Travel Photography: Seven Postcards From Egypt

A friend of mine visited Egypt recently, and was there during the riots. They came back with some fantastic photographs of the landscapes, buildings, people and desert, and I persuaded them to open a Zazzle store. Which they did, testing the waters (or the sands?) with a few amazing postcards. My favourites so far are the donkey and the sunrise, but there are some even more incredible ones that aren't even uploaded yet!

In Petra, Jordan (yes - the place Indiana Jones visited!), we have a donkey, standing in the pathway to the Higher Sacrificial Altar, amongst the ancient sandy rocks.


Petra Donkey Postcard by PetraPhotography




...and the dramatic broken-off pillars of the Great Temple.

Petra Postcard by PetraPhotography



Lastly, a couple of kids relax in the corner of one of the ancient ruins carved into the rocks of Petra.

Kids in Petra Postcard by PetraPhotography


From Egypt itself, we get to see the roofs of Abul Hole in Giza.

Building of Giza, Egypt by EgyptPhotography
Sell art online at Zazzle.


 And here are some amazing rock formations on Mt. Sinai on the way to Dahab from Sharm el Sheikh, with triangular strata like rows of camels along the base!

Sinai Strata by EgyptPhotography
Design Full color post cards at zazzle



And a breathtakingly beautiful sunrise in the very early morning from the top of Mt. Sinai.

Sunrise on Mt Sinai by EgyptPhotography
View more Sunrise Posters


Lastly, back in Abul Hole, some colourfully burdened, ungainly camels take a drink.

Camels Postcard by EgyptPhotography
Postcards by zazzle

I HAVE ZAZZLE KEYCHAINS! YES!

I hereby take back any and all bad thoughts or ill-wishings directed at Zazzle. My keychains have arrived at last.

I ordered them before Christmas and ... well, they didn't turn up. End of January, I got rather worried about this and doublechecked my order, to find that I'd somehow left the suburb out. (I did have the road, and the postcode, which are actually specific enough to locate my suburb easily, but NZ Post is not that capable).

I *headdesk* a bit, then send a note to Zazzle saying basically, that I screwed up the order, is there anyway to find out if it was returned?

They sent me a new order. By signed courier/airmail/something expensive. To New Zealand.
I got it the next week (actually, I didn't, cause I had to play tag with the courier for a few days, but it actually did reach my house the next week. Three times!)

And they are shiny. And about twice as big as I expected!

See all my Zazzle Keychains

The colours are very good, the back is just a shiny silver disc, which is a little weird, they're quite thin (and light), and the chain itself can be removed with a bit of fiddling (it slots into the actual disc part). And they are very much worth the (admittedly, discounted for Christmas) price I paid (N.B. I still maintain that the overseas domains are a rip-off, but ordering from the main US site is reasonable. And they're so shiny!).

I got my cat to model them, for size.

Artwork Lenses

My art and Zazzle poster lenses.

Flynn the Cat's Art: where to find me

My Art and Art Lenses ♦ My Top Twenty Lenses ♦ My (non-Art) Lenses by Topic ♦ My Newest Lenses ♦ My Activity Elsewhere ♦ The Guestbook♦ Welcome to my Profile lens. This page lists all my art sites, blogs and sho...

My Squidoo Gallery: An overview of my paintings & art lenses

This lens attempts to pull together my various art lenses, by giving you a thumbnail overview of the contents of each art-based lens (dragons, mermaids, cats, and whatever else I make in future...). I've also added a few other bits and pieces, that I...

Guestbook Artwork

A Guestbook is often the last thing a person sees on your lens - and your last chance to get them to comment. I like to edit a bit of my art and create a guestbook image that finishes off the lens nicely, ties into the theme, prompts someone to answe...

Buffy Fanart Portraits

This page collects my ongoing collection of portraits and fanart of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am a huge fan of the series, and have been repeatedly inspired to draw the characters - starting with Buffy herself, of course! I'd...

My Mermaid Paintings and Drawings

Mermaids are one of the staples of fantasy - throughout history, myth and legend they've appeared in various terrifying and alluring forms, in art and story. This trend still continues today, with a mermaid lurking in the gallery of almost every...

Painting With 520-570 Nanometres

Welcome to another unfinished lens of mine! *waves happily and unrepentantly* Don't worry - all the important bits are here - namely, the pictures. Which are green. All green. Except the bits which aren't (like the golden butterflies on the left). Bu...

My Amnesty Posters

Both my siblings are members of Amnesty on Campus (the Auckland University branch of Amnesty International). My sister was president, then went on to be too busy studying law, and my brother joined when he arrived at university, and followed in the f...

My Cats - Paintings, Photography and Drawings by Flynn the Cat

This lens collects all my paintings of cats, so far, as well as photos of my pet cats that are worth uploading. I like painting, but I can never stick to one subject - mostly I paint cats when I need a gift for someone! Not to say I dislike drawing t...

Paintings of Blood, Snow and Midnight

There's something about the rather dramatic combination of the colours red, white and black that lend themselves to artistic statement. Together they have a very strong impact - an impact I have explored several times (With some glee) in my paintings...

My Dragon Artwork

I've been painting dragons for a long time, and I've finally started collecting all my pictures onto one page. From vivid digital art to detailed pencil. From traditional to serpentine, Western to Eastern, little tiny dragonlings to enormous roaring...

Scrap-Paper Sketches

In lectures, when I'm trying to keep my eyes open and need something to focus on, I reach for my pencil and scrap paper. When doing assignments and needing a moment to process, I doodle in the margins. When I'm trapped at a train station with nothing...

Fantasy Mermaid Posters From Zazzle

Mermaids have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years since the first goddess walked into a lake and turned into a fish with legs and a human head. From the sirens who haunted early sailors, to Hans Christian Andersen's soulless and ethereal A...

Rapunzel Fairytale Posters

A collection of Rapunzel-themed posters from Zazzle and Amazon, featuring both original artwork and official merchandise. Most people know the story of Rapunzel, a young woman raised in a tower by the evil (or lonely) Mother Gothel. Taken from her pa...

Beautiful Elf Posters From Zazzle

Elves are one of the staples of fantasy - I must admit I prefer the old and tricksy, illusory and beautiful elves of Celtic myth and Tolkien-ish legend, but you'll find elfin dryads and faerie elves here as well. From drow to mystical high elf, to a...

Antoni Gaudi Stained Glass and Mosaic Ornaments

This is a collection of my favourite Gaudi-themed ornaments on Zazzle. Antoni "Antonio" Gaudi was this amazing, creative Barcelona architect who designed these weird and wonderful organic, unique, Art Nouveau houses and buildings. Buildings such as the tumbling walkway around Parc Guell, with intricate mosaics set into the ceiling and the Sagrada Famila - a cathedral that's being finished today - that has the most incredible stained glass windows. And luckily for you, my mother visited and took many beautiful photographs, and put them up on Zazzle.

This one's one of the most popular - two different mosaic patterns, in green and ...well, muted rainbow.

A two-sided hanging ornament to bring a touch of Antoni Gaudi's warm and wondrous Barcelona to your Christmas tree. Each side shows an intricate mosaic tile from the walkways of the World Heritage site of Parc Guell.

Parc Guell Mosaic Green and Rainbow by Be_dazzled

Browse more Be dazzled Ornaments

Orange and Blue Stained Glass by Be_dazzled

Create photo ornaments online

And they sold. A lot. In fact, people were coming back and ordering more - so I have faith that I am not biased, and that yes, these are damn nice ornaments. What I'd like, if I ever have kids - or if my siblings do - is to start a tradition of buying a special ornament every year. By the time they were old enough to appreciate it, there'd be a full complement!

 Interestingly, I discovered that people prefer buying ornaments with a different picture on each side, rather than a 'balanced' symmetrical one - I guess it's the whole value for money reaction, or not being able to choose!

Ah, here's another lovely one - photos of the stained glass windows of the glorious (and in progress) Sagrada Familia.

Orange and Blue Stained Glass by Be_dazzled

Make personalized photo ornaments online

But wait - how big are these ornaments? What are they made from? Well, they're 2.87 inches across, and weight 1.4 ounces - oh, and they're made of ceramic. Obviously the printing is full-colour and double-sided and you can basically add what you want (want to add your name to an ornament? Or 'Happy Christmas'? Then just click the 'Customized' button!)

Feeling a bit hot and cold about this? Then I have the perfect ornament - this icy, fiery dual stained glass window design!

A two-sided hanging ornament to bring a touch of Antoni Gaudi's warm and wondrous Barcelona to your Christmas tree. Each side shows a brightly lit stained glass window, in fiery orange and cool blue, from the Sagrada Familia

Red and Blue Stained Glass by Be_dazzled

Browse more Be dazzled Ornaments

How much do they cost? Well, they're $15.85 each - but if you order more than one (and it can be any ornaments from any store on Zazzle, but my mother has the monopoly on Gaudi ornaments right now!) then there are bulk discounts:

3-9 ornaments gets you a 10% discount

10-14 means a 15% discount

and 15 or more? 20% off! (which cancels out the shipping cost)

But wait - what about shipping? Shipping rates on Zazzle are tiered, which means that they are really steep for one ornament and more reasonable for several. The only real way to find out for sure is to add them to your cart, play with numbers and have a look at the total - this is what I got (but it may be giving me something different for overseas).

1-3 ornaments $8.99
4 $9.99
5-6 $17.99
7-10 $18.99
11-14 $35.99 (bulk discount at this point: $26.18-$33.32 )
15-20 $37.99 but a 20% discount of $47.55-63.40 


And henceforth, the discount is always more than the shipping
35 ornaments is $92.99 shipping and discount $110.95 
And 50 is $97.99 shipping, and a discount of $158.50!

More Gaudi Ornaments
(with a different picture on each side)

Rainbow Sunlight Stained Glass by Be_dazzled

See other ornaments

Rainbow and Blue Stained Glass by Be_dazzled

Parc Guell Mosaic Rainbow and Orange by Be_dazzled


Parc Guell Mosaic Green and Orange by Be_dazzled
Make custom Christmas tree ornaments

Of course, you may actually really like an ornament that's the same on both sides, in which case there are these designs to choose from, so far!

Yeah, yeah, Christmas is over. But stuff sticks around on the internet - and hey, maybe you forgot to buy ornaments for the tree this year and are kicking yourself (or getting kicked by your kids!). Perhaps you should order in advance? 

Or perhaps you want some giant earrings? Or something pretty to hang on the wall, to look arty and make everyone think you're more cultured than you are! Or even a souvenir of a trip to Barcelona, or a gift to a Gaudi fan? 

Disclaimer: it's her store and she'll get the sales money, I'll get a referral if you buy through here, but if you don't, I won't. I'd *like* referrals, obviously, but I'd also like to show off her store.

Cat and Mouse and Tui T-Shirts

I was talking to my mother about Zazzle recently and explaining that things don't always sell the way you expect, - for example, the t-shirt my dad and brother both liked so much that I had to buy them each one had never sold anything.

At which point I realised I'd never put it on a t-shirt on Zazzle, only RedBubble for my own buying needs (I am not paying to ship from the US, thank you). I had it on a few other designs - mousepads (ha!), greeting cards and stuff, but not a t-shirt.

Cat & Mouse by Flynn_the_Cat

Browse Cat and mouse T-Shirts

So here we are - the little cat, playing with her mouse, that was the second design I ever did in ArtRage 3. I didn't take it seriously until my family started requesting it.

Green Cat & Mouse Cat & Mouse

by Flynn_the_Cat

Browse Cat and mouse T-Shirts

The brighter green one is slightly nicer, I think, but works less well on different backgrounds, while the paler one looks really nice on light grey and works on various colours a bit better (picky artist!).

Cause Zazzle is customizable, things like size and alignment should be easy to change - that's a real pain actually with RedBubble, because if the cat is too small or in the wrong place, I have to redesign and reupload the entire file. Changing designs on Zazzle is easy.

I know the quality's good because it's the same image, and the same type of t-shirt (American Apparel) that both my dad and my brother were wearing last week (Teh brother had a sweatshirt and dad got a t-shirt, both in pale greys).

Funnily, I'd categorised both this design and the Tui one as 'girly' - but both get the most interest from guys (at Armageddon for the latter, the majority of people who asked after it was male. Might be the oriental look appealing to the number of anime fans, though!) ...seriously? I didn't make the Tui one a t-shirt on Zazzle either? I guess that shows where my priorities are! *promptly goes to rectify situation*

Oh that's right - I had a problem with the metallics turning out transparent when printed. Right. I know I fixed that, because I ordered some Tui t-shirts too. AHA, found the file. Right, one t-shirt coming up...

NOOOOO. IT BROKED THE INTERNET. I dare not save this post now! Stupid giant print quality art files.

*one restarted computer and forty minutes later*

Tui Bird and Cherry Blossom by Flynn_the_Cat

See other Tui T-Shirts

I will say it's nice to actually know for certain sure how something turns out - my keychains still haven't arrived, sadly (%&*#&$* NZ post, I suspect).