Custom Design Projects

Made this for one of the wonderful test market ladies I work with. Andre is her eight year old grandson and I guess he is a pretty good football player. She asked for this piece some time ago and it has taken me til now because I am not very good at custom designing things. I much prefer to work from patterns. The pros use vector graphics design programs such as photoshop and corel draw. Corel Draw is the cadillac of vector design programs and sells for around $700 dollars. I found one on the internet that pretty much does what I want it to do and it was in my price range...FREE...So I downloaded it and spent the last two weeks or so learning how to use it.
It makes designing a lot easier but I still have a lot more to learn. I designed and made a couple of coat racks with the kids names on the top. They are about twenty four inches long and six inches high with shaker pegs for hanging clothes on. Momma loved em and now people from all over the building are coming to me saying "I need two" "I need Four" "I need one for my grandson"! I am a victim of my own success.
Frankly I do love designing things for people. The problem is that it takes a lot of extra time and consequently it has to be added to the price of the item and people may not want to pay it. So I have to be up front with that. A friend cautioned me that if I don't charge enough people will be all over me wanting six of something all different and by this weekend. I guess she's right but I hate to say no to people, especially ones I like. But I do have to admit, designing things can get to be addictive.