coxylou | Lou's Designs

Dog Christmas Gift Wrap

What could be a better way of letting everyone know what a dog lover you are than by using dog Christmas gift wrap. I love seeing dog inspired Christmas wrap, tree ornaments and Christmas cards at this time of the year, don’t you?

The first dog Christmas gift wrap that I designed was based on a bull terrier that reminded me of my husband and I’s first dog, Shelly.

Bull Terrier Christmas Wrap Wrapping Paper

I used an image from the public domain for the bull terrier and at first added a festive green background to is, but the result wasn’t ‘quite right’ so I went for a brighter green and I thought that the end result was spot on. I’m not the only one as this design was the first gift wrap that I ever sold.

I have since used different colored backgrounds for the bull terrier designs, but the one featured is the most popular one.

I also have some dachshund inspired Christmas gift wrap. For this gift wrap I have taken an image of a dachshund and used a few different colored backgrounds on it, but this time I was surprised at which gift wrap sold. My most popular dachshund Christmas gift wrap are these two –

Dachshund Santa Wrapping Paper Dachshund Santa Wrapping Paper

I’m not even sure what made me add these colored backgrounds, but I’m glad I did. Here’s a few more of my dog Christmas gift wrap for you to enjoy.

Santa Dalmatian Wrapping Paper Gorgeous Puppy Christmas Gift Wrap Santa Bull Terrier Wrapping Paper

So which dog gift wrap do you prefer and will you be using any of them for wrapping up your presents this holiday season?

Gorgeous selection of dog Christmas gift wrap for the holiday season.

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Graphic T-Shirt Dresses

I joined Redbubble earlier this year, but I didn’t upload any designs initially and then I got an email about designing graphic t-shirt dresses. I’d never thought about designing dresses before so I was intrigued.

I first started looking at the selection of dresses on the site and the ones that I was initially drawn to were the black and white dresses. I loved a couple of them that were based on landscapes and decided that I would try and design a few like that.

This is one of the first designs I did –

Black & White Graphic T-Shirt Dress

Landscape with Tree

I started off with a full color landscape photo and thanks to the wonders of photoshop turned it into a black and white image.

I then took a shade of grey from the sky and used that for the top part of the dress and placed the image to start on the bottom. I’m very pleased with the look.

The overall black and white graphic effect that I had created was in line with other designers dresses that I liked the look of – now to see if buyers are interested! Whether or not they are it is fun to think of myself as a fashion designer, my inner teen is very happy to be able to say that!

I think designing graphic t-shirt dresses could be a lot of fun, here’s a few others that I’ve created –

Black & White Angel Graphic T-Shirt Dress B&W Rainy Day Graphic T-Shirt Dress B&W Girl & Reflection Graphic T-Shirt Dress

I particularly love the Rainy Day Black & White Graphic T-Shirt Dress, but my teen tells me that the angel is pretty cool so we’ll leave it to the buyers to let me know if I’m on the right track!

Black & White Graphic T-Shirt Dresses

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It’s All About Me T-Shirts

It’s All About Me – The Design

Funny T-shirts

I think one of the first designs I made on Zazzle, that wasn’t just an uploaded photo anyway, was the ladies ‘It’s All About Me’ t-shirt. I actually designed this with a friend of mine in mind. She used to always manage to turn the conversation around so that it was all about her and then she’d suddenly realize that she’d done that and say, ‘ because it’s all about me!’. It became a thing among her closest three friends that when she started doing it if she hadn’t realized we’d say because it’s all about me!

Anyway I was trying to think of a design I could make for a t-shirt I decided to try the phrase – it’s all about me – in a variety of colors and fonts and I just kept repeating it. I ended up buying the t-shirt for my (at that time tween aged) daughter because she was at that age (any one who’s been around kids can probably relate!) and it looked great. The quality of Zazzle’s t-shirts certainly passed the kids test and even after a lot of washes the design didn’t fade.

I only had it on a white background initially, but a couple of years later I tried it on a black t-shirt and I think it really popped especially in the man’s style. Of course this means that I don’t know which one I prefer now. You can also get the design on sweaters so that come winter or summer you can make things all about you!

It’s often said that the right words are all you need and the best designs are the simple ones and I thing both those statements hold true with this t-shirt. Do you have someone who thinks life is all about them? If you do then you really need to get this t-shirt for them, check out the different styles available –

It’s All About Me Tee It’s All About Me Tee It’s All About Me Tee It’s All About Me Tee It’s All About Me Tee It’s All About Me Tee

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A Sydney Harbour Postcard

Cool Sydney Harbour Bridge Postcard

A few years ago my husband and I flew down to Sydney for the day and we headed straight for Circular Quay, The Rocks – the oldest part of Sydney. I took a number of photos that day some of which I would turn into individual Sydney Harbour Postcards on Zazzle. One particular Sydney Harbour postcard would turn out to be my favorite and the reason why is because it looked really unique.

Here is the photo that I took of the Sydney Harbour Bridge –

Now this photo doesn’t look very special at all does it? Well the end result is totally different. This was a few years ago way before I invested in Photoshop, my computer came with a program called Picture It installed on it.

I randomly chose the above photo to try out a few of the filters and see how they looked. I couldn’t even tell you what filter I used now, but this is the result –

Sydney Harbour Bridge Postcard

I tried the same filter on many other photos, but it just wasn’t the same. There was something about this end result that I thought presented the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a very unique way.

The postcard proved to be a popular product when it was first released and a few months into it’s ‘life’ it became the first product of mine to sell 100 of to one person. The popularity of this Sydney Harbour postcard has wained a little over the last few years, but I still love it especially because of the thrill I received when one person brought 100 of them!

Sydney Harbour boasts not just the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but also the Sydney Opera House, two famous Australian icons in close proximity to each other. Check out a few of the Sydney Harbour postcards I have available for purchase –

Sydney Harbour Bridge Postcard Sydney Opera House Postcard Sydney Harbour & Ferry Postcard

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Beach Photography

I have been on Zazzle for a number of years and after a while I decided I really should have separate shops for all of my varied interests. Two of these shops are based on my love of beach photography.

Beachcombing is a store based on photographs of just about anything I see at the beach from driftwood to shells. The name comes from beachcombers who ‘comb’ the beach for treasures to take home. In my case the ‘treasures’ are my photographs.

One of the images that seems to be very popular is this one that I snapped on Ohope Beach in New Zealand –

Surfboard on the Beach Canvas Print by Beachcombing

I love the blues I’ve captured in this photograph, it really was a lovely day out. The surfboard had just been left on the beach, but I’m sure the surfer wasn’t too far away as the car park is in sight of the beach.

I’ve got a few other beach photographs that have been turned into art work for this store, here’s a few –

Beach Themed Wall Decor
by Louanne Cox

The other store that has my beach photography in it is my Watching Seagulls store, which as the title suggests is based on seagulls.

I love bird photography as well so the combination of the beach and birds seemed to inevitably lead to seagulls. I will lax lyrical about seagulls on another post however as they really are very expressive birds.

My favorite wall canvas from my beach photography (at the moment anyway) is this one –

Gorgeous Rocky Coastline Canvas Print by Beachcombing

This print was based on a photograph I took on Australia’s Sunshine Coast and when I cropped it I found I liked it much better as a long horizontal image than the ‘full’ original image. To me the image just puts me in a peaceful mood and is a perfect piece of art to compliment your beach decor.

Do you like beach photography? It certainly seems to be growing in popularity if my instagram feed is anything to go by!

Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article – more information can be found on our disclosure page.