St Patricks Day fast approaches!

Will you be celebrating St Patricks Day on 17th March? As a true green Dublin born Irishwoman I certainly will! There is a huge St.Patricks Day Celebration and Parade in the City of Birmingham every year, this year on Sunday the 14th,(said to be the 3rd largest in the world after New York & Dublin!) and I'll be going. It's only 15 minutes into the City Centre on the train from here, so won't have to worry about parking - which will be a nightmare.

Pictures & reports for the Birmingham St Patricks Day Parade 2009

I've also been getting ready for the huge demand for St Patrick's Day Souvenirs, T-Shirts, gifts, cards etc by adding a St Patricks Day mini shop to my Zazzle Store. So far I've got 14 great vintage designs, many including both the ancient Irish flag of green and the American Flag. These are available on mugs, magnets, t-shirts, button pins, cards and ties.

The designs are all from old postcards which belonged to my Irish Grandmother, whose brother, as a young lad set sail for America and joined the 7th Cavalry in Texas. He was a horse shoer and when WW1 broke out was an MP at Camp Wadsworth in South Carolina before going over to Europe to fight on the battlefields around Ypres in Belgium, where he was killed, he was only 24.

But while he was in America he sent my Granny a lot of these postcards which I now have and which are no longer copyright due to their age. So I thought it would be nice to adapt them to create souvenirs, gifts & t-shirts etc to celebrate St Patricks Day. Of course they predate the adoption of the green, white and orange tricolour flag, and instead feature the ancient green flag of Ireland which dates back to the 1700's and often has an Irish harp or the words 'Erin Go Bragh' gaelic for 'Ireland Forever' on them and many also feature the American flag.

Proud to be an Irish American 3 by CharmaineZoe
See other Kaleidoscope T-Shirts

Proud to be an Irish American 5 by CharmaineZoe
View other Kaleidoscope T-Shirts

Create a personalized gift at Zazzle.

Been mad busy designing!

A small selection of ties - click on image to enlarge
I've had a lot of fun over the last few evenings creating designs for my tie shop in Zazzle. I've now got a large collection of fractal kaleidoscope art in my library, which I've built up over the years and have been choosing works to use, then trying to decide the best way to utilise them, given that ties are long and narrow. But I think I've put together a very nice selection of patterns and designs for this latest collection. If you can't see the flash gallery below, you can go straight to the Tie Rack dept in my ZAZZLE STORE

I have over 250 ties in my store now with evrything from subtle colours and patterns to totally over the top psychedlic, or pretty chintzy to elegant. So gentlemen if you need a new tie check me out, and ladies if your looking for a present for Hubby or the boyfriend then have a look too.

NEW! Check out my new Tie blog and keep up to date with all my newest designs at Ties by CharmaineZoe!

I recently sold a couple of ties to a gent in Houston, Texas and I just love the idea that someone is walking around on the other side of the world wearing my designs, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling! I always get a thrill when I get an email from Zazzle to say I've had a purchase, not so much because of the commission, which is fairly small, but because someone has liked my design enough to actually buy it - I love that and that's why I keep designing!


Shop other personalized gifts from Zazzle.

New Kaleidoscope Kreations Video on YouTube

Now have a total of seven Krazy Kaleidoscopes videos on my YouTube Channel. These are beautiful multi centered animations created from colourful and intricate fractal art, all with musical audio tracks. This is No 7, the latest volume in the Krazy Kaleidoscopes Series. There also 3 more series, Magical Mandalas, Moving Mandalas and a brand new series of Mystical Mandalas, perfect for relaxation or meditation, all on YouTube. I hope you enjoy them and if you have a good internet connection it's worth watching in full screen size.

My New YouTube Channel!

I am delighted to announce that I now have my own YouTube Channel
to showcase and feature my very special kaleidoscopic animations videos.

I have linked all my 'Moving Mandalas' videos to this Channel and now have one of each of my new series of videos available to watch. These are the 'Magical Mandalas' series, which is based on the 'traditional' circular kaleidoscope emanating from a central point and set to a musical background, and the 'Krazy Kaleidoscope' series which have multi point kaleidscopes continuosly interchanging and morphing into new patterns in multiple dimensions and layers, creating a fascinating and harmonious display of colour, pattern and music.

These videos are ideal for relaxation or meditation or just for entertainment and have a hypnotic and calming effect for the soul. Although they are created using the new technology of digital art they reflect the art of the ancients and are a continuation of the incredibly old art of the Mandala and Kaleidoscope.

I also have a selection of short 30 second silent videos posted on my KALEIDOSCOPE KREATIONS Blog. I hope when you discover them that you enjoy watching them as much as I have enjoyed creating them. I've included a couple on this post as a taster.

COLOR 4 LIFE! a new range of Zazzle T-Shirts

It's still below freezing here and we even had a light snowfall, although tomorrow is supposed to be bad for snow again! There is still plenty on the ground and ice is a big problem. Apparently the councils are running out of salt and grit and having to cut back on the roads they treat, concentrating just on main roads. Not good for anyone trying to negotiate residential streets. We're lucky that we live on a bus route so most of our routes to work, shopping etc will be kept well gritted.

Our Garden in the Snow
While it's been so cold and snowy and not condusive to going out anywhere I've been beavering away at my Zazzle store (Best sale this week is a couple of ties to a gent in Houston, Texas - nice!) and just introduced a new range of designs. COLOR 4 LIFE! is a fantastic new range of T-Shirts & Sweatshirts each featuring a colorful kaleidoscopic design and each available in 60 different colours and styles for men, women, kids and babies. So far there are over 30 lovely designs with lots more to come. These are just a few of my latest designs for the range.

Color 4 Life Kaleidoscope T-Shirt FA 618 by CharmaineZoe
Design a custom t-shirt at zazzle.com

Color 4 Life Kaleidoscope T-Shirt FA499 by CharmaineZoe
Create customized tee shirts using zazzle

Color 4 Life Kaleidoscope T-Shirt FA 230 by CharmaineZoe
See more Kaleidoscope T-Shirts

Latest Moving Mandala Videos, real Kaleidoscopic Extravaganzas!

I've just uploaded the latest kaleidoscopic extravaganzas from Kaleidoscope Kreations. These are a series of Moving Mandala videos featuring constantly changing animated kaleidoscopic patterns set to music, which are available to view on my YouTube Channel. I now have 8 videos in the Moving Mandalas series plus a set of slideshows, all set to music and very meditative, relaxing and, I hope, enjoyable.

A New Year and a New Blog!

Happy New Year, I can't believe it's 2010 already, doesn't seem that long ago we were celebrating the Millenium!

I've got my daughter and grandson staying with us for the weekend, which is lovely as I haven't seen them since August! We had a nice evening yesterday and got to bed about 2.30 this morning! Max our Scotty dog woke us up about 7.30 but I shooed him back to bed and he let us sleep in until 8.15! Thought we'd find Kieran, my 6 yr old grandson downstairs before us watching TV but it's 9.30 now and still no sign , so it's lovely and peaceful :-)

The weather here at the moment is lovely with blue skies and sun, although very cold, which is very cheering, especially as the weather has been pretty grotty most of the week. We will just be chilling for the rest of the day here, although Ian will be cooking us a lovely leg of lamb for our New Year lunch which I'm looking forward to.

I've started a new blog, Free Patterns 4 U, to showcase some of my designs and help promote my website Kaleidoscope Kreations. these are tileable repeating patterns which are free to use however you like. With each pattern image there is another panel showing an example of the pattern tiled.