No, not my Birthday. Andy's birthday. I decided this year to make something custom for him. For a while, I couldn't think of what custom thing that was gonna be. Then at the last minute, I came up with something fun.

First, I drew a picture of an Octopus. You may remember from a previous post that Andy became vegetarian because of an octopus commercial. This octopus symbolism has become representative of so much. He even plans to get a commemorative octopus tattoo.

But, I digress. Let's get back to the creative process.

I took the hand drawn image, scanned it, made it into illustrator paths and colored it. I thought about printing it on all sorts of things and chose the Zippo lighter as my canvas. Because Andy likes Zippo lighters and they have a lifetime guarantee. I love lifetimes guarantees.

Here is the finished product that Zippo sent me, after I went through their online custom lighter rigmarole.

It turned out amazing and Andy loved it!