My bedroom held a well-stocked bar filled with Pepsi. The room, 29 feet long, must have been the scene of some pretty wild parties by the original owner. Or maybe they just wanted to keep their martinis within reach. But for me, the space was my refuge. Here, I escaped to think of an idea to give my character a "hook"-a way to stand out from the competition. Then one day, it came to me: she shall be a twin! I played around with various materials and decided to discard the cas

The idea of creating a new character became a much quieter voice in my head. Replacing it came freelancing, two children, a husband, designing luxury dollhouses and rose gardens. Kelly, age 2, watching Sesame Street. Then one day, the voice became louder. Now newly single, it was time to get back in touch with my inventor self. I decided to engineer a baby doll that grew. At Toys R Us, I bought a slew of dolls and began tearing them apart. However, missing were the final spri

"It's more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like, 'What about lunch?'" I always worked better after lunch. In a think tank, needing to come up with a dynamite hit, well...sure put a lot of pressure on a girl. A hamburger helped. I began experimenting with drawing big heads and smaller bodies. I had always doodled eyes of all shapes on the corners of my notebook pages, sketch pads, and unopened bills. I decided to put

Think tank: "A group organized to provide information and ideas." (In other words, come up with an idea that makes the company LOTS of money). We artists were jealous of Hallmark. Their company treated the artists every morning to a rolling cart filled with donuts, danish, and cinnamon rolls. American Greetings artists could only dream. When I arrived at my new surroundings, I had always pondered the logistics of a "think tank." Ours, called Promotional, had a conference room