week after Small Business Saturday.

Thom said Yinzpired fits perfectly into the live/work/play model they are trying to create downtown.

“Ideally, her customers come out for a scheduled activity, grab coffee at Steel Cup on their way in, and then shop downtown at the various businesses, grab lunch at one of the restaurants, may go ax throwing at Las Hachas and stay to watch a band at one of the entertainment venues,” Thom said. “They then go home to tell all their friends what an amazing day they spent in New Kensington, and this word of mouth marketing is priceless.”

New Kensington was in the couple’s mind as a location since they saw it as an up-and-coming area not too far from home.

Business has been good, Denne says. In fact, when an adjoining, larger space with a window on Fifth Avenue became available in Kenmar Suites, she moved into it.

“I get some walk-in traffic almost every day,” she said. “Every time I’m here, someone walks in. There are people exploring the area.”

Denne went to school for theater, but didn’t finish that.

“I always did creative things,” she said. “This is just an extension of that.”

Before doing string art, she did crochet work for hire. With the joints in her hands becoming sore from that, she went looking for something else.

She was reminded of string art, which she said was a thing in the 1970s, upon seeing one of a ghost at a craft store. She made a couple of her own, a jack-o-lantern and a skull, put them on Facebook and found people wanted to learn how to make them. She started teaching people how to do string art at house parties, which she now does at her storefront, where people can buy kits to make their own or her completed pieces.

She has string art of various sizes. Besides celebrities and other famous people, Denne can make string art from photos of babies, grandparents, weddings and pets.

“Pretty much any photograph can be turned into a portrait,” she said.

Denne started doing tie-dye three years ago when she was so sick with covid that she couldn’t do her string art. She had never done it before and didn’t even wear it.

“Now, it’s the biggest part of my business,” she said.

She creates a variety of tie-dyed items. It includes shirts from newborn to adult 6X, hoodies, dresses, hats, tote bags, swimsuits, bandanas, baby bibs, blankets and towels, all made at her home-based workshop.

After already moving once, Denne’s long-term goal is to move to an even bigger space so she has more room for classes and can move her workshop out of her home.

She sees a bright future for Yinzpired, growing and evolving.

“I guess I envision it to be a thriving small business that provides a creative outlet for community members,” she said. “I’ll probably do it until I die.”