San Jose Artist Hits the Big Time

On the Ellen Degeneres show, Thursday January 19th, Ellen celebrates her birthday by opening gifts sent to her by some fans. The gift sent by Heather Courtney of San Jose, was so well-received by Ellen, that she does a 30-second impromptu commercial for Heather, sending orders and interest through the roof for the small company.

San Jose, CA (PRWEB) January 27, 2006 -- On the Ellen Degeneres show, Thursday January 19th, Ellen celebrates her birthday by opening gifts sent to her by some fans. The gift sent by Heather Courtney of San Jose, was so well-received by Ellen, that she does a 30-second impromptu commercial for Heather, sending orders and interest through the roof for the small company.

Heather Courtney, owner and artist of Pop Art Creations, makes handcrafted custom jack-in-the-box toys. Working out of her living room with just the help of her husband, David Manzo, she makes special one-of-a-kind art pieces she calls Pop Art Creations.

Being a fan of Ellen Degeneres, Heather decided to make a box to look like Ellen and send it off to the show with absolutely no expectations. One week later a coordinator for the show called Heather to say that they were putting Ellen's birthday gift on the air.

Not only did they show the box on the air, Ellen even did a 30 second impromptu commercial about it. It was met with wild applause by the studio audience! The Pop Art Creations website flashed on the screen while a voice over announces, "POP ART! IT'S GIFT SMART!"

Until that day, Pop Art Creations took one or two orders a month generated by word-of-mouth, for the most part. The day the show aired, Heather's email inbox filled up with nearly 1000 messages- some of them orders, some of them requests and questions. So big was the spike on her website traffic, approximately 170,000 hits, that her site's hosting company sent an email of concern. Orders are steadily flowing in and Heather hopes to ride this promotional wave for years to come.

Since the show aired, Heather has spent much of her time working on a workable production schedule, answering every one of the 1000 emails personally, and processing orders. She is now shopping for a small studio and an assistant to help her handle the new and thriving business, and also so she can finally move her company out of her living room.

It is the dream of every artist to make a living doing what they love. Heather Courtney is one of the lucky few that now has a chance to realize that dream.

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