Do your walls need some color?

For the next few days (till Friday, June 25) I am having a sale on my website. Buy one print and get one print free. Your choice, even if it is personalized.

Here is a LINK.

I have inspirational and motivational posters, prints about art and nursing and social work.

I also have personalized posters that look nice in a child's room. Over 75 posters and prints to chose from.

If you are interested, please contact me through this blog or my site or my email, garritygal@yahoo.com

Oill Spill Poster

Feeling frustrated at what is going on in the gulf, I decided to make a poster and donate part of the proceeds to the National Wildlife Federation. I tried to make it whimsical so that you can share this with your child and explain what is happening with the oil spill.

Yet, there is the image of the skull. The skull does not represent evil as much as it represents death and that is a reality of what is happening in the gulf.

I feel so powerless. So this is my little way of trying to make a contribution to the Federation.

The poster is 11 by 17 and is professionally printed on glossy card stock paper. Each poster is $8.00. I will donate $3.00 for each poster I sell to the National Wildlife Federation. Shipping is $3.00 in the United States.

Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing a poster.

Things I've been doing lately

Even though I made a big announcement 5 months ago that I wasn't going to do toppers anymore, it's hard to turn down the requests, so I've continued making them. Sometimes an artist just gets tired or burned out and I believe that was what happened to me.

Anyway, I've been making toppers again. I've been trying to build up a nice inventory of ready to ship toppers, that way, they are more economical for the bride and less stress on me. I just recently made some sweet little toppers for the bride who wants something lightweight and cute on top of her cake.

Art Dolls

I have also been making more art dolls. These are so much fun to make and really a great diversion for me. I can express myself totally with the creation of these dolls. I love the combination of beads, yarn and clay. Look for more posts on my art dolls and a contest soon!

Graphic Art

I've also been having a creative surge designing posters, altered art, atc backgrounds and photographic images. I don't know where all of this creativity is coming from but I'm thrilled. There are not enough hours in the day anymore for me to do everything I want. I'm in a very happy "artsy" place right now!

Collage

I've also found more time to paint and do collage. I then take pictures and change the images in photoshop. I'm trying to build up a portfolio of original collage and paintings and eventually seek out an art agent. This has been a dream of mine for years, but I've neglected it. Now it's time for me to really focus on that.

Sometimes an artist goes through dry spells and I believe that for the last few years I have been trying to claw my way out of mine. Suddenly, over the few months I have found new inspiration and am more driven than I've ever felt. I feel passionate again about my art and design and am grateful for every moment I spend creating!

ATC background cards for you

I've been having a great time designing ACEO and ATC backgrounds and thought I would share a sheet with you. You can print this out and use it for scrapbooking, cards, collage, etc. Add embellishments, stickers, yarn, clay etc.

Please don't sell the sheet, but you can use it to make art with and then sell the art.

Here's a link to my etsy account where I have several more for sale.

Let me know what you think.

(My advice would be to print this out on heavy card stock.)

Click here for Free background sheet

Winner of the poster contest

Dawn, who posted "GG69
My niece would love, love, love it!! It was hard to choose!!" is my winner. I went to Random.org, put 1 through 21 into the generator and #4 came up. Dawn was the fourth person to post a comment. Email me Dawn at garritygal@yahoo.com so I can get the name you'd like on it and your address and ship it to you right away!

I've been working on some interesting art work and will have another contest soon. Till then I look forward to posting more interesting art work and links to interesting websites.

Free Poster!

I'm having another contest and hopefully this one will be of interest to a lot of you.

I now have about 70 posters on my new website. They are all 11 by 17, designed by me and professionally printed on glossy card stock. Here is a LINK

Here are the rules of this contest. Go to my website and check out my posters. If you see one that you like, come back to this blog and leave a comment with the corresponding number. For instance, if you like Peace signs, you might like GG14. Just leave a comment on this blog with the number and on June 1, I will randomly pick a winner from all of the comments. Then I will ship the poster to you. You may enter as many times as you'd like. Tell your friends and blog about it for me if you'd like. I sure would appreciate it. :)Please don't be shy. These contests are a great way for me to network and let people know about my artwork. I appreciate each and every one of you.

If you can not leave a comment, then email me at garritygal@yahoo.com and I'll leave the comment for you! :)

Having fun with a design contest.

I accidentally found that there was a design contest on the Kroger website so I used some of their tools and a picture of one of my clay frogs and made a cute little shopping bag.

If you'd like to vote for my bag, here's a link.. People can vote once a day.

You can even design your own shopping bag and have it printed at cafepress.com.

Check back on Monday evening for a give-a-way that I'm going to be doing. Thanks for stopping by!

New Product From Polyform

About a year ago someone from Polyform Products contacted me and asked me to make three Bobble head clay babies from a new product they were developing. I love being approached by them so I jumped on this assignment. Within 24 hours of accepting it, I received a box of their new clay, called Pluffy. They sent me about 5 different colors. Pluffy clay reminds me of marshmallows and after it bakes it is very light weight. It is geared towards children but I think it would work well on larger items. I used some of the left over clay to make some doll bodies. It worked out nicely.

Some negative reviews...The Pluffy clay did not seem to adhere to itself very well though. Parts of it seemed to dry out. I don't know if they've gotten all of the "bugs" out of it yet; however, it is reasonably priced and should be a hit.

I wasn't allowed to blog about this project or this clay until it was available. I discovered it at Michaels yesterday and almost bought the kit that I designed. However, I didn't have my coupon with me. It was priced at $9.99 and I'd rather not spend that much..:)

My compensation for doing this project was wonderful for doing about 4 hours of work. If I could do two projects a week and get paid for it, I would be well off! But, alas, that doesn't happen, so I'm grateful when it does. I just recently made some cute little clay babies for another project for them, but it hasn't gone retail yet.

Check out your Michaels new clay department. You will really be amazed at the different clays, tools, books, textures, etc. that you will find. And buy the Bobble Buddies!