Stars & Strikes Donations

My Life is a Soap Opera Blake Mug by donnapool
Browse more Soap Mugs

Last year I donated a couple of my mugs to be included in  the Daytime Stars & Strikes auction to benefit the American Cancer Society. I bought the mugs for around $15 each. At auction, they went for $50 each. I wasn't able to be there myself but I felt like I'd had a little part in this wonderful charity event.

I wish I'd been able to donate more items but that was all I could afford to give at the time. This year I'd like to see if I can get more people to donate some of the soap opera themed merchandise from my shops on Zazzle and CafePress. I've been in touch with the organizers of the event and they would love to have more items to auction. (Several of my designs are now in the official ABC stores for All My Children, One Life To Live and General hospital in the fan-made section.)

You can buy any soap opera related merchandise from my Zazzle shop or any of my CafePress shops (something that can be autographed by the stars at the event would be best).  Just use the address below as the "ship to" address when placing  your order and know that the item will be auctioned off at Daytime Stars and Strikes event, October 9, 2011 in New York City. Then email Wendy at wmadore@aol.com to let her know about your donation.

Sundi McCormick
385 South End Avenue #7E
New York, NY 10280

You can buy from the Venice shop, too and have it shipped to that address! 


If you're favorite character isn't here, just leave a comment for me... I take requests!

My Zazzle shop's soap opera products can be found here: http://bit.ly/oFHSDA

And here is a list of my shops on CafePress : 

Guiding Light:
I Want To Live In Springfield  
http://www.cafepress.com/donnapool
The Afterglow Lives On  
http://www.cafepress.com/ddpoolAfterglow
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Olivia Do? 
http://www.cafepress.com/GLOliviaDo

One Life To Live:
I Want My OLTL http://www.cafepress.com/IWantMyOLTL
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Inez Do? 
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLInezDo
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Nora Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLNoraDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Dorian Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLDorianDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Blair Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLBlairDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Clint Do? 
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLClintDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Cramer Women Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/OLTLCramerWomenDo

All My Children:
I Want My AMC  
http://www.cafepress.com/IWantMyAMC
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Erica Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCEricaDo
My Life Is a Soap Opera... What Would Kendall Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCKendallDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Bianca Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCBiancaDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Greenlee Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCGreenleeDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Kane Women Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/AMCKaneWomenDo

General Hospital:
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Sonny Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/GHSonnyDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Jason Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/GHJasonDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would Brenda Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/GHBrendaDo
My Life Is A Soap Opera... What Would the Davis Girls Do?  
http://www.cafepress.com/GHDavisGirlsDo

Miscellaneous:
My Life Is A Soap Opera... I Need An Evil Twin  
http://www.cafepress.com/NeedEvilTwin

Giblet, Part One

Once upon a time I was a doodler. I’d leave my doodles and drawings on book covers and class notes, school binders and church bulletins, and even paper tablecoths at Wednesday night suppers. No paper surface was safe, it would seem and no challenge went unmet. A shout across the classroom of “Hey, Donna, can you draw (fill in the blank)” would be answered with “Sure!” While I seldom guaranteed the results, I was always willing to try!

But somewhere along the way I became discouraged when I saw so many artists whose talent was much greater than my own. Then I got distracted by life and kids and responsibilities and I stopped drawing, except for the occasional poster or logo design for a church event. I put my artistic efforts into making gifts for family & friends and some of those things eventually found their way into my Etsy shop, which my daughter encouraged me to set up a few years ago.

Then I started doodling with a graphics program on my computer and a few months ago I put some doodles in my Zazzle shop. Much to my surprise I’ve made some sales there and I’m having a lot of fun coming up with new designs, particularly for my fellow soap opera fans.

I got a special request a few months ago from one of my soap opera internet buddies. She’d planned a special event with a friend who had an unusual nickname, “Giblet” and wondered if I could draw a pig to put on a t-shirt. I didn’t ask for the details behind the nickname or the significance of the pig, I just told her I’d give it a try. Here’s what I came up with.

She said…” Love the pig - could we put him in a blanket sitting in a chair?” So I did.

“Oh, you are SOO on the right track that my dog looked at me funny when I laughed out loud!!!”

I told her, “Oh, gee...in the ‘Why Didn't I Think of That’ Department.... I was just telling my husband about your reaction to this sketch and he said, ‘If you could make the blanket wrap around the pig you'd have a pig in a blanket!’” She thought that was an excellent idea, so here’s the final sketch (after scanning it and cleaning it up a bit in my graphics program)….

She said “That is PERFECT! That's the one! Thank you so much! A pig in a blanket!”

I decided to add color to the drawing to make it match the color of the text design she’d decided on, too. Here’s the final edition:

And here it is on the t-shirt, with the text we worked out together. Any resemblance to the Guiding Light logo is strictly intentional! (You can click on the shirt to see it in my Zazzle shop)....

And just for grins, I put it on some other products, too. Here's the Giblet mug (click on it to go to that page in my Zazzle shop):

There's another chapter to the Giblet story, but I think I'll save that for the next blog entry, coming soon. For now I'll just say that I LOVED doing this project and I'm definitely planning to stretch my old drawing skill again soon!

I should also add that I showed this drawing to my big sister, a very talented artist (formerly an art director with an advertising firm) and she loved it, too. She thinks I should expand on it and turn it into a line of greeting cards.

What do you think?

Aude Aliquid Dignum ("Dare Something Worthy")

A few weeks ago I wrote about a friend of mine who went to Haiti with a medical relief team in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. I was inspired to find a way to help and decided to donate my proceeds from my "My Life Is A Soap Opera..." Zazzle products to Doctors Without Borders in her honor.

Since I posted that blog entry I've been tweeting links to those products daily with information about this fund raising effort.

Crystal Chappell was kind enough to show her support by retweeting my links to products featuring her character, Carly Manning, from Days Of Our Lives, one I did for her husband, Michael Sabatino's character, Alan and others. I was also retweeted by Kim Turrisi, Nadia Bjorlin, and other members of Team Venice.

My links were also retweeted by Eden Riegel (ex-Bianca, AMC & new Heather, Y&R), Carolyn Hennessy (Diane, General Hospital), Martha Byrne (ex-Lily, As The World Turns and creator of the webseries Gotham), and Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis, General Hospital) and then retweeted by people who follow them on Twitter.

Special thanks to soap opera bloggers We Love Soaps, SoapTown USA, and Soap Opera Network for helping to spread the word, too. And a special shout out to Destini of the Big Purple Dreams message board and OutViews.com for her many retweets in support of this project!

My proceeds for "My Life Is A Soap Opera..." products came to a total of $80 and as I tweeted about that last night I began to get tweets from others who wanted contribute, some with matching donations. Within just a couple of hours, the total amount gathered in this fund raising effort came to $415! If you'd like to see what this money can do, read this.

There were many, many individuals who helped spread the word about this fund raiser on Twitter and other places, too, and I couldn't possibly name them all. I hope that you will accept this collective "Thank you!" from the bottom of my heart! My friend who inspired all of this in the first place is currently unavailable for comment but I can't wait till she hears how it all turned out!*

Stay tuned...maybe I'll do another fund raiser someday!



*My thanks to @drcrusher39 for her sacrifice and service and special thanks also to @DrLisaThompson for who helped encourage this effort from the beginning.

ADDENDUM, 3/20/10

I got the following message from my friend, @drcrusher39 on Twitter, who inspired this fund raiser:

@donnadpool thanks for all your efforts! I made a $500 donation to match. Luv u!

She also mentioned that she's back in Haiti for a while "...to help a friend." She took her sisters and their husbands with her this time.

Did I mention that she's an amazing lady?

So, that brings the total for this fund raiser to $915.00! Just a few soap opera fans, trying to make a difference in the world!

Making a Difference ...One Soap Viewer At A Time

Time for my report on my fund raiser for Doctors Without Borders! During the month of February the "My Life Is A Soap Opera..." sales totaled $349.35. Now I only get 10-20% of that, since the rest goes to Zazzle for the cost of producing the products themselves. So the total of my proceeds for the month comes to $62.94. I'm going to round that up to $70.00. This may not sound like much money to some of you, but it's $70.00 more than I would have been able to give without your support! And a little bit can go a long way. According to the Doctors Without Borders website, here are some examples of what even small donations can do:

$35 Two high-energy meals a day to 200 children

$50 Vaccinations for 50 people against meningitis, measles, polio or other deadly epidemics

$70 Two basic suture kits to repair minor shrapnel wounds

$100 Infection-fighting antibiotics to treat nearly 40 wounded children

Because Zazzle offers a 30 day return policy, I have to wait until the end of March before the money for these sales is cleared and comes to me a couple of weeks later. But I don't want to wait that long to send it in. I've decided that once I get my next Zazzle paycheck (which is actually for my December sales), on or before March 15th, I'll go ahead and send the donation on to Doctors Without Borders.

So, as long as we're waiting, I'm going to extend my fund raiser those two extra weeks! My proceeds for any "My Life Is A Soap Opera..." items sold through March 15 will be included in this fund raiser! Also, if you're interested in pledging a matching donation, please let me know!

I've added a lot of new items to my Zazzle shop, more of your favorite soap opera characters for all your favorite shows ... including the men, too... and there are more to come, so please keep shopping! Oh, by the way, I do take requests if there's a character or product you want that's not already in my shop.

And a special thank you to all who retweet my links!! I love you!! Feel free to share them with all your friends on Facebook, soap opera messages boards, any where you like!

Who says watching soap operas doesn't make a difference in the world?!


Edited on 3/16/10 to add:

My total now comes to $80! As soon as I tweeted this news, I got another matching pledge to go along with the one you see in the comments here. Then another one came in. And then somebody pledged 10% of the final amount, too! More donations are still coming! I'll continue to tweet about this tonight and in the morning I'll post a new blog entry with the final total!

How about that... just a bunch of soap opera fans, buying some fun stuff about their favorite characters, and Doctors Without Borders is getting over $400...so far!

(To read my original post about this fund raiser and get the whole story, click here.

It's Only a Soap Opera ...for Haiti

I have a friend, a doctor, who has been working with the relief efforts in Haiti the past few weeks. I've actually never met her in person. We met on Twitter because of our common interest in a soap opera. Over the past few months we've shared laughs and observations on parenting and seen each other through the illness and death of loved ones. If anyone says that online friends aren't real friends, I beg to differ.

My friend will be leaving Haiti in a matter of hours and others will take up the work there as it will surely continue for the foreseeable future. I was thinking of what I could possibly do to help the cause. I’m not a doctor and I’m never going to have much spare cash to give to relief efforts, either. But I think I’ve come up with something that could make a difference and at the same time honor my friend and the work she’s been doing with Doctors Without Borders.

I came up with a series of designs a few months ago that I’ve expanded into a full line of products in my Zazzle shop. It started with the phrase “My life is a soap opera…What would Erica Do?” That’s referring, of course, to Erica Kane, the character on All My Children, played so beautifully by Susan Lucci for the past 40 years. I came up with some other phrases, all beginning with “My life is a soap opera…”, adding other characters from Guiding Light, One Life to Live, General Hospital, and the Young & the Restless.

Recently when Crystal Chappell (Carly Manning/DOOL, Olivia Spencer/GL) was on The Bonnie Hunt Show, Bonnie did a comedy bit during the opening of the show, playing her own evil twin who was aghast at the awful things Crystal’s character had done on Days of Our Lives. Crystal picked up on that during her interview, too, and they had a good laugh. (You can see a clip of the interview here.)

The next day when Crystal was on Twitter I sent her the link to this mug:

My Life is a Soap Opera #2 Mug by donnapool

Crystal saw it and tweeted back, “Hilarious! I love it!” Apparently quite a few people took a look at my Twitter profile page to see what I’d said to her that was so hilarious and clicked on that link, too, because that mug was among the Top 10 Most Viewed Mugs on Zazzle that day!

My conclusions... you can reach a lot of people through Twitter and there are a lot of soap opera fans out there.

So, here’s what I’ve decided to do. From now through the end of February, I will be tweeting links to all my Zazzle products in the “My Life Is A Soap Opera…” line and hopefully my fellow soap opera fans will be retweeting them. I will keep track of all the sales of those items and send all my proceeds to Doctors Without Borders to be used in their relief efforts in Haiti.

I know that every dollar makes a difference in Haiti right now. Using these designs for a fund-raising project like this makes sense because so many soap opera stars go out of their way to get involved in charity projects. For example, recently, Nancy Lee Grahn got on the phone and gathered several of her soap star friends on very short notice to meet fans in person at the Rose Bowl and take donations for Haiti. (I have a “…What Would Alexis Do?” design in my Zazzle shop for the character she plays on General Hospital.)

And who knows, maybe I’ll find some other soap fans out there who will offer to match the amount I bring in and Doctors Without Borders will benefit even more.

So look for me on Twitter… I’m DonnaDPool …and if you see my tweets with these links, please take a look, and if you like what you see and want to buy it, know that all of my earnings from each sale (above Zazzle’s cost for producing the item) will be going to help the people of Haiti. I’ll be adding new items throughout the month. Oh, and I do take requests so if your favorite soap character isn’t represented, just leave a comment here.

I’ll be sure to keep you updated here on this blog.

Thank you.

Big Purple Dreams

I went to get my allergy shots yesterday. That’s one of the little extra things I do for myself every other week. I don’t really need them…unless I want to breathe.

I took my usual route to get there but as I got closer I saw a traffic pile-up that came to a standstill just before my exit. I had one last chance to get off the freeway and take a detour so I made a split second decision and opted for Plan B.

Plan B quickly became Plans C, D, and E as I attempted to wind way back toward the allergy clinic . I’d finally locked onto Plan F and seemed to be making progress when it occurred to me that the road I had taken did not curve the way I intended to go. My mind was jumping ahead to Plans G through L when I realized…I was suddenly back at Plan A.

The road I had chosen was one I hadn’t taken in a while. I had forgotten that it would put me back on the freeway again. But while I had been wandering around, looking for alternatives, the traffic had cleared and I found myself only a few yards away from the destination I’d been aiming for in the first place.


That’s just the way life is sometimes.


When I was growing up I was always drawing something. Doodles filled the margins of my notebook paper and friends asked me to draw special things for them to put on their bulletin boards. I loved whatever we were making in art class whether it was clay pots or silver jewelry.

Then I went to college and had to choose a major. I was good, but I wasn’t THAT good I didn’t think I could compete with all those other art majors. Maybe being an artist was just a dream. I changed my major at least five times before I finally graduated with a BA in History. I haven’t done anything with that degree except put it on applications for jobs that had nothing to do with History. But each job led me to another more interesting one and each job taught me something new and brought new people into my life. As my husband completed his seminary degree and we moved on to a life in the ministry my focus was on people, making connections with others and helping in any way I could.

Now, after almost 30 years of marriage, two kids and several careers later …I’m an artist again, making things for my Etsy shop and doodling up some fun design for my friends I’ve met online and making them available in my Zazzle shop.

This one is for all my 6,000+ friends on the Big Purple Dreams message board for fans of Otalia (Olivia and Natalia) from Guiding Light. Thank you for your inspiration, your friendship, and for an unforgettable year.

    (Click on the mug to see more)

Make a personalized gift at Zazzle.

Frustration

I can blog today.

I would have had a hard time doing that yesterday or the day before because my cable internet service was out. That's two days. I've had glitches in my service before but that's the longest it's been down since the last time a hurricane came through here.

I was not a happy camper.

I couldn't check on my Etsy shop or my Zazzle shop to answer customer inquiries or list anything new. I couldn't do any of the usual things I do online. Keep in mind that I'm usually at home without a car all day and the internet is my link to the world.

So today, Broadstripe, I salute you with the above photo of a button, made from a recycled vintage magazine, that I have for sale in my Etsy shop.

I call it "Frustration."