Baby Robins

Detail from my photo
entitled "Baby Robins"
for sale at istockphoto.com.
Spring 2009

Well it was a long cold winter here in New England but last week's hot weather has jump-started spring. The daffodils are already fading making room for the perennials which are just popping up. Ever since December's devastating ice storm, gray wood debris has lined all our streets so it's a joy to see the trees that survived the storm finally leafing up. Because of the Asian Long-Horned Beetle quarantine in Worcester County no wood can leave the area. Thankfully I found a neighbor who heats with wood and who was happy to remove about 3/4 of a cord of red oak from my yard to make room for last Friday's tree pruning.

My computer was in the shop last week [and will be again this week] and I took the opportunity to begin a new garden. I have a tip from a Gardening Gardiner. Cocoa mulch, made from the husk of the cocoa bean, is rich and dark, and when first spread it fills the yard with the intoxicating aroma of chocolate. Unfortunately the squirrels think so too! Thinking the smell means there is buried food, they dig through the garden maikng divots everywhere! Also a word of caution to pet owners. I found out the day after putting it down that it is toxic to both cats and dogs! I guess it is best used for indoor plants in homes without pets! Learn from my mistakes:-)

Enjoy the weather, Debi

Named it, Domained it, Designed it, Flashed it... Selling it!
Price Pallet designs and Domain for Sale
Price Pallet domain name, logo and flash are now for sale!

Last summer, a friend was contemplating a new business buying bulk, excess, and discontinued items and selling them to discount chain stores. He asked for my help in naming the company. After several days ruling out names unavailable as domain names, I came up with Price Pallet, and was amazed to find pricepallet.com had not yet been purchased. Anyone who has tried to buy a .com address in the last several years knows that good domain names are few and far between.

Even with all the new domain name extensions, .net, .us, .info, .name, .biz [to name a few] a.com addresses is instinctually what an end-user will type in first. Other keys to a great domain name include that it be short, easy to remember and that it reveal a description of the business. This is often impossible to do, but I think PricePallet.com does just that! The alliteration of the repeating "P" of Price Pallet also makes it that much more memorable.

Once named, and with domain name secured, I created a logo and ultimately a flash header for a website which you can see, along with details about the auction here [make sure you watch until the end]. Now with all the conceptual and design work in place, it was simply a matter of getting products, and filling in information on the website. After several months the project was dropped. So now YOU have a great opportunity!. The domain name, logo, and animation are available to the highest bidder! Don't leave this sweet deal at the loading dock! If you are interested in bidding, you can email me at: dg@gardinerdesign.com


Recent Gardiner Design Jobs
Catoliner A
Catoliner "A" shop now open at CafePress.com

I announced a couple of years ago the opening of my catoliner website in which I would sell items based on the Catoliner typeface I designed in 1981. With the current economy I have decided to take down that website, and instead use the "print-on-demand" site CafePress to sell a wider variety of items. I will put up separate sites for each of the 26 letters, and then a site for items that include the entire alaphabet. Plus, if you have customization requests, for names or phrases created with the alphabet, I can create private shops for you which include any items available at cafepress. Currently the Catoliner "A" Shop is open which features the black cat letter "A" alone or with it's definition "A is for Alert.


WineIntro Logo
WineIntro Logo

Here's the new "Stained Glass" style logo created for Lisa Shea for her new website design shown to the right [middle]. See another Stained-glass logo I created for Lisa's Minerva LLC company here.


Pinotage  Wine Bookcover

Pinotage Wine Bookcover
This cover and spine is for a self published Pinotage wine book by Peter May. Pinotage is a South African wine and to reinforce that message I combined photos of a billowing South Africian flag and wine pouring into a glass.


Lisa Shea's WineIntro Website

Lisa Shea's WineIntro Website
... and speaking of wine.... friend and associate Lisa Shea develops and runs some of the most visited sites on the internet. Her WineIntro website, needed an updated look, so we collaborated on a redesign. I created a new logo [shown at lower right] and designed and coded the hompage which Lisa used to create the remainder of the pages. See the site at: www.wineintro.com


Premier Optical Spring Window

Premier Optical Spring Windows
A detail from one of the three Premier Optical spring window displays shows only a small amount of the 5000+ green 12" pipecleaners I connected into longer sections then coiled to create the "spring" for their spring window. For this couple [and another] I recycled heads used in the winter display [shown here]... and another warning, when they say "floral" spray paint won't melt styrofoam... ask for more details!



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