Potting Shed Garden Fabric For Handmade Monday

Anyone else started some spring gardening this week? Now that it seems we can finally say goodbye to the snow blizzards i've felt brave enough to plant a few seeds...

There's nothing like a few rays of sunshine and the prospect of little baby plants to put a smile on my face :)  New life, however tiny, is so full of magic.

Like this little cutie :)

Potting Shed Fabric

Although i've always intended to create some garden inspired fabrics, i was spurred on by the latest Spoonflower fabric comp which has a 'garden tools' theme. Unfortunately i finished my potting shed design to late to enter it in the competition!

He he! :)  oh well, I'm pleased with the work i've done and i'm thinking that i might use some of the components in some more gardeny designs too... perhaps the seed packets could be part of a scattered seed design...

... or the watering can could come in a range of colours...

...and perhaps be sprinkling some seedlings in another.

As someone who generally enjoys using a fair bit of colour in my creative projects, the challenge with featuring so many tools in the potting shed design was to balance out all the necessary greys and browns...

...with enough colour to keep it looking cheery and fresh.

Here's the finished design... do you think i managed it?

This is how it would look on am 18x22 inch piece of fabric to give you a better idea of scale.

I'd love to know what your favourite bits are to help me decide what to develop into further designs in the range...  thank you in advance for all opinions shared! :)

In The Pipeline

In the works are more garden themed designs (you may have begun to gather by now that home growing is a bit of a passion of mine!)

One will be featuring veggies like these tomatoes and peas...

Another is going to to have lots of potted herbs. Here's a peak at the early design stages...

Before i get on with turning them into something a bit prettier i'm off for a wander around all the other Handmade Monday blogs. I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to... do join me if you have time, there are always lots of lovely things to see!

p.s. a big thank you goes out to all those who left lovely comments on my post last week! xxx

'GB Runs On Tea' Fabric For Handmade Monday

I've had a tricky time trying to decide what to share with you today as i seem to have soooooooo many projects on the go - none of them finished! I have been well and truly bitten by the fabric design bug and in my excitement have been starting new collections here there and everywhere!

Thank you so very much if you were one of the lovely peeps who left one of the wonderfully encouraging comments i got on last week's post about my first ever fabric collection :) I was a little nervous about how it would be received... thank you for putting my mind at rest!

Excitingly, a lovely fellow Etsian contacted me after reading the post and has now become my first ever fabric customer! If you are interested to find out what she bought, you can visit my Spoonflower shop. I must add that i haven't received my own sample of the fabric yet (to check that the colours don't turn out weirdly or anything) - i should get it in the next few days - do contact me for more info.

'GB Runs On Tea' Mug And Tea Towel

As well as developing new design ideas i've also been working on translating some old favourites to the  medium of fabric. My 'GB Runs On Tea' mug is one of my most popular mugs (although it almost always ends up outside the UK which surprises me!)

I felt that the design was perfect for turning into matching fabric accessories - tea towels, tea cosies, coasters etc. I was particularly drawn to the idea of creating a matching tea towel, so this is what i've come up with (i'll show you the finished design in a minute but first i thought some of you might be interested to see how i got there...)

Fabric Design

I don't have any experience with fabric design but i've found that by breaking things down into their component part i've got along quite well (so far!)

I started by drawing each element of the GB Tea design in pen and ink (i could have used a script editor for the writing but i think that this design suits having a slightly 'rough around the edges', hand drawn look... what do you think..?)

The next step was to photograph my drawings, load them up to Pixelmator (photo editor), and change the colours from dull blacks and greys to pretty blue, pink and white!

The final step was to put together the finished design. This involved creating a tea towel sized blank template (brief interlude while i wrestled with DPI, pixels and a 'basic maths' blind spot) and then assembling the component parts.

I ended up with two tea towel designs (which will be sold as a pair) - this one...

... and this slightly simpler design...

It will be a few weeks until they are available to buy but i will of course keep you updated! Alternatively, feel free to contact me to let me know you'd like to be notified :)

What's Next?!

Before i pop over to Handmade Harbour to read about the crafty escapades of my fellow Handmade Mondayer's, i'll give you a sneaky peek of what my next fabric collection is inspired by...

Have a wonderful week :) (and stay warm!)

'Rose Garden Collection' My First Fabric Designs For Handmade Monday

This week i've been taking my first steps towards a new and exciting venture... fabric design! Its all part of a decision i've made to be more organised with my output and create more cohesive collections and fewer random one offs (although there will always be a some of those around i suspect!)

Rose Garden Collection

If you popped by my blog last week you may remember the rose garden inspired cup and saucer i showed you - if you didn't catch that post, this is what i'm talking about.

Rose Garden Cup And Saucer

Thank you very much for you kind comments by the way :) They helped me decide to make this design my first 'collection'! I've painted some coasters to match but the weather is too gloomy here for photos today so i'l need to show you them another time. I also have plans for a tea pot... watch this space!

Rose Garden Fabric

What i can show you though is the fabric! Well, a digital representation of it anyway... when i have the real thing i will be sure to show you what i make with it :)

If you're wondering how i made these designs and if they are available to buy, bare with me, all will be revealed a little further on in this post...

There are five designs in the collection. The first is a small print, perfect for little projects and details. There are three to five roses per square inch to give you an idea of scale.

I'll be using this for things like lavender pillows and tea cosies i expect!

The second in the collection is the same design but on a much larger scale. This image represents what a 16.5x16.5 inch piece would look like - perfect for cushion covers.

Next is a variation on the theme - a small/medium scale print made up of lots of little 'bunches' of roses.

To give you an idea of scale, one little bunch like this will take up approximately one square inch of fabric.

The last two designs are very simple and intended to compliment the more complex rose patterns. I have used the pastel pink and pastel green from the colour palette and created two fabrics covered in tiny white dots.

Its a bit hard to see the dots on the green one in this image but they are there! To give you an idea of scale there are about 16 dots per square inch.

I have had so much fun with this new creative avenue i'm just itching to:

a) make some things with these fabrics

and

b) work on some more designs!!

First though, i'm going to tell you a bit about how i created these and also how you can buy them if you'd like to and create your own designs too!

Spoonflower

I suspect some of you reading this may have heard of Spoonflower but for the uninitiated it is a US based website that allows you to upload any digital image and have it printed onto fabric! There are a range of types of fabric to choose from and you can even have your design printed as wall paper or as a sticky backed vinyl decal!

The next exciting thing is that you can also allow your designs to be sold on the site in your own in site shop (think Etsy/Folksy) - here's my Spoonflower shop if you'd like to take a look. My designs aren't for sale quite yet as i need to order and check a test swatch of each before they can be made available but that shouldn't take too long.

The way it works on the money side is if someone orders your fabric design you get 10% of the sale price - you don't have to do anything, it just get deposited in your account. When you buy your own fabric design, you get a 10% discount on the usual purchase price.

There are also lots of other fun aspects to the site like the ability to 'follow' designers who's work you like and comment on people's designs too. There are designing competitions to enter and of course loads of gorgeous fabrics available to buy - its going to be hard not to go on a mad spending spree! :)

Fabric Design

I created my designs using an image editing app for Macs called pixelmator - i bought it recently after it was recommended to me and i'm sooooooooo glad i did! I'm not a computer wizz, nor am i made of money, so to able to do pretty much everything i would do on photoshop (if i owned it or had the slightest clue how to use it...) on a very user friendly platform for just over £10 was well worth it!

The next thing will be using it to improve my product photography... another thing on the 'to do' list!

* On this subject, has anyone else noticed how a lot of the features that used to be free on Pic Monkey (online photo editor) are now 'Royale' features, i.e. you have to pay to upgrade... very annoying although i'm glad it pushed me into doing a bit of research and discovering Pixelmator :)

Handmade Monday

That's it from me for this week folks! I'm off over to Handmade Harbour now to link up with Handmade Monday and enjoy a mooch around everyone else crafting world... maybe i'll see you there!

Thanks for dropping by x