Q: Do you use stickers or decals? A: No. For a time, I employed the use of wet slip decals to transfer the outline of the scroll designs onto to the bottom of the bottle as an alternative to using the commonly employed carbon transfer technique.  This still required painting over the outline, as all artists do with a carbon transfer, but I found it to be a more accuarate method of transferring the design.  Unfortunately, this was sometimes misunderstood to mean that I did not fully handpaint my bottles.  I have ALWAYS fully handpainted my bottles - I do not use stickers, decals, airbrushes, paint pens, or any other means of creating the detail work on my bottles.  I even handpaint the base color, which most artists do not do.  The wet slip method was a very effective one, and created a very even accurate design for me to follow, but it was not worth the "controversy" and misunderstanding it created, so I abandoned it in favor of another technique I developed to transfer the design that would maintain the high level of accuracy people have come to expect from my bottles. Q: How long does it take you to paint a bottle? A: It's hard to pin down exactly, but about 20-25 working hours.  There is drying and curing time involved and I rarely spend an entire day painting (although I have!).  Depending on my schedule and the number of commissions I have at the time it can take as much as three to four weeks, but I can sometimes I can complete a bottle in 1-2 weeks.  Q: I've been an I Dream of Jeannie fan for a long time and am a big fan of her bottle.  If you've been painting for seven years, why have I only heard of you recently? A: I've been in hiding!  Actually, I started this business almost seven years ago, when my son was very young as a way of continuing to be a stay at home Mom.  It's been wonderful for me, since it's allowed me to stay home with my kids and never have to leave them with someone else. Now that his younger sister is starting kindergarten in the fall, I've made the decision to take bottle painting to the next level. Time to let the genie out of the bottle! Q: Where did you get the pattern for your second season design? Is it the same pattern that other artists use? A: I bought the pattern that I used for the basis of the design on ebay, when I began genie bottle painting in 1999.  While the pattern was generally good, I found some inconsistancies in the pattern design as compared to screen shots and photos of Barbara Eden with an original prop bottle.  I then used computer graphic software to aid in altering the pattern to be as close as possible to the original design, creating the pattern I use today.