Great Diwali Gifts for Babies and Kids

Little Characters, my online shop, has two sweet designs for Diwali. They can be printed on T-shirts, onesies, and bibs, and they would make very sweet gifts for children - especially for those celebrating their first Diwali.

Click on either picture to go directly to my store and see the products.




I recently sold a Diwali T-shirt! It makes me so glad that I worked to create the Diwali designs. The person who bought it just searched through the Cafepress Marketplace, so she probably never saw my shop. I see the customer's name and general location in my sales reports, but I wish I could email her to thank her. She probably doesn't know how happy she made someone buying a little T-shirt. At least one person has a nice way of celebrating Diwali with her child - that she would not have had if I hadn't created it.

I would love it if some more Diwali stuff was sold, but I know there isn't much time until October 28th. (Although I think that if people ordered things now, they could arrive in time!) So, I have set some goals for myself for 2009.

I want to draw at least one more Hindu holiday design. I think I will be doing one for Holi. It's on March 11th in 2009, so I should have plenty of time. It's such a fun holiday and since it's so colorful, I should have some nice opportunities to use vibrant color in the design. I also want to try to improve the Diwali lamps design for next year. I think the positioning on the shoulders and head is a little off, so I'll fix that. I have ideas for two other Diwali designs, too, so maybe I'll end up offering a total of four in 2009!

Diwali designs for baby clothes

Little Characters has two new Diwali designs. The T-shirts and onesies would make sweet Diwali gifts for babies and toddlers.





I spent a lot of time analyzing whether or not I should push myself to do these, but I ended up doing two just in time for people to order the baby clothes and have them arrive before October 28th.

Patrick keeps supporting me by reminding me that this is my own business and that I don't have any goals or deadlines except those I chose to have for myself.

I'm really committed to having the religious diversity though - in principle. And when I started to talk to my mom about the possibility of doing the Hindu designs next year, I realized that I might be doing the three monotheistic religions' holidays first and then eventually getting around to the polytheistic ones. After growing up polytheistic and hearing so many people casually treating polytheistic religions like they're in a separate category or like they're not real religions at all . . . I just couldn't do that. I might not get to the Wiccan holidays this year, but I'll at least do two Hindu holidays. And now that I'm a committed Unitarian Universalist, in a way this is an expression of my current values and spiritual life. UUs always say that they respect, and are inspired by, other religious traditions.

So, yes, I talked myself into spending several more hours on yet another holiday, but I feel good about what I've done. I must be convincing! :D

Baby and Toddler Clothes for Eid Ul Fitr

If you go to Little Characters now, you'll see these new designs in time for Eid:



Clicking either picture will take you directly to those products.

This has been a challenging set of designs for me to do. First of all, there are just a lot of holidays happening now! I just barely finished Rosh Hashana (September 29th), and I had to really hustle to get designs out in time for Eid (October 1st). Yom Kippur is October 8th, but I don't think I'm going to do any designs for that - at least not this year. I really don't think infants or toddlers will be too involved in repenting. But Sukkot is October 14th, and that's right around the corner.

My ignorance about Islam was the main challenge in creating the Eid designs. I've read some, but there is just so much I don't know. When I researched Eid Ul Fitr, I couldn't find any distinctive foods or symbols to draw.

The only food I found mentioned was vermicelli in sweet milk, and, honestly, I really have no clue how to draw that in a cute way. I finally settled on the symbol of the crescent moon (halil), because Eid doesn't officially start until someone spots it, and sometimes children are the ones who go hunting for it. I got the idea of having a baby seem to be reaching out - as if to try to grab the moon.

The next big challenge I had was how to dress the babies. I wanted to make sure that the babies appeared modest, so I knew this design wouldn't have my typical diapers-and-little-else look. But I had NO IDEA what the baby should actually wear. I read that families liked to dress extra special for Eid, but I couldn't find any photos of what babies or children would wear.

And I was very concerned about how to draw the heads. I didn't think it was appropriate to draw a head scarf on the baby girl, because girls aren't expected to wear those until they reach puberty, but I thought the baby's head should be dressed somehow. I saw photos of boys in those fancy prayer hats, and finally, I spotted a photo with two little girls wearing them on their way to mosque.

So this is what I've settled on. I really hope that the babies seem appropriate, and that their dress doesn't exclude anyone.

I'd love some information or suggestions from any practicing Muslims out there. I'm always looking for ways to improve my designs, and I'd like to include other Muslim designs, but honestly, I don't know what I would do other than the Eid stuff.