LMK's Art

My daughter loves art. She has always loved to draw, color, paint ... create. She is not a child prodigy in the sense of being able to paint perfect representations of things at the age of 5. But she has a good eye for proportion, design, and detail.

For example, at age 8, I would never have thought to draw highlights in a dog's eye, but she did. Heck, when she was 3, she was putting eyebrows on her line-figure drawings to show various expressions -- anger, surprise, happiness.... When she was in first grade, she drew a picture of me (stick figure in a dress) in front of a wood-framed stand-up mirror. How do I know it was wood, not metal or plastic, around the mirror? Because she drew the wood grain, and it looked realistic! And she got the angle on the reflection just right, too. So even though she hadn't developed her people-drawing talents yet, I thought (still think) the picture itself was amazing, coming, as it did, from a 6 year old. When she was in second grade, she was one of six kids in her school selected to have her art (a butterfly collage) hang in the School District Office, along with art created by 6 kids from each other school in the district. So she's no Michaelangelo (not yet, anyway), but she's pretty good for a kid.

My Mom suggested I start an online gallery of her art, and also said she wanted to buy a fridge magnet and some note cards, if I would just make it possible. So I uploaded one of my Mom's favorite pieces of my daughter's art (a purple butterfly) onto Zazzle.com and used it to create some items for sale online -- a mug, thank you cards, fridge magnets, stickers, keychains, mouse pads, apron.... even postage stamps. They have a lot of things you can make on Zazzle. Here is a sample thank you card:

"Thank you" card w/purple butterfy by coolpuppies
Create a unique note card With http://www.zazzle.com/
View more Digital Art Cards

Dr. Zibbs has some items available on Zazzle, too, including this coffee mug:

That Blue Yak Coffee Mug by mcglinch
Create a coffee mug With Zazzle
More Humor Sayings Mugs

so if your taste runs to Blue Yaks instead of kid art, you should check out the "That Blue Yak" line of goods on Zazzle. You're welcome, Dr. Zibbs. (He didn't even ask me to do this promo; I'm just nice that way).

My daughter then brought me another piece of art she made and asked if I'd put that up on the site, too. So I did. The second one is not my favorite, but it's cute -- a puppy dog with angular-looking ears. Here is a sample "awesome" sticker:

Cool Puppy "Awesome Work" stickers by coolpuppies
Design a custom sticker At http://www.zazzle.com/
Browse more Domesticated Stickers

So now we have a whopping two designs in the gallery. I am still working on editing them -- for example, some of them need a little work re: centering the design on the product, or revising the color scheme. My Mom says I should add my daughter's initials and date to each piece, as well as the web address for the gallery in case anyone sees the mousepad or thank you card or whatever, and wants to buy one.

I am thinking no one but family will actually buy anything, and they will know who made the stuff and won't want the www.zazzle.com/coolpuppies* web address on the art.

What do you think? Should I dream big on behalf of my daughter and assume that strangers may see and love her art work and therefore may want to know where to buy it? Or would the addition of the web address to the products take away from the overall design?
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