Baby Fawkes in his basket.

Fawkes is a ginger not-so-tom cat I rescued at 3 days old when his mother abandoned him.  We don’t know why he was abandoned; but she left him and his sister outside in a cold laundry room overnight.  By morning, his little calico sister was dead and this little guy was almost frozen stiff; he could barely croak.  I picked him up and rubbed him to warm him up.  We brought him inside and warmed him up with blankets and a hairdryer and gave him warm milk soaked in a napkin to suck on.  Once he got warmed up, he started YOWLING.  He was definitely not happy about the situation he was in, and who could blame him?  My aunt went out as soon as the stores opened and got him some special kitten formula so he could get a proper meal.  (Or at least, as close to proper as we could get.)  He was so tiny that he fit in the sleeve of my cozy fleece jacket, so I held him like that when I had to move around.  He cried if I put him down, so that first day I carried him with me everywhere.  This is a picture of him at about a week and a half.  He was the cutest kitten; a little orange puff ball with a great big round kitten belly and spindly kitten legs.

Sunflower Sunrise Wrapped Canvas

Zazzle now has wrapped canvas prints, and I’m working on creating a few with some of my artwork, such as the Sunflower Sunrise canvas above.  I’m working on adding more.  Some of them may be available as multiple panels, depending on the photo/design.  So far I only have a few, and they’re linked to the Zazzle store; I have not had time to integrate them into my on-site shop.  I am slowly adding more, but I am being selective about which to add, since they are more costly than the regular prints (for obvious reasons.)  These canvases look pretty nifty, and the wrapped frame gives the images (photos especially) an interesting new look.

My first quick attempt at an advertisement. A quick animation short–sea turtle swimming in the waves, comes to a beach, sees a guy carrying a plastic bag. Guy loves the turtle, turtle is mad because of the plastic bag. Guy goes away and comes back wearing / carrying several Winged Turtle design items, including a Flame Turtle T-shirt, Green Sea Turtle totebag, and Save the Turtles sigg bottle. Turtle and Turtle Guy are both happy, and sea turtle swims away as several winged turtles fly overhead.

Custom binders

I love these new binders, and I’m enjoying designing for them. I may buy a couple both for myself and for family gifts — making photo albums / memory books and a recipe book. They’re not cheap binders, but as a basis for making a nice personalized gift for a family member, they’re worth it to me…and hopefully to others as well.

Wallet Calendar Cards First, I’ve been using Zazzle’s large “chubby” (2.5×3.5) business cards with 12-month calendars on one side.  For some, I just used art on both sides, with the back side art only.  For others, I used the front as a regular business cards, with customizable text for name/ contact/ business/ etc, with the calendar on the back.

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Calendar Cards I’ve been using the new square — I think they’re 5.25×5.25, around 5×5 inches anyway–invitation cards to make 12-month calendar cards with art or photography on one side and and a 2010 calendar on the back, with the same art / photography as a background.  Useful as small calendars just to keep on the fridge, or on your desk–just easy to keep around and nice-looking.

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Bookmark Calendars Rack cards make useful “tall” calendars, and I’ve done a few marketed as bookmarks –calendar on back, art with large “2010″ on front.  I’ve also added smaller calendars to some of my “customizable for your business” rack cards, marketed as “advertise your events” cards.

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Calendar Prints Finally, I’ve used Zazzle’s posters to make custom 12-month calendar posters.  They’re designed with the art on the whole poster, with top half art only and bottom half calendar.  Some are tall and skinny; others are more normal “poster size”.  I’ve done a few of these as “custom photo poster calendars”, with a framed area on top for your photos.

Plus, I’ve started to do a few traditional wall calendars.  So, lots of calendar options for 2010 here.

Second, there is more formal –generally, although there’s some fun and colorful designs there–letterhead which is letter-size (8.5×11) and also available in multiple paper types.  Most letterhead has customizable text areas for your name , title, contact, etc.—everything you want on your letterhead.  I’ve also redesigned some business cards to match the new letterhead, so you can get matching sets.

Also –new invitation/ announcement cards.  There are over 100 customizable invitations available now, mostly square–general-use, so customize to your event.  Remember, square invitations do require extra postage–I am starting to add more “regular shaped” invites now and design a few general announcement cards as well.  Invite cards are a minimum of 10 per order, and as always when ordering through Zazzle, bulk discounts apply.

Along the lines of the invitations, there are now photo cards available–add your photos to these cards to personalize them.  I don’t have many now, as most of my current designs don’t lend themselves to “background/ border accent” –other than the abstract art– but I am adding more.

Finally, on the business side — other than the letterhead — there are rack cards and flyers .  I’ve only done a handful of each of these, customizable with your business and / or event information.

The majority of my Halloween designs are skulls, which are mostly “general skull” than really Halloween specific, but that’s OK.    Several skull and rainbow designs, some pirate-style skull-and-crossbones, and for some reason I just couldn’t resist making a few cute pink skulls, including a pink pirate skull with a heart bandana.  Some of the skulls are distressed, some are not.  The only really “Halloweeny” one is a distressed orange skull and crossbones, but it was fun making all the different skull designs.  I think I’ll do some more even after Halloween and improve my skull work, as I’d never done skulls before and these were very simple.

I also did a handful of other Halloween themed designs:  three jack-o-lanterns, one of which is just a standard creepy carved jackolantern, the second is the same creepy jackolantern licking up the remains of another pumpkin –cannibal pumpkins, anyone?–and the third is an alien pumpkin design with UFOs in the background being flown by more alien pumpkins.

I have a few cat designs as well–actually one main design with three variations–of a black cat that’s really too cute to be a “Halloween Black Cat”.  Big blue eyes, cute pink nose and tongue, etc.  My favorite has the cat flying with an orange cape–I call it Super Cat.  After Halloween I may move the cats into my Animal Art section. Lastly I did a handful of zombie designs. The first is a yellow warning sign with running stick figures with flaming heads that says “Warning: Flaming Zombies Are Still Dangerous”.  The second is just a text design that says “ZD: Zombie Defense“.  The third is a “blood spattered” design that says “Bite Me like a zombie“.

That’s my Halloween work for this year…I enjoyed doing a few Halloween designs and may do a few more although it’s a bit late for this year.  I like doing “traditional” stuff–I’ll try some more black cats –scarier ones, maybe — and maybe some ghosts and vampires.

First, there’s been an update to the Winged Turtle Shop…Zazzle products have been given “top billing” so to speak…all links for designs go to Zazzle items with a link at the bottom of the page for Cafepress.  (As I have time I will also add links to other PODs with that design.)  Example page here: Green Sea Turtle

The side menu has changed to one main menu for all designs, rather than the multiple separate menus for Zazzle, Cafepress, Skreened, etc.  Products menu is a list of Zazzle products, with a menu of “More Products” at the bottom that lists CP products.  At the bottom of the menu sidebar is a separate shops menu, with a menu for designs from CP, Skreened, Printfection, etc.  (Basically the old designs menu moved down the page.)

It’s probably easier seen than explained, and I hope the changes make the shop easier to navigate and select designs/ items rather than having to choose a shop before you can see any products.  Check it out:  Winged Turtle Shop

I’ve also been busy adding lots of new designs for the upcoming holidays–starting with Halloween–which I’ll discuss in separate posts.  And Zazzle has in the last month come out with a line of paper products and custom binders which I’ve been spending much of my time working on…more on those later.

First was “Floral Grow Green“, with text “Grow Green” and multiple muli-colored flowers. A bright, colorful design.  It can be found at the Earth Shop at WingedTurtle, or at Zazzle, Cafepress, Printfection, or Skreened.

The second is another “Grow Green“, this one with a yellow daisy-like flower in place of the O in Grow, and with “green” in two-toned brown and green, representing soil and green growth. “Grow Green” can also be found at the Earth Shop, or directly at Zazzle, Cafepress, Printfection, or Skreened.

The third is a slight variation on the “green with flower” theme, with a large pink / magenta daisy style flower, with a green stem and leaves, and the words “Go for the Green” in large rounded green letters. “Go for the Green” is also available at the Earth Shop page, or directly through Zazzle, Cafepress, Printfection, or Skreened.