Xavier’s Nest

Copper Cockeral Cards & Gifts began in November of 2003 when I got this computer I ue today and the free printer that came with it. I had the printer set up in less than an hour and by the end of the day I had gone through 2 reams of paper and card stock, after printing up hundreds of sample designs for cards, stationary, and what not. The printer being also a scanner, ment that I had set out to scanning all of my paintings into the computer as well. One of those paintings I call, The Copper Cockeral. It’s a close up of a rooster’s head, painted an aged copper green-blue. I shrunk it down to a tiny logo and printed it on the back of everything I printed up. A month later I was printing up Christmas cards for paper carriers to hand out o their customers, as task which I continued to do for the next 3 years. And so began Copper Cockeral’s early days as poor quality printed off a free printer. I was happy that I had gotten this business off and running, but I was very displeased with the quality. I went on to test out the quality of four more printers and every type of paper I could find, but still none meet my standerds of perfection.

In the meantime however, I discovered an online printer called Zazzle, who would take my designs and put them on thier products, allowing me to build a website to sell them on. I was intreged and quickly set up my own Zazzle Gallery. In those days Zazle offered 3 products: cards, plain white t-shirts, and posters. Today Zazzle has expanded their line to include buttons, bumper stickers, silk ties, t-shirts in every color imaginable, US Postage stamps, keyrings, posters, framed prints, mugs, hats, totebags, and lots more. As they expand their line, so too does Copper Cockeral.

My income with Zazzle has been hit and miss, mostly due to the fact that they do nothing to promot your line. It’s up to you to do that, marketing and advertising was not something I was interested in, I was more interested in creating the products than promoting them, and back than, the Space Dock 13 Network did not yet exist.

Displeased with the slow sale of Zazzle (and still not marketing on my own) I set out in search of another printer. This time I found CafePress. CafePress, at the time, only had 14 products; today they have 90. Compareing CafePress’s 14 products to Zazzle’s 3, I realized that there was so much room for me to expand the Copper Cockeral line. CafePress not oonly had cards and t-shirts, but they also had clockes, cups, and ceramic tile jewerly boxes. Copper Cockeral expanded.

Today Copper Cockeral embraces both Zazzle and CafePress, offering over 60 designs each on more than 150 products. While most of the line is still designed by me (Wendy C. Allen / EelKat), there are 4 others also creating designs: my three brothers and our mom.

Starting on February 16, 2007, Copper Cockeral now has it’s own web site, still under construction as I type this, but online and taking orders.

This site which you are reading right now, is the blog for Copper Cockeral, named Xavier’s Nest, in memory of the long line of real copper cockerals all named Xavier that have lived on our farm over the years. The original Xavier was Xavier Logan, a character out of my Twighlight Manor series: a wild rock star from planet Flame, most noted for his long firey-red hair and his neon yellow clothes trimmed in pink. In 1989, our farm expanded to include a flock of 25 bantam roosters, which saddly got lost in the mail, and shipped to us 3 days late, with all but one having died. That one went on to become my first Xavier, the first of many. Xavier roosters are always green-eyed Partrige Cochins, a rare mutation, with brilliant green eyes and bright firey red feathers, that oddly resemble Xavier Logan, for whom they are named.