The Only Courage That Matters - Today's Best at Zazzle

If you know someone who has cancer, another chronic or serious illness, or needs encouragement, this card will give them a much-needed morale boost. Sending a greeting card can really bring sunshine into someone's day, and let them know they're not alone.

I'm very proud that one of our encouragement cards has received a Zazzle TBA today.

On our Cancer Touches Everyone blog you find many helpful tips on this subject.

How to make more sales at GreetingCard Universe

My lovely partner in crime has written a very helpful and clever Squidoo lens about How to make more sales at GreetingCard Universe.

Hurray! it's your B-Day!

Now up at our Zazzle store - "Hurray it's your ... B-Day" age specific birthday greeting cards (from ages 1 to 100).

Gotta scoot!

The cow themed designs continue (I warned you I would)....so I've got a cow on a Vespa for you today!

Always wanted to do one of those :-)


You can also get your cow on a scooter without text.


The "on the moooove" alternative shown here on a grocery tote.


And for a splash of summer color go for this version!

WTFBBQ?!

Sometimes you end up with a wacky design, like this one :-)

Kitties rule my world

I had to work on some Father's day cards with a cat theme for a charity card site (I will tell you more about that next week). And as it happens sometimes....out popped a new design that was perfect to use on some of Zazzle's great merchandise :-)

If kitties rule your world, this is a perfect shirt for you! (also comes in stickers, mug, apron, magnet, tote bag , button and key chain).

No Spring Chicken - Today's Best at Zazzle

Hurray! My "No Spring Chicken....but you're still a tasty dish" humorous 'getting older' birthday greeting card got a TBA at Zazzle!


There is also a shirt design!

The ladies do battle

This is Indie, the 4 month old neighbor kitty. Indie is a Persian/tabby mix and a real talker. She likes to climb the fence whenever her blob isn't paying attention and show off her skills. She is very cute, this grey ball of furr with a little wet point on her tail (she sucks it).


Zelda Mae and Indie like to do some kung fu through the slats of the fence. Like most female cats, they don't really like each other. So there's lots of growling and hissing and paws going back and forth. Zelda Mae does her best to impress Indie with her warrior kitty moves, but....


...it is in fact the 4 month younger female who comes over the fence to dole out some whoop-ass!
Run Zelda Mae, RUN!! :-)

Interview on J. Goode's Blog

Friend, colleague and penguin fancier extraordinaire J. Goode recently placed a very nice article of your's truly on her blog.

Of thunderclouds and paper recycle bins

The sky sure looked menacing this morning, but nothing came of it, really. That made our kitty Zelda Mae happy! She hates the rain and oddly blames us when it's wet outside.

She had us all riled up BTW by catching the same unfortunate bird twice. First she ran upstairs with it but I followed her and so she changed her mind and went downstairs again (I just know that I will find some ripe dead bird corpse under my bed one day and it will freak me out!).

Nene caught her - still holding the bird - and yelled for me to come down (I was closing all the bedroom doors just in case). When she finally dropped her prey we put the cat in the hall and pursued the fledgling ( a female house sparrow) ...under the table...behind the kitchen cabinet...table....under the cabinet again....

It wasn't flying well but it disappeared in the neighboring gardens so we went inside to do some work. When she brought the same bird in again some two hours later Nene decided to take it further out. I don't think it will make it to adulthood :-(


Yesterday I bought some fruit plants for the back garden. We prefer usable (read edible) plants like herbs, fruit and veg over just ornamental ones. I was lucky to grab the last set of three small raspberry and 3 blackberry plants. Last week I just missed out on some nice blueberry plants so this made up for it!


What's this? We got paper recycle bins delivered in our hood today. The city had a test drive with these and it turned out to be a great success so it is official. Normally our old paper was collected by a local church once a month...I guess they are out of business now.


Kiwi update! The white flower has turned into this alien looking thing. In the heart of it you can already make out a little 'bub' that will turn (hopefully) into a kiwi.

And the Corrieweb 5 stars of excellence go to.....

Lisa Marie Robinson's design "I'm not fat..."



I love how she played with the text! You have a winner here, Lisa!

If you want to check out more of this very talented UK artist, have a look at her stores LisaMarieDesign, LisaMarieArt, BawlingBunny and SnapiKat.

Cows that jump and run

I still have cows on the brain!
This weekend I made a set of extreme sport (skydiving) cows. They will feature on 'good luck' and 'well done' greeting cards - available at our store at Zazzle and GCU.



Very nice to send to a friend or loved-one who is planning to do some parachuting this summer.

Another - not so extreme - sport is running. My 'new' cows stand on two legs instead of all four and that gives me much more freedom to let them do all kinds of fun stuff. Like skydiving or running.




On my 'to do list' are cow on a bicycle, cow in a bi-plane, ballet cow, ice-skating cow, bungee jumping cow, surfing cow....oh the list is just endless. Just stay tuned to this blog :-)

I 'herd' it was your birthday - Today's Best at Zazzle

Wow, another TBA on Zazzle! This time it is one of my age specific "I 'herd' it was your birthday" B-day Cow greeting cards (going from age 1 to 100). I'm very happy with the way this card came out.

I just love cows (and bulls), don't you? They have been a part of my portfolio since I started painting. Over the years they've evolved quite a bit as you can see here:


"Rooie" (red bull -1994)


Bull (1995)


Reading Cow (1997)


"Zomer goud" (Summer Gold - 1999)


"spring cows" (2003)


"Cow and calf" (2004)


and a more comical version I've adapted for my smaller work (2004)


"Cow and calf" (2007)

and then I got my wacom Intuos :-)



Rest assured, there are many more cows to come!

Happy Anniversary Bears - Today's Best at Zazzle

This Happy Anniversary Card just got Today's Best at Zazzle!
These year specific cards go from one year to 75.
Inside text "You make a 'beary' cute couple.

Corrieweb 5 stars of excellence

I've decided to design a little award called the Corrieweb 5 stars of excellence
I thought it would be nice to leave that in the comments section of any great Zazzle design.



My first 5 stars went to friend and colleague Lynda Bruschini who made this great Tweeter Shirt



Congratulations Lynda!

Happy Birthday to me

Yup, I'm another year older today.
I woke up with a very nice sinus headache, the kitty puked all over the place and it's raining.
I need some coffee.....

If you need some B-day inspiration, we've got some great cards for you at our GCU shop as well as our Zazzle store.

We have age specific cards like these:

But also year specific like one of our best-selling fun facts cards:

And you can never go wrong with a fun zodiac card:

Have a nice day, y'all!

How does our garden grow

We have a small garden in the front and in the back of our house (and really....it's small - don't forget I live in Holland - there isn't much ground to go around here :-)

Although you won't see me doing much gardening (rosacea and sun don't go together) I do love nature and growing things ourselves. Like strawberries.


Look at this one! He will be yummy (if the slugs don't get to it first)

4 years ago we planted a blue grape and last year we had our first small crop, but alas there weren't enough warm summer days to make them tasty.

Let's hope this year we'll do better!


You know what these are? Kiwis!! Well....they're going to be kiwis one day. First they will be nice white flowers. Like the grape this plant is 4 years old and this is the first year it bears fruit. We are very excited about it.


And here is Zelda Mae, our kitty. She loves hanging out in the garden. Catching flies, dozing in the strawberry plants, stalking the birds. This is her first summer and so far she loves the outdoors!

Here we go again

This is not my first blog although it is my first go on Blogger (so bear with me as I'm learning to get the hang of this environment).

As I'm an artist, you can expect to see plenty of paintings and illustrations (from both past and present) and also some silly stuff that happens around the house.

Are you ready? Here we go!