Cuteness for Candy Makers

This super cute set for candy makers is a kawaii version of my boiling sugar pot just for candy makers. The notebook binder got a Today's Best Award at Zazzle. I love cute stuff; found a neat website PokemonEpisodes.org where you can watch all your favorites. Pika! Pika! Pikachuuuuuu!

Today's Best Award: Love

That is, between salt and pepper on this cute-cute recipe notebook binder. It was a simple concept that turned out great, one of my little doodle sketches turned graphics from the 2 am job (well, 4 am in fact) back in December.

And just because I like it, I did a kitty face binder that's super cute. The face is from a kitty cat chef I did (baking cookies) for a Christmas card - actually sold a few - that I put on the back of another binder with the non-Christmas version of the cat chef. Just had to see how a pink and green version looked. It's super!

42 new recipe binders

Well, I won't post them all here, but I worked straight through yesterday and most of today to get these binders done. When Zazzle came out with the binders I already had a lot of graphics in my stores, so I had to go back and do binders for the stuff I'd already drawn, along with some that didn't seem binder worthy at the time. Binders are fun to make, they're like little works of art, and they sell a lot better than note cards! I may just leave the note cards strictly for Christmas and start pushing the binders, which do sell, and the recipe cards. Here's a little taste of the binders, and as I always say, my recipe binders make cooking and baking a lot more fun!

Got a bunch of features this week (...month...)

Hey-hey, I'm featured on a blog, a Squidoo lens, and I'm still up on Zazzle's first page, meaning I've been featured for about 2 weeks there. Here's the blog feature by Antique Images, and it's by a fellow Zazzler by the same name who sells the niftiest vintage images on neat-o Zazzle stuff.

Got a featured "best" mention at The Best of Zazzle Weekly for a "green clean" spray bottle I did up to get out of a rut. I have a very, very small "other business" category at Chef Catering Biz Cards, and I tossed it in, and it turned into something fun!

I'm still up on Zazzle's Today's Best front page feature for this apple binder. It's pretty nice, good colors.

And today's best is...me!

This has been a rolling week for Today's Best Awards at Zazzle for Chef Catering Biz Cards. I don't really get tired of it though I don't think it produces any sales; still, it's nice to get kudos from fellow designers. Having a niche means I'm not going to get the "stupid t-shirt" business, and I'm not exactly cracking up over "Don't make me poison your dinner". I mean, it's cute, but it's just not me. My daughter The Precioussss and I talk about this once in a while, and she agrees that making more money off stupid slogans is worse than making what you like and getting paid less often. Not that I'm suffering for Zazzle sales - I'm a Proseller, for cryin' out loud! (Never get tired of that, either).

OK, so here's the new "best":This is based on an old design I had laying around wondering why I never redrew it after the last computer crash. (From now on it will be The Last Computer Crash.) She's a pretty awesome babe, and like a lot of my stuff it has a bit of retro appeal. She can handle cooking as well as baking, but I think this one will do well because there's no head or face that can be compared to one's own, and whether the gal is plump or slim - can't really tell.


I updated the look of the original gal just a tad with a raspberry background and new bowl, but other than that, I'm not messing with perfection. She makes an awesome binder.

New nifty baking business cards n stuff

I get a lot of business from the baking crowd - they love my business cards, for sure, and I sell a cookie jar full of "from my kitchen" stickers over at Zazzle. This is my latest ode to baking, a simple yet pretty rolling pin with faux flour. I like simple. The set includes business cards, marketing postcard, note card, letterhead, stationery, recipe card and binder, package stickers.

Combining shops...again!

When I moved from Cafepress (good riddance!) to Zazzle I carried a fear around with me that Zazzle would pull a CP and make me split up a "superstore" because it had too many categories or sub-menus. So I opened 3 shops at Zazzle initially when it wasn't really necessary. I've since learned the technology is different, so I'm moving Culinary Note Cards and Cooking Clip Art into one big mega mall for the culinary crowd, into my Pro-selling Chef Catering Biz Cards shop.

Love being a Pro-seller - got me a front page feature spot today (yesterday? I only know because people commented on my wall!).

Got me some AWARD

OK, Zazzle Today's Best Awards are based on vague criteria, I'm pretty sure, but the awards are fun to get and you get to be on the first page, or close to it, for a couple days and show off your fun creations.

I had a temporary job sometime in 2005, if I recall, and it was filled with really terrible spaces of time with absolutely nothing to do. Now, I'm the kind of gal who begs for work when I'm not busy, so when I say there's nothing to do, there IS nothing. So I downloaded a fun little drawing/painting program and experimented with it. I didn't really have a direction except I was in a desert kind of mood - drew an animal skull laying next to a dried up pool of sludge, among other things, then happened to draw this buffalo roaming on the desert or plains, and it became one of my favorites of all time. He's a hairy little bugger, but cute as all get-out. I had him up on Etsy as a pre-made "identity package", but recently dumped Etsy in favor of Zazzle. Here he is in notebook binder form, but "Buffalo Love" comes in business card, marketing postcard and sticker form, too.

Chef Catering Biz Cards expanding to other small biz

One cannot live on culinary graphics alone; I had a shop set up at Etsy for graphics-for-crafters, but the problem is that Etsians are, on the whole, cheap and struggling. It was fun making up images that didn't involve tomatoes and forks and steaming pots, so I opened up a Zazzle shop called Margarets Art. As time went by I found myself neglecting it, of course. Too many shops in the kitchen, as it were. So I'm moving that store into Chef Catering Biz Cards and dumping it into an "Other Small Business" category. I'm still re-creating some of the graphics I lost in the (computer) Big Crash of 2009. It's been pretty fun, but I'm at the point where I can come up with new stuff, too. See ya there!

Hell-o-ooo, I'm Soooo Bronze!

Got me a new digital badge and that's because I'm now a Zazzle Proseller! Huzzah! I'm currently at Bronze level, which is the first level up, but I see to get to Silver (that's level 2) I have a looooooooong way to go.

Of course, I'm at that point where I've opened too many shops because I like to organize and departmentalize and it just doesn't work on the internet for some reason, so I'm moving Margarets Art - non-cooking biz cards and stuff - into Chef Catering Biz Cards and moving Cooking Clip Art - the t-shirt and stuff shop - into Culinary Note Cards.