MAKING MONEY ONLINE : ZAZZLE

I'm really impressed with this custom design store. Zazzle has a great range of products - t-shirts, mugs, greetings cards, note cards, postcards, badges, stickers, bags, hats, etc. and is easy and fun to use, whether you just want to create individual, one-off products for your own purchase, or set up a store and make money selling your designs publicly.

Elephant Poster by fullmentaljacket

It also has some unusual products - you can completely personalise your own Keds shoes, and now you can make designs for embroidery on a range of different products.

Svengali Poster by fullmentaljacket

Marketing is simple - you can earn money by selling your own products, or by promoting other people's designs in your store, and you can set your own sales margin. Each day, Zazzle gives out awards for the best designs. Although these are kudos only, you do get a nice little rosette next to your product, and it is featured on the front page for that day. The Zazzle model is very well run, with payment credited quickly and reasonable shipping times.

Le chat de M. Matisse by fullmentaljacket

I've found that black and white photographs work a bit better than colour, and vector graphics are really good. I ordered a selection of my own products, to see what the quality is like, and I was surprised and delighted with the professional finish. The cards and envelopes are the kind you'd find in good high street stores, and the gloss finish is perfect. The mugs are good quality glaze and the designs are rendered faithfully. The t-shirts are high quality, and very good value for money.

Hoverfly - Volucella inanis by fullmentaljacket

I've made a variety of products from photographs of flies and butterflies, some vector art and some old family photos with funny captions. My favourites that I've done so far are my Birthday Elephant, Svengali and Matisse's Cat designs.

ISABELLA AND THE INSECTS

I'm a long-standing fan of David Lynch, and, as I've said before, I love flies. Now, Isabella Rossellini was once married to David Lynch, and now it looks as if she's maybe taking the insect investigations a lot further, too.

Just to clarify, when I said, "I love flies", I absolutely did not mean carnally!!

FLY GUY

Here's a shameless plug - I made this shirt on Zazzle, and I'm really pleased with it. You can buy one, if you like - from here. It's a really good site, actually. You can make things and post them for sale, and there is actually a huge range of items, or you can just make unique items for yourself or as gifts for family and friends. It's a good blend of other similar sites, with affiliate and shopkeeper programmes, but without that obligation.

I've found some more great insect stuff on the wonderweb recently. I'm rounding it all up, and it'll be posted here soon. Keep watching, insect fans...

I LOVE FLIES

I was lucky enough to see, some years ago, this beautiful hoverfly, Callicera Aenea, at Clay Hill in the New Forest.

Why do I love flies? I really don't know, but I just never get tired of looking at them, and there are always new ones to discover. Like most amateur entomologists, I was first attracted to butterflies and moths - lepidoptera - but then decided to specialise in flies. As the class name suggests, Diptera are characterised by having just two wings, whereas most other insects have two pairs of wings.

To me, flies are incredibly beautiful, as are any artworks that take flies as their subject.

For example, the amazing pavement artist, Julian Beever, created this piece:



Beever specialises in anamorphic art, in which the image is distorted in 2d, and only appears as it should when viewed from a certain direction. It's exactly the effect used for advertising images in sports arenas and race circuits, where the company logo's ideal viewing point is designed to coincide with camera positions.

Beever doesn't particularly specialise in insect art, but there are others who do.

For instance, Mike Libby creates wonderful micro-quasi-mechanical sculptures out of dead insects and watch parts. Although his gallery doesn't have any flies at the moment, he does take commissions. Actually, his bees and beetles are my favourites:
The absolutely brilliant Stephanie Korschun at Sasquatch Designs produces highly detailed scientific illustrations, some of which she sells as t-shirts:

She also does sweatshirts and hoodies, as well as monochrome notelets in the same designs.