First Night Design | The Art of Happiness #Cushions #Sales!

Somebody needs to close my mouth before my jaw locks into place. I’ve just sold three of these Thanksgiving Cushions on Redbubble!

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Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for old age. Booth Tarkington

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Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | Vintage Eye Salve for Modern Cataract

Vintage Eye Salve Advertisement © Sarah Vernon

Well, my dear friends and followers and anyone who’s along for the ride, my cataract operation is done but not quite dusted. I have multifarious drops — or salves, if you like — that have to be administered every two to three hours and every eight hours, and only discovered at my first outpatient appointment on Tuesday that there are stitches to be taken out in a month or two. What? Stitches? Why did no one mention that before? No, they’re not the kind that can dissolve. Of course not. Why would I be that lucky?

And that’s not all. I have double vision which is going to take a while to settle. It’s marginally better but my endurance is wearing thin.

In a bit of synchronicity, I sold this Vintage Eye Salve Advertisement last week while I was in the hospital. When I originally posted about it, some of you were a little freaked out. There is a market for it! Perhaps it’s been bought as a ‘get well’ card for somebody else who’s just had a cataract operation.

Talking of drops…

A little scene from a Scrapbook made for me as a child. © Sarah Vernon

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | A Cherub is as a Cherub Does! #Christmas

A Cherub, Detail of the Sistine Madonna – Raphael Greeting Cards

What could be more restorative when I’ve been feeling rather peevish this week than to learn that I’ve sold 50 greeting cards of this detail of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna! Well, it sure bucked my spirits up considerably.

And I’ve just created my first Christmas stocking with the same image.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | ‘Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive…’

I have sold two more cushions — very heaven!

The White Rabbit Pillow

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‘Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive
But to be young was very heaven.’
William Wordsworth, The Prelude

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Romantic Meeting Throw Pillows

Click here for the original Romantic Meeting post.

Romantic Meeting is available on other products at the following galleries:
Redbubble
Crated
Fine Art America
Fine Art England
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK

White Rabbit is available on other products at the following galleries:
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | I Love Selling Cushions!

Burlap Simple Chocolate Brown Throw Pillow

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Flying Turkeys #Art #Sales

Flying Turkeys © Sarah Vernon

I’m delighted to tell you that while I was hamstrung by lack of bandwidth over Thursday and Friday, I sold 10 copies of this greeting card, Flying Turkeys, on Greeting Card Universe. Ostensibly for Thanksgiving, there is nothing to say it can’t be used for any occasion under the sun.

I see that my note beneath the card says:

‘The shadows of flying turkeys trying, perhaps, not to be caught and end up on the Thanksgiving table!’

I don’t often mention GCU as I stopped uploading onto the site very early on because it was such a bore; every card has to be approved and that can take days and days, and then they want the sort of changes that makes any creation pointless. What I see as charm, they see as mistakes. Since the same creations sell on Zazzle, Redbubble and Fine Art America, they can go hang because I’m not compromising when it comes to my art (do you see the high horse?).  Am I cutting off my nose to spite my face? Probably. Am I missing out on sales? Probably. Do I care? Not really — life’s too short.

Flying Turkeys Two-Tone Coffee Mugs from Zazzle

Flying Turkeys Long Aprons from Zazzle.

Flying Turkeys iPhone 5 Covers from Zazzle

Available at the following galleries:
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Greeting Card Universe

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | The Lure of the Archive — Miss Vesta Tilley

I’ve run out of bandwidth so I’m having to squeeze out a quick post that I prepared at Christmas when I sold 25 postcards of the male impersonator Miss Vesta Tilley, about whom you can read here. It was the best Christmas present!

Miss Vesta Tilley Post Cards

This is the original postcard from my theatre collection:

Miss Vesta Tilley (1864-1952)

As you can tell, and as is my wont, I gave her a new look with a different background, though I do intend to sell copies of the original when I get round to it. Hah! I wonder when that will be.

I trust you are all having a diverting May Day weekend! I’m spending it reading the first novel of Beguiling Hollywood’s inimitable Vicki Lester, It’s In His Kiss.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Vintage Advertisements for the High Life

Holborn Restaurant Postcard

Schweppes Table Waters Postcard

These gorgeous advertisements, which have recently sold as postcards, come from my collection of theatre programmes for late nineteenth century D’Oyly Carte productions at the Savoy Theatre in London, including The Yeoman of the Guard and The Gondoliers.

In other news, my internet connection is still appalling. I suspect it’s because I have used up the allowed bandwidth for the month (I connect via a USB stick) as a result of the endless downloading and installing necessary for this new MacBook. It makes visiting, liking and commenting on your blogs almost impossible, which is exceedingly frustrating. Please know that I am there in spirit!

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Oh, the Glamour! 50% OFF

One day only: 50% off all posters | USE CODE: JANPOSTERS15
Zazzle US • Zazzle UK

Such a treat to have sold the following posters at Zazzle today. No one should ever have to live without Hollywood glamour! You can read about my using renowned photographer Edward Steichen’s famous headshot of Gloria Swanson covered in lace as inspiration here, here and here.

Hollywood Vintage Clara Bow Poster

Hollywood Vintage Louise Brooks Poster

Hollywood Vintage Gloria Swanson Poster

Available at the following galleries:
Redbubble
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America: The Clara Bow Tattoo • The Louise Brooks Tattoo • The Gloria Swanson Tattoo
Fine Art England: The Clara Bow Tattoo • The Louise Brooks Tattoo • The Gloria Swanson Tattoo

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Butterflies & Circuses

Recent sales for your delectation. Please don’t even think about asking me how long it’s taking to catch up with your December comments!

Butterfly Postcard Postcard

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“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days – three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

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At the Circus Post Cards

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“Damn everything but the circus!. . .The average ‘painter’ ‘sculptor’ ‘poet’ ‘composer’ ‘playwright’ is a person who cannot leap through a hoop from the back of a galloping horse, make people laugh with a clown’s mouth, orchestrate twenty lions.”
― e.e. cummings

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Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Quick Update & a Couple of Cushions

Quick update: We have been given a separate keyboard for the computer on loan and discovered that no one was able to connect to the internet yesterday because of the weather in this part of Crete including rarely-seen snow in Chania!

It will take quite a while to catch up with all the lovely comments you’ve left since the end of November so please bear with me and forgive me if my responses are limited to ‘liking’. I suspect that if I reply to all of you, I will never get back on track!

In the meantime, here are a couple of cushions I sold in the lead-up to Christmas.

The White Rabbit Throw Pillow

Time for Tea #8 Teacup Pillow

The bad news – oh yes, there’s always bad news in my life! – my glasses, which admittedly don’t work brilliantly while I’m waiting for the cataract operation, have gone AWOL so that I’m having to screw up my good eye in order to read. C’est la vie.

Take care and keep laughing!

Fine Art Features and Zazzle Sizzlers

One from the archive.

First Night Design

You’re the Cream in my Coffee © Sarah Vernon

Today is a good day for I discovered that the above artworks, You’re the Cream in My Coffee Valentine and Travelling with the Buzzard, were variously featured in the Fine Art America groups Digital Touch, 3 A Day Greeting Cards and Female Artists.

Travelling with the Buzzard © Sarah Vernon

My weekend delights began last night when I received notification that a customer had bought 40 postcards of Sing a Song of Sixpence on Zazzle.  A design from three or four years ago, it is a perfect card for theatre professionals, including as it does the theatrical form of good luck, ‘Break a Leg’.

Sing a Song of Sixpence Good Luck Postcard

I hope your weekend is proving equally delightful.

Take care and keep laughing!

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First Night Design | One Large Tote Bag and Tell Me About It

A Bird in the Hand Tote Bag (Redbubble)

This is a special shout-out for Michelle of Tell Me About It who has bought one of my Bird in the Hand tote bags as a birthday present for her mother. I’m thrilled and I hope her mom is too! Thank you, Michelle.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Blasé? Not me.

Swallow with Flowers Post Card

A friend of mine from drama school, after witnessing another friend get one acting job after another without apparent joy, said, “I hope, however successful I might become, that I never get blasé about getting work.” I agreed wholeheartedly.

I also hope I never get blasé about selling my art. Today I sold two of these postcards to a French customer and, as ever, my heart gave a little hop and a skip when I saw the notification.

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Let Joy Be Unconfined | Cushion Obsession (again!)

Let joy be unconfined! I’ve sold one of these cushions and shall be entering the weekend with a big grin on my face. A girl’s gotta eat…

Hot Air Balloon Voyage Throw Pillows by FirstNightDesign

Take care and keep laughing!