Sheri Gaynor of feistyfemales.com interviews illustrator and entrepreneur Penelope Dullahan. You may also know Penelope Dullahan from Illustration Friday. If you are looking for a way to kick start your ideas, this is worthy of your creative input.

“Penny will share how she made the transition from art director at a successful ad agency, to successful illustrator, with an impressive client list. Penny has created illustration work for Target, United Airlines and Harper Collins, to name just a few.”

Listen to the interview here.

By PHYLLIS KORKKIPublished: February 17, 2008

This week I sent out a mailing of 700 postcards to announce my first international trade show exhibition in the License & Design section of the Craft & Hobby Association’s Winter 2008 trade show. It would have been a little easier, but the post office mailed me 700 GUM backed stamps instead of sticker backed stamps! I didn’t even know that they still made this old fashioned format, but it made for a pretty exhibit to see that many stamps in a Ball jar since I didn’t have time to wait for them to mail me corrected pieces. Nancy Stahl’s painterly Florida Panther,created for the United States Postal service, made for a “Ball of Stahl.” I especially love the contrast to my own feline friend “Lady Gwuinivere” AKA “Gwinny” and not a very productive studio mate, but a load of entertainment. Needless to say they mailing still got out on time with a little help from a giant sponge!

I want to share with you a VERY special family tradition that has become the most meaningful part of gift-giving at Christmas.

Each fall, Operation Christmas Child (lead by Billy Graham’s son, Franklin Graham) organizes the coolest way for ordinary people to do something extraordinary in the life of a little child in a far away country. They send out palettes of shoe boxes, packed with love and donated by caring people, and give them to needy children all over the world.

The children who are lucky enough to get a shoebox filled to the brim with toys and art supplies and necessities have been very unlucky in life. They distribute shoe boxes to children that live in poverty (like the dumps of Guatemala), sites of natural disasters (like Katrina and Indonesia), war torn villages (like Sudan) and hurting communities in the the farthest reaches of the world . . . they have even been to Timbuktu!

A simple gift such as a shoebox filled with special gifts from you will be the only gift a child might receive for Christmas this year. In fact, it might be the first gift they have ever received in their lives! And it is such a simple hands on way to help out a hurting community and a little child you could have never otherwise touched.

Things that are common place and quickly overlooked by most American children are treasured for life by children in other countries. It is a great way to get our kids, nieces, nephews, and little cousins involved too and teach them the meaning of helping others.

• See the difference a shoe box can make (video)

• How to pack a shoe box
  

I would love to share this joy with you! I PROMISE, you will never have this much fun shopping and wrapping a gift in your life!