Marketplace: “Star of Wonder” Holiday Gifts and Decorations

November 15, 2018 Bernadette

I’ve always loved this design and it’s bee quite popular since I brought it out in 2011. This design is adapted from a holiday card, and of course inspired by and features my fine felines.Right now I only offer it as a holiday card, but one of the reasons to get myself set up with stencils and screen printing and new techniques with polymer clay was to create all the other ideas I have to share this design. I’ve been working on them and had intended to bring them all out at once, but, as usual, things take longer than I anticipate. I’m working on other items that aren’t ready yet, but when I woke up today I decided that I could and I would get this done. I just couldn’t wait any longer!

Star of Wonder feline votive

This glass votive is etched by hand and finished with a clear label I printed from my artwork “Star of Wonder”. It’s made from a purchased cube-shaped glass vase 3.25″ in each dimension and comes with an LED tea light. Price includes shipping.

I etched the inside of the vase to better diffuse the light from the candle, then printed the design on a purchased clear vinyl label and burnished it onto the vase.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

We don’t really celebrate any one tradition for the winter holidays, but we enjoy sharing traditions of all our friends. I had created the six-pointed star as part of an invitation I designed for a non-denominational holiday musical celebration a few years ago. It could have been that, while I worked on that design on my computer, one or more young black cats found it intensely interesting against the black background of the design and an idea was born, a universal message for the season, with cats. It wasn’t the one above at first, but another one, below, adapted from remembering the Four when they were kittens looking out the big window at the birds and the snow, then it was night and there was a star…

I really like this design, and it was just what I’d envisioned. But there was another, more serious design developing in there. Soon I was looking for the purr-fect silhouette. You’ve seen me use daily sketches for new designs for merchandise, but I’ve also used daily photos. I remembered a feline silhouette from a photo of Mr. Sunshine looking up at a moth in the pendant lamp that I used for my annual Independence Day post Oooh! Aaah! I wanted to be certain to capture every single hair and whisker of that silhouette—it was very fun and worth every minute to isolate all those furs and whiskers to that his silhouette would look authentic.

OTHER VOTIVES

Find other votives featuring cats, butterflies, flowers, nature and wildlife in my Handmade Gifts Gallery or search “votives”.

Marketplace

A photo of the ones that didn’t work, which included Mariposa and Mimi, but they left.

Take a look at other new merchandise and featured artwork.

Marketplace is a feature on The Creative Cat to share the latest coming out of my studio with my readers. Once a week on Thursday I feature something new in my “shop”.

Read about creating custom items

Find out more about creating custom items for your own home using the images you see here. Visit the “Ordering Custom Art” page to see samples and read bout how to order.

Find out about events and festivals where you can find me and my work.

Sign up for my e-newsletter (below), check the widget on the sidebar on my home page, or sign up to receive posts on Portraits of Animals Marketplace. I plan on plenty of events this coming summer in the Pittsburgh area.

It’s all done under the close and careful supervision of my studio cats!

Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.