Merry-go-Round: What inspires us: a peak into journals, pinboards, folders or wherever we keep our little snippets of inspiring stuff

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 10 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month question is: What inspires us: a peak into journals, pinboards, folders or wherever we keep our little snippets of inspiring stuff.

Apart from books, I have a folder in my computer that I keep all the images that I found insipring. The folder includes something like " flower, bird, bottle, sunshine, garden, sea view, ...".

Girl Making Tea (Acrylic on Paper) Sold

Newspapers and magzines also provide an excellent sources of inspiration of colors and postures of people. I have one file folder keeps cut out from newspapers and magzines.

For example, my painting "Lady Making Tea" is inspired by a picture from a story about a bar in Singapore with a photo of a lady mixing wine.

At the time, I have painted two paintings with lady, "Joy of Reading" and "Draming". The photo instantly triggered me to paint something similar to what I have done. The photo is a lady holding glass cup and with bottles of wines behind. I took the posture of the lady added oriental themes of the tea cups and the flowers. Unfortunately, I lost the paper with the photo that I cut from the newspaper.

For anything that will trigger you to create something, you must be in a state that is very creative. Otherwise, you will find very few things to be inspring. This is my experience. I wonder how others feel.

Please do visit others to find more about the topic:
Jenny at Jenny Karlsson design
Nikki at Beaded Zen
Wendren at Wren
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts
Charlotte at Fancy Picnic
Marian, Florcita's Art
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent
Fabienne at Easterya
Ruth at Birdland Creation

Spring and Peony Girl Magnet Set

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Just made these pretty magnet set of girls. These are my favorite magnets. My elder daughter came back from USA for summer vocation. Me and my baby daughter are very happy and busy now.

The above is a set of pretty gift that my daughter brought from Morocco while she was attending a summer school there. Isn't it pretty the little baby lather slipper?

Owl Design Products in Cloth and Mug and More

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Order the Baby Owl Pink Products

I opened a shop in Cafepress long time ago and forgot about it till now. I have some customer requests on making my owl design on T-shirt. I thought it is good to use Caefepress to do the work.

Today finally I got some time to put these two owl image "Baby Owl Pink" and "Owl and Tree" in my Cafepress shop.

I put some products such as mug, shirts, costals and bags. If you are interested in them, please browse through the shop.

Tree and Flower Abstract Art Prints

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These are the prints for the Flower Tree design. There are three types of prints availabe: Laminated Prints Mounted on Wood Block, Laminated Prints Mounted on Stretched Cavans and Large Laminated Prints.

There are clean abstract style prints. They are suitable for modern style houses. You can view sample large prints on room view.

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Flower Tree Abstract Art Laptop Skins

It is very late here at about 1:30am. I just want to get this design out of my mind, so I have to work for a while.This is a flower tree design inspired by the Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life. However, I just simplified it to be flower and tree. Here are the laptop skins for you to order:

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Laptop Skin Speciall Offers

Speciall offers from $24.90 to $20.00

I have made some speciall offers for some laptop skins. Please check the store if you like the designs. They are all made to order as well. They are not pre or mass made.

Packing Time

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Today is shipping day. I just made this Large Laminated Print (LLP) with 28" x 35"/70 x 90cm. The color is very vibrant and beautiful. It is ready for shipping with the huge 75 cm tube.

Please visit my post of Large Laminated Prints on mounting large laminated prints on gartor board.

Browse the Sample LLP Image Gallery

If you want to see samples of how the LLPs look, please browse through the Image Gallery of LLP.

Red Poppies is Featured in Red Bubble

I am so happy that the Red Poppies is featured in the Red Bubble currently. I love Red Bubbles. It is a very friendly site comparing to other image service sites. There are many friendly people there. You are sure to have views on your work if you upload them there. Because, it will place your newly uploaded work always in the front of "Recent". It is free of charge for anyone. I managed to have sold some of my prints and also several canlenders there.

I had very bad expriences with other image service sites. It likes you through a stone into the sea. There is no ripple at all. I have no views or feedback from anybody.

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The Red Poppies is one of my popluar prints. You can order various types of prints with different sizes here. You can also order the laptop skin here.

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Dream Red Poppy Flower Garden Prints

Reality and dream, this is the painting tries to depict. Dream and hope are so beautiful comparing to the dull reality. You follow your dream of this beautiful poppy and you are far and far from the reality. It leads you to see not only one poppy, but a stunning sea of beautiful poppies.

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I read a beautiful essay about reality and your dream. This painting is inspired by this essay. You can inspired by many things. An essay or a poem are great sources for inspiration.

Blue Bird Glass Pendant and Update on The Infringement of my Work

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I have talked to the owner of the company. I am glad that he is a reasonable person. One of the products Pink Baby Owl Laptop Skin is removed. I am still waiting for him to remove the brown one.

My experiences obtained from this incident are that

1. Always try your best to protect your image. Put watermark and try to make low resolution images when you post on web.
   
2. Learn how to protect your intellectual properties from now. Don't wait till bad things happened.

The Horibble Infringment of My Work II

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I did some more search and found that my Baby Owl Brown is also listed by the same company for sell. The listing is: http://kedasz.en.alibaba.com/product/233996422-201515434/cartoon_laptop_skin.html

Just a kind reminder to all of my customers. The quality of any infringing product will compromise on the quality of the prints you will get. The reason is that they take images from the website that I listed my products. These images are in very low resolution. Even if they try to enhance it, there is no way to compare with the prints that I produce.

Since I have all the files pertaining to the design, I normally rearrange the design to fit perfectly to your laptop size. For someone who only gets image from my website, they normally mass produce certain amount of laptop skin that are fixed with certain sizes. They can only do crop of the image to produce the size you need. This will alter the spirit of the design and sometime the image looks awful.

Horriable Infridgement of My Design

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While I am doing some Google on my product, I am horrified to find that my Baby Owl Laptop Skin is listed as product of a Hong Kong Company in popular China business site alibaba.

See the listing: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/233922854/Laptop_Skin.html

I have never in my life authorize or sell my design to them. I always delay to learn something that is important for a business such as the domain establishment and the intellectual property protection. I now understand that I have to pick up the knowledge as soon as possible.

Gift Certificates

Gift Certificate Offered in my Esty and Dawanda Store

One of my customer wants me to ship a laptop skin overnight for her daughter's birthday. I checked with the express company and the fastest delivery takes 2 business days from Singapore to USA. If I send on Friday, it mostly will arrive only on Tuesday in USA because they told me the delivery people are not working on Saturday and Sundays.

Gift Certificate Offered in LilyPang Art&Design

I offered her a gift certificate instead for her to print it out. She was very happy because in this case, not only her daughter can get a nice gift on time, she can also choose something she likes herself.

If you would like to have some urgent gift or not sure what your loved ones like, you may consider purchasing a gift certificate in my stores.

I have laptop skin gift certificate in my Etsy and Dawanda Stores. In my LilyPang Art&Design store, you can just buy certain amount of gift voucher and the recipient can use it to purchase anything in my store such as glass pendant, prints or laptop skins.

There are detail information in the gift certificate that tells the recipients how to redeem it. You can also visit Gift Certificate What it is and How to Use in LilyPang Art&Design for FAQ about gift certificate.

Hope you like the offer. Have a nice weekend to everyone!

Tulip Laminated Prints and Laptop Skins

I was busy with renovation of my house currently. There are just some small touch ups to do. But they really take a lot of my energy and time. This is my first time to do renovation because when I bought my house, it is already renovated and I like it very much so that I didn't do any more work on it. I never know that it is so difficult. I'll write something tomorrow or next days to share some of my experiences.

Finally I got time to do some work on this tulip. It was in my head for a long time. I like very much of plants or flowers up close big. These two pieces are mixed media watercolor and acrylic illustrations of tulip for the tulip lovers.

I put them in a room view so that I can get a feeling how they look in a room.

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The following are laptop skins.

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Large Sized Laminated Prints

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I have just sold a print of this green Secrete Garden. It is the largest print that I sold so far. It is 27" x 35"/70 x 90cm.

It is a laminated print with one side is sticky. It can be mounted on a hard board such as Gator Board.

Gator Board is rigid polystyrene foam core laminated between two face veneers of resin-impregnated wood fiber. They are used for mounting paintings. It is light weight yet very rigid that can sustain hard pressure.

Gator Board
Secrete Garden Green Mounted on Gator Board
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Current the largest prints that I support are of size 70 x 100cm. I am working on some ways of deliver larger ones . If there is a better safe way, I am very interested in develop even larger prints. I think the laminated prints mounted on board have modern appeal that are affordable. It is a good choice to decorate a large space.

Please visit my post of Large Laminated Prints on mounting large laminated prints on gartor board.

Browse the Sample LLP Image Gallery

If you want to see samples of how the LLPs look, please browse through the Image Gallery of LLP.

Newest Product: Affordable Larger Canvas Prints, Ready to Hang

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I was looking at materials to develop ready to hang big prints for a while. Finally I tried on canvas with laminated print mounted on it. It looks beautiful.

These prints are mounted on 12 x 16/30 x 40cm canvas. They are ready to hang. The sides are covered with the prints. They look neat and modern.

Side Views

The print is laminated which means it has a plastic protection layer on top. You can clean it with a wet towel if it has put on some dust. The print side won't be spoilt.

The ink used is environment friendly ink. It is long lasting whether it is indoor and outdoor. You can hang the print anywhere such as in a room or in your gardens or patios.

They are much more affordable than the other print sales site at $37 per frame.

The shipping is about 10% to 25% of the cost depending on how many you buy. The more orders the less percentage of the shipping fee.

If you like something that is ready to hang with a bigger size, you can try out these canvas prints.

Orchid Near Window Laptop Skin and Original Paintings

This is an acrylic painting on paper. I also put it in an imaginative living room for you to see the effect of the painting.

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Size: 16 x 20/40 x 50cm, $260 + $12

For the first time I put an original painting on a laptop skin as I think it is a quite serene painting that is suitable as a laptop skin.

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