For many years, Timothy and I each maintained shopfronts on Zazzle.com, one of the largest design-to-make online enterprises out there. Timothy made dramatic, artistic prints (with the odd political bumper sticker thrown in). For my part, I produced calendars and greetings cards, with occasional forays into t-shirts, aprons, and household items. Our products drew on the very deep archive of photographs we had assembled over the years.
I’d rather ignored Zazzle these last two or three years. What with looking after my folks, and Tim, and the cats, and my day-job, and Inquisitive Mind Books, I didn’t play about with all the nifty goodies the company added to its line of tempting merch’. I made our annual family calendar and holiday greetings and left it at that.
But this year, with the Abecedarium actually published, inspiration — prodded a bit by Zazzle’s 2019 designers’ competition — woke up, put the kettle on, and made some new designs.
They’re in two “collections,” as Zaz calls them: Home for the Holidays (household items like trays as well as labels to put on your homemade jams and cookie-jars) and Memories Made Here, for cards and, what else?, ornaments of the ornaments.
I think the household what-nots are the most successful. I mean, really, pillows and poufs (those round deep cushions you sit on), decorated with the most fragile things out there, namely Christmas baubles? The wee wine-charms are cute, too.
Please take a look-see, and leave a comment on my Zazzle site. What do you like best? What do you wish I’d done more of?