This is not an every day story, or every day product and this IS what makes is Grommet worthy!
My name is Maja (pronounced My-a) and originally I am from Bosnia. During the Bosnian genocide, when I was 16 years old a bomb exploded near me, instantly killing all 5 of my friends and I was severely injured. Because we were civilians surrounded by two armies, we had no water, food, electric, medicine, or outside contact. So without medications or antibiotics I had bad infection, and one of my legs had to be amputated without anesthesia. To make a long story short, couple months later, I was evacuated for medical treatment, I had over 100 surgeries, I had to re-learn how to walk again, and it took me 15 years to learn how to run again.
Many years later I was hit with a major onset of PTSD and panic attacks that left me unable to function. Determined to get through this without medication I adjusted my lifestyle with healthy living -- changing my diet, taking on meditation, QiGong, and painting to help keep me clam. I was doing pretty well, but my night terrors and random panic attacks still held me prisoner to PTSD. Until one day, when I went to see my prosthetist he told me that he was working with a new Great Dane puppy, named Rosie, who was also an amputee. He felt she and I would make a great pair together. I immediately fell in love and realized she was available for adoption. Few weeks later I had this new amputee Great Dane and my life changed.
One week after she was living with me I had a random panic attack. Rosie naturally knew what to do and helped calm me down by pushing her body onto mine and trying to swaddle me. After this realization and epiphany I enrolled Rosie to get service dog training and she now is my service dog helping me recognize signs of panic attacks before they happen AND waking me up if I have night terrors.
But besides that, Rosie (who is now 3) has been watching me paint and one of those days she kept getting into my paints and trying to grab my brush. She would try to sit in my lap and smear all the paints. Eventually I said: "well, if you want to paint, I will teach you to pain!" So I did -- It took 3 training sessions.
First session I thought her to touch her nose to the canvas. Second session how to hold the paint brush. Third session how to touch the canvas with the paint brush. And after that she just decided she loved it and started painting. Sometimes she paints in strokes, sometimes, dots and has now developed many different styles of paintings.
She has been painting for few months now and has sold 80+ paintings! Buyers can select the paints they want, or they can choose option for "Rosie to pick". Each painting is numbered, dated and signed, and comes with certificate of authenticity. In addition to this, buyers can select to pay additional $10 to have a video recording of Rosie painting their particular painting.
You can see a video of her painting here .
But our Facebook and Instagram page has more of them as well.
Instagram/Facebook - @majaandrosie
Also, if buyer purchases video of Rosie painting their particular painting then video is dedicated to the person as well. You can see a sample here.
Please note, that this particular person wanted a black canvas, which is also an option. (People will often order what matches their decor or style. We've had people send up images of their interiors to match the colors.)
These paintings are a very unique gift and currently sell at $49-$89 price range. We've done paintings for businesses and retail shops (grooming shops, Aveda Salons, etc.) as well as homes for kids and dog lovers.
If anyone is looking for a unique Christmas gift it will be hard to find something so special!