by Linda | Sep 24, 2009 | my creative journal
I am loving Spoonflower and all the great designers currently using their platform. It’s not cheap to design and print your own fabric, but the satisfaction of having created something from scratch really drives you to make the best possible product in the end. I also love the empowerment their platform is giving to designers such as Liz Scott, who runs Wonderfluff on Etsy – her own fabric designs printed using Spoonflower. I can’t wait until they go out of beta and enable you to sell your fabric designs direct to the public. It’s great innovation and a grand opportunity for all of us.
I’ve seen so many great designs and professional fabric patterns from independent designers, it’s really fantastic that so many people have been empowered. There’s also a great community as well – designers who are all passionate about textile design. Very cool stuff! The internet has given all of us the possibility of communicating worldwide and now there are companies popping up to help with business and manufacturing – Spoonflower, Etsy, Lulu, Blurb…to name a few. I wonder what other innovations will pop up via the internet for independent designers and artists? It’s definitely a fast changing world out there and supremely exciting!
After creating my birdie pattern and realizing it would make great fabric for PJs, I signed up with Spoonflower and ordered a swatch to see how the colors will turn out. It’s so exciting to be able to have such power of creation upon my hands…woohoo! Also, there was a special theme presented for competition on Spoonflower, a fabric design with spoon and flower design(s) incorporated somehow. I decided to take part and created a spoonflower bud pattern. A simple repeating design with bright colors that I think would make a nice tablecloth or napkins! What do you think?
You can find this spoonflower bud design as fabric on Spoonflower here…
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by Linda | Sep 23, 2009 | DIY printables
Looking for some cute acorn printables for Fall and leafy tree themed projects? Download these freebies for your next papercrafting idea!
Time for another digital card design and the digital tuesday challenge has presented falling leaves for the theme this week. I was super excited to participate because I’m currently enamored with leafy patterns. There are so many types of leaf shapes to experiment with and also so many colors, especially during the Fall season. Here’s the digital card I created:
I designed a leafy yellow and orange pattern as well as the green scribbles for the background. Feel free to use my design work for your personal papercrafting projects – I’m happy to share! The acorn image was a quick doodle and you can download it full color or black and white to color yourself.
Download Acorn Printables
Just click on the images below to get the high-quality versions and download the files to your computer. From cardmaking to scrapbooking to fun creative paper crafts with kids, enjoy!
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by Linda | Sep 22, 2009 | DIY printables
Looking for some cute summer designs? Download these freebie watermelon printables for your next papercrafting project or creative idea with the kids!
After creating my first digital card design, I was happy to learn from a fellow crafter the existence of Digital-Ink Co and challenges. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to participate in the current recipe challenge and use the watermelon drawings I created in the challenge. Here’s the digital card from my digital designs, all in the theme of watermelons.
I might have gone a bit overboard with all the patterns and bright colors, but I just couldn’t help myself. It’s definitely fun to design all sorts of backgrounds and digital elements.
Of course, I still like piecing the cards together with real paper when I send to family and friends, so printables are a must! Here are the digital elements for you to download and use for your own watermelon themed projects.
Download Watermelon Printables
Just click on images or links and download to your computer! Enjoy!
Download the watermelon stripes design PDF
Download the watermelon seeds design PDF
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by Linda | Sep 16, 2009 | DIY printables
Looking for some fall leaves printables for papercrafting and creative fun? Download these freebie leaf patterns and pumpkins!
Wowsers! I have been busy with freelance work and exploring new ventures, completely neglecting my love for paper crafting and card making. Decided to get back into it for the Fall season.
Pumpkins, leaves and everything cozy! It’s such a lovely time of the year and the color palettes and motifs are inspirational for creating designs and patterns. I wanted to participate in the latest Digital Tuesday Challenge as it called for a clean and simple fall themed card, a perfect way to get me back into designing useful freebies.
Normally I would print out digital papers and designs to put together manually and color in, but my printer is out of ink, so going all digital today.
I created the leaf pattern design and digital stamp of the pumpkins with matching leaves, so you can also download them below and use for your personal projects. Both color and line versions are available and the leafy pattern is a repeating tile, so you can pop it into Photoshop and define it as a pattern, then use it to fill up whatever space you need. Hope that makes sense!
Download Fall Leaves Printables
The pumpkins are large images, so just click images below to the get the full high-quality images to download directly to your computer.
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http://digitaltuesdaychallenge.blogspot.com/2009/09/digital-tuesday-challenge-24clean.html
by Linda | Sep 15, 2009 | my creative journal
Inspiration can come from just about anything and yet, artists spend a great deal of time searching and even waiting for that special spark. I am inspired all the time, seeing new patterns and designs in everything that surrounds me. The swirls in my morning cup of coffee or even the splotches on the ceiling of my bedroom inspire. Images suddenly come to mind when I hear certain phrases in conversation, especially since I am learning Italian and practically every word is a new discovery.
Being online for a large part of the day, I must also mention the many blogs out there that inspire with words and photos. You can see my blogroll on the sidebar, but there are many more in my trusty RSS reader. I’m always excited to see what others are up to and I think we fuel each other with our creativity. I also follow theme websites such as Illustration Friday and Inspire Me Thursday. They offer a weekly word or phrase to be interpreted in any way you see fit. There’s also Creative Every Day and Monday Art Day…what blogs and theme websites do you find inspiring?
All this inspiration can sometimes feel like information overload. Thankfully, we all have that trusty tool called a sketchbook. I have always found myself jotting down lists of ideas. Very stream of consciousness and seemingly random as my mind leaps around a lot. Unfortunately, inspiration isn’t executed upon all the time, maybe just a few here and there are followed through to the end. In reflecting on this, I realize that I’m an idea person. I just love brainstorming most of all. No limits, no boundaries, just spout out anything and everything.
I thought it was such a shame that my lists of ideas usually get left behind and forgotten. I’m already on to the next idea after all. But wouldn’t it be better if I shared my lists? No worries on how silly some might seem…I would rather give it a chance – for the possibility of promoting some creativity somewhere. I offer it all with no strings attached because it seems better that an idea can be nurtured rather than lost forever – effectively unused potential. Think of all the amazing things that could be created if the right idea was matched with the right person to execute it? It makes me happy just thinking about sharing ideas, so moving forward I will do just that along with posting the one idea I personally do follow through with. So here goes…
In Good Company is the theme this week at Inspire Me Thursday and honestly the first thing that came to mind was the movie, In Good Company. (Duh!) But from there my stream of consciousness went on…
- your hands gripped together, like in the movie during the speech by the big boss, good graphic poster
- something about people, family and friends together
- I like hugging, snuggling – even with your pets, kawaii!
- drinking wine and hanging out – the wine glass and bottle make me think of merry jolly times
- anything together especially in cold weather, seems like a good time to snuggle
- thinking of warm colors – tans, browns – earth colors – in the midst of the cold white snow
- roasting chestnuts over the fire, even smores over campfire
- camping, always good company around you, cozy
- animals in their burrows, very cozy together – babies with mommy in burrow smushed up together
- baby sleeping with teddy bear or hugging blankie or sibling babies cuddling
- babies in yin yang formation
- idea of fitting together perfectly
- ultimately the feeling of comfort, security and love with something else = in good company
- the holidays come to mind, xmas especially
I could go on, but I stopped on something I wanted to illustrate, fluffy birds snuggling together on a cold winter day! I decided to make it a repeating tile because patterns are just so darn cool.
You can find this design on fabric in my Spoonflower shop –>
It’s a cute little pair of birdies looking cozy for you. What do you think? I hope you feel in good company on my blog, because I do appreciate your support! Thanks for sticking around. Ciao ciao!
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