Belle's Birthday Surprise #1

[Text by Amberle Ferrian]

"Belle's Birthday Surprise #1" (belbday1.gif, 592x761x2, 15315 bytes) is the 40th in a continuing series of fine Disney fanart drawings by Bob Ito <ito@[...]> and the 16th in the so-called "Bucketland Cards" series of handmade greeting cards, "when you're too cheap to buy a card." :-)

WARNING: This image is a bit on the risque side--nothing nasty, just a bit suggestive, for reasons which will be obvious upon reading the description. :-)

In the movie "Beauty and the Beast", Beast made it quite clear that he would do anything for Belle. Well, this thought is put to the ultimate test when her birthday comes along. After all, what do you get a girl who already has access to everything in the castle? Including its Master? The Enchanted Objects thought long and hard about this one, and have decided to rewrap old presents into new packages. After all, the best presents are the ones that keep on giving, right? And since Belle's favorite thing in the castle is Beast himself, and she doesn't want to spend *too* much time unwrapping her "present", and since she's GOT to wonder just how much that long piece of ribbon is concealing on the "present"...

This is a handmade birthday card draw by Bob Ito for the birthday of Amberle Ferrian, the FDC walkaround Belle. It, and its two companion cards, spent three months traveling around the world to various rec.arts.disney readers and FDC members to be signed. Overall, 46 of 88 netters who participated in this little project of Bob's :) got this card.

The card made a stop at February's Disneyana convention at Disneyland with the FDC Mickey and Minnie, Rich and Carol Koster, and was signed by numerous walkaround characters (including one of Amberle's real-life Belle counterparts, who was sent a photo to prove it :-), as well as some Disney luminaries, such as animators Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, voice artist Greg Marr, and original Mouseketeers Sherry Alberoni, Sharon Baird, Bobby Burgess, Lonnie Burr, Tommy Cole, and Karen Pendenton.

The image itself is divided into several sections:

 Top:  		front of card
 Top right: 	back of card with "Bucketland Cards" logo
 Bottom:	inside of card

As with all Bucketland cards, all personal messages have been deleted from the image.

And, getting out of third-person talk for a bit :-), I'd like to give another heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who participated in this project. You helped make this birthday of mine one of the best ever.