Amy! To be specific, Amy from Loozyanna...congratulations, my dear! You are the winner of the first Tollipop giveaway of 2009! Three cheers and a ticker tape parade! I hope you will enjoy Tess and Belinda--I'm sure they'll make lovely southern belles! Let's get in touch, dear Amy, to discuss the finer points of mailing addresses and the like!
To everyone else, I must thank you for playing along and for leaving such thoughtful and amusing comments! Oh, how these giveaways have a last minute fizzle and how I simply dread watching the rest of you walk away empty-handed! To soften the disappointment of not winning, please jump into my pink, hollowed-sweet boat and sail down the chocolate river with me to a brand new room in my factory, one which no human has laid eyes upon before this moment!
Dear reader, I give you the Tollipop boy...!
Not just one, but two.
And to sweeten the deal, we simply must add a girl!
Since the advent of my Etsy shop, people have been asking why I don't offer drawings of little boys for sale. One lovely reader even went so far as to suggest perhaps I didn't like little boys. Stuff and nonsense! Nothing could be further from the truth! Why, I simply adore those little rapscallions and their grubby fingers! They positively melt my heart!
The truth behind the lack of xy chromosome artwork was simply...I couldn't draw boys. I tried. I did. But every time I attempted to draw a boy, the results looked suspiciously like a girl. So I tabled the issue for a while and tried not to lose any more sleep over it...until a dear friend approached me with the news that she was expecting triplets. Two of which would be boys!
Needless to say, I felt some degree of pressure to make a new attempt at boy-drawing. And as it happens, the Oompa Loompas and I finally stumbled upon a working recipe, which is as follows: big ears, messier hair, beadier eyes, and stripes, stripes, stripes! The result is a little rascal who appears ready to shoot you in the back with a spitball and then charm you with his endearing smile when you turn around to scold.
Imagine having travelled the world, pursued a brilliant career, and now suddenly finding yourself in a staring contest with this crew. Oh, how I wish our friends all the best in this brave, new adventure!