So….. I second guessed myself for my entry for the Re-imagined Damask challenge and ended up banging out another design at the last minute. ( check out my original idea) There is nothing like a time crunch to put my design skills through their paces… it actually added a fun dimension hahaha! Maybe it was fueled by a glass or two of something lovely. The Love of Wine was born!
I am not much of a fan of the Damask design style but staying on target with a 2021 personal challenge, where my goal is to again, enter every single Spoonflower challenge, I have come up with a design for this contest: Reimagined Damask Wallpaper
Here is my Damask Bird Delight pattern where sweet little blue and white birds flit about. The pattern is a mirror image typically seen with the damask style.
Yikes!… I had a sudden bout of self doubt and ending up designing something completely different right at the last minute …check out what I entered here
Through design you can transport yourself anywhere so while it is snowy, cold and lets face it, quite disgusting here in Chicago, it has been a pleasure to think of the warm climate of Hawaii and dream up a design for this weeks Spoonflower challenge – Hidden Hawaiian
The twist with this design prompt is that there should be something hidden in the design.
I took a whimsical approach and designed Tiki Masks – these little fellows have food and drink on the brain! Hawaiian Tiki Mask Hunger
I also did a version with a jungle green background but am planning on entering the lighter version .. but then again now I look at them together I am not sure which one to submit. They fit right in with “It’s My Life” collection where just about anything goes!
At the beginning of 2020 I challenged myself to enter every single Spoonflower challenge – that was a total of 50 challenges.
It was quite a journey, where I designed out of my comfort zone but with that achieved some real personal success. Out of those 50 challenges I
Won 1st place with my Ink Splat Indigo and green Tie Dye design
Gained top ten placement with a further 6 designs.
And placed high enough in another 23 of the challenges to be awards a free proof.
The design challenges have been a lot of fun and certainly helped give my sales a kick up the rear end!
I am continuing again this year – check out my entry for the first challenge of the year – small scale geometric
A new year and a new design challenge – Small Scale Geometrics and oh my goodness did I go overboard on this one.
I started by designing this – Boxed Up Geometric . It is inspired by the Bauhaus style, using plain simple elements. I have been itching to have a go at this for ages.
It inspired a further 23 designs which now make up a new collection – Small Scale Geometrics.
I then had the dilemma on which one to choose to enter for the challenge. I put up some of my favorite choices on Facebook but the opinions were all over the place so I decided to go back to basics and enter the first one I created.
Let’s hope I made the right choice!
Well what a great start to the year, I came in at 13th place but as there were ties for both 2nd and 3rd place in actual fact I was 10th and got $20 Spoonflower credit …yippppeee! Thanks so much for all your votes!
The final Spoonflower challenge of 2020 was to come up with a design they can use on their packaging.
The thought process behind my design was one that depicted a community of designers where each creation is crafted with LOVE. I call my pattern “Made with Love“
Pleased as punch to come in at number 46 and earn my 30th automatic proof of 2020. Interested in seeing a breakdown of all my challenges, click here
Pantone announced their 2021 color for the year today and it turned out to be not one but two colors, Illuminating and Ultimate Gray.
Illuminating is a sunny bright yellow and Ultimate Gray is to me a downright boring gray … or grey , depending on which side of the pond you live on.
They remind me of the color combination you get with a hard boiled egg ..that little gray line the outlines the yolk.
The thought process from Pantone is that the yellow is for optimism and the gray is for dependability and sort of reflects the mood moving forward in 2021 and hopefully away from Covid and all the mess it has created.
Maybe I was ahead of the curve as I was using a very similar color paring back in 2017 with the create of my first fabric collection: contemporary circles
I have created a new collection on my spoonflower and RedBubble shops in celebration of the 2021 Colors of the year – only the two solids and a one design so far but I will be adding more patterns shortly!
Shop collection on
This weeks Spoonflower challenge calls for a repeat design created using a single unbroken line which captures movement- Continuous Line Contour
That. I can tell you, is quite a challenge!
My mind immediately went to something flying through the air and I revisited the design I had created for The Artistic Voice challenge and played around with it for quite some time to turn in into a design made from a continuous line.
One of my favorites ways to use wallpaper is on the back wall of a bookcase or shelf unit so I was excited to see the Spoonflower design challenge this week. The prompt was to design a wallpaper specifically to as a backdrop in a DreamBox. A Dreambox is the ultimate storage and work area for craft projects.
My approach was to design something interesting to look at but not compete with whatever supplies are going to be adorning the shelves. In my experience craft supplies have enough going so I opted for a restful monotone blue design and Blue Boho Spiralize was born.
I have had extra time this week to come up with a design for the upcoming Spoonflower challenge – Microscopic world which prompted a design illustrating hidden world we never knew existed.
I played around with virus, fairies and nothing really floated my boat until I started drawing tiny little inch worms. I have named my design Creative Inchi Worms – a riff on my Spoonflower screen name “Creativeinch”
What a fun design to use in kids decor!
Voting starts Thanksgiving day – 26th November
