Category: wallpaper

The prompt for this week’s Spoonflower challenge was to create a design that depicts a “nurturing, serene environment for a newborn that remains stylish and relevant as the baby ages”. 

Bring it on!

I went for a gender neutral look with a design that is age appropriate to about age 10. I used a palette of soft colors and gave it a watercolor look

Hedgehog Fun

I also created a line art version which is available in a number of colors in the Hedgehog Nursery Collection a non directional print and a simple patchwork which was my entry for the baby blanket challenge.

The prompt for this week’s Spoonflower challenge is Conversational and I went around and around trying to find inspiration for this one. A conversational design is one that takes an everyday object and turns it into a design.

So I had my hair cut last week and as I sat rabbiting to my stylist I had an ahha moment!

Hair Styling Tools

I feel a little collection coming on but I have not yet got to it yet!

It seems the preppy look never goes out of style but the look and feel of it has definitely morphed a bit over the years. Preppy is the prompt for this week’s Spoonflower challenge and went full on coastal preppy with my entry with palm trees, lush tropical foliage and of course yachts what is more preppy than a yacht!

Hide and seek, such a fun prompt for this week’s Spoonflower challenge.

I went for a totally kid orientated approach and created a maze for some funky little robots and hid numbers along the way. As a kid , I would have loved to have this on my bedroom wall and lie in bed solving the maze and finding the numbers! It would also make a great print for table placemats.

Spoonflower recently started offering two new metallic substrates for their wallpaper, so it is no surprise that we now have a challenge specifically gears to one of those. First up is the gold version, I am sure a silver challenge is in the works too.

So the prompt for the challenge is Vintage Glamour and with that in mind I was instantly transported back to the 1920’s and the fashions it conjured up

Art Deco Sepia Glamour

So part of the challenge her is to design to make the most of the metallic effect.

Here is my design

and this is what it will look like printed on metallic gold stock paper

I created a whole collection around lobsters and tidepool friends last year, so when the theme of this week’s Spoonflower challenge was announced, I was not particularly thrilled. It was a subject I had already explored and here I was trying to approach it from a different angle again. And boy did I come up with some completely different concepts which then left me with the tricky decision on which to enter.

My first go came up with these delft inspired crabs… my love of blue and white lies deep.

It was a design concept I love but as I started seeing other designer share their take, I thought my design would not stand out enough.

So then I went the Bauhaus approach

but wasn’t totally in love with that but I really liked some of the geometry of the shapes, so was spurred on to explore that a little further.

After fiddling around with just basic circles, Happy Round Crabs popped out!

and it is this design I finally decided to go with but it was really down to the last minute whether to switch it out with one of my delft designs. Too lates to change my mind now, the deadline has just past.

I went back to basics with oil paints and a big old fat palette knife for this week’s Spoonflower challenge – Tonal Texture Wallpaper. I knew what I wanted and there was no way to digitally create the effect I was going for so time to break out the paints!

Daubs of Oil Paint

It makes stunning wallpaper, especially in small areas!

2024 and the first Spoonflower challenge of the year is Welcome Walls. I am kicking off the year the way mean to carry on and setting myself another goal of entering every single SF challenge which I have done and successfully completed for the last 4 years! There will be half as many challenges this year as SF are moving from a new challenge every week to a new one every two weeks.

So for my welcome walls challenge I was inspired to create something for foster kids coming into a new home. I wanted the design to convey love and caring while be welcoming at the same time.

This is what I came up with

of course I also created a little collection around my design

Welcome Happy Loving Home Collections

I am plodding on with my commitment to enter every single Spoonflower challenge again this year. There is so much drama going on around changes coming to the platform for designers and there is so much unknown stuff. Without designers it is a platform of NOTHING. It is all a bit distracting and disheartening.

So let’s go to a serene place for this week’s challenge and float away with some beautiful soft hued swans

Serene Swans

Of course I also rustled up a little complimentary design too!

Both can be found in various scales in the Serenity Now Collection

I have designed some odd things in the past and I definitely tapped into my weird side to create a surreal wallpaper for this week’s Spoonflower. I imagined birds breaking through from the outside world and pecking and removing design pieces from a wallpaper. Odd yes, I know!

Surreal Bird Break Through