Thursday, March 28, 2024
cat artworkDaily Featuremarketplacepet lossSundayThursday

“Star of Wonder”, to Remember Your Little One

Star of Wonder feline votive.
Star of Wonder feline votive.

Sunday is typically my day to share articles about grieving our pets in their anticipated or actual loss. Though this votive is a product I feature, this design was adopted by many cat owners for sympathy for a friend’s loss or to memorialize their own cats all the way back to 2011 when I designed the greeting card. The garden flag also decorates a few memorial gardens. And so I really wasn’t surprised last autumn when I introduced this votive, and through the holiday season, that a few people purchased a votive for their own remembrances and for friends who had also lost pets. I am very honored by this, that something I designed was actually chosen by another to be a more permanent part of helping to remember another soul, and to ease their grief.

Star of Wonder feline votive

This glass votive is etched by hand and finished with a commercial clear label I printed from my artwork “Star of Wonder”. I etched the inside of the vase to better diffuse the light from the candle then burnished the label onto the vase. It’s made from a purchased cube-shaped glass vase 3.25″ in each dimension and comes with an LED tea light, though it can also be used with a regular tea light or other candle. Price includes shipping.



A Testimonial

Friend and customer Carolyn Kozlowski, owner of My Three Cats & Co., recently purchased one and wrote a testimonial when she shared it on the My Three Cats page on Facebook:

Bernadette Kazmarski is a friend and talented artist who’s an avid cat lover just like us! She has created original cat artwork using a variety of mediums, and has transformed her artwork into such useful giftware items as notepads, garden flags, calendars, greeting cards table decor and votives (one of my personal favorites). She’s also an award winning writer. (her blog: https://thecreativecat.net/) Bernadette is a dedicated cat rescue volunteer and remains active in savings cats’ lives. Please visit her site to learn more. Enjoy!

Needless to say, I am thrilled with her endorsement.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

This design is adapted from a holiday card, and of course inspired by and features my fine felines. 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’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! Here is the story of the artwork.

Star of Wonder holiday card.
Star of Wonder holiday card.

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…

Star of Kittens holiday card.
Star of Kittens holiday card.

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.

Star of Wonder holiday card.
Star of Wonder holiday card.

OTHER VOTIVES

You can also find this votive and others featuring cats, butterflies, flowers, nature and wildlife in my Handmade Gifts Gallery on the page for votives.


Marketplace

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

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.


Subscribe to my e-newsletter

Subscribe to The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter.


© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

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