Peppermint Candy Patterned Paper

I'm not too happy with this year's commercially produced holiday patterned paper...too vintagey, too dark. Too much RED. Plus, I need smaller repeating pattens for collage work and I'm seeing too many large patterns or "scenes."

So, I'm making my own!! Have fun!

Freebie Stickers

I am still in the digital phase of designing my own patterned paper. Once I move on to more of a collage look, I will share resources like I promised in an earlier post.

For digital drawings, I use Inkscape. It's free and works on both Windows and PC. Once you complete a drawing, you choose "export bitmap" which saves the document as a .png file. Then you can open it up in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (like I have) and fiddle with it a bit. The result is something like this - today's freebie:


When making patterns from objects, I find it easier to think in terms of a "sticker sheet" type format, then expand it into a repeating pattern. There are some good Inkscape tutorials out there. For now, I'll just say that you should "group" your images and drag one of the corners to make them smaller. When they are tiny enough to please you, use the "tiled clone" feature to create a repeating pattern.

Here is a smaller repeating pattern:

And here is an even smaller repeating pattern:

Another variation: stripes!

Pirate Owl

AARRRGGGHHHH.

Digitized Cupcake Coloring Book Characters

Here we have the cast of characters for the Cupcake and Friends coloring book (in progress). Like the human race, the cupcake race has a diverse population representing the spectrum of cupcake experience. Included in this family are the Happy/Sad Conjoined Twins, Legless Cupcake on Wheels, Pirate One Eyed Pegleg Cupcake, X-Cupcake, and assorted other eatables.

Note: the call for coloring book illustration scenarios is still on! Today, I was offered: skiing accident, how cupcakes are born, and cupcake gangster initiation. Keep em' coming. If your is selected, you will be provided your own copy of the finished book! Yay CAKE!

Back to School Doodle

Thinking of 2nd grade...

Coloring Book Characters

A coloring book of just cupcakes seems incomplete. So I'm working on developing some characters to use in my work. I'm just calling them "Gerbil Friends" for now. I have no explanation for that other than it just popped into my head. Perhaps they are friends because they are united by a dislike for gerbils, prefer to eat gerbils, or are part-gerbil. This is yet to be determined.

Today

This little drawing pretty much sums up my day. I'm so sad to be without my sewing machine, but it is getting a much-needed tune up and by the time it's ready, I'll have a VINYL ROLLER FOOT to whip out those vinyl pouches, yahoo! There's a stack of them ready to be stitched up and listed in the shop.

O.M.G. it is a nightmare figuring out how to get things professionally printed. It is totally blowing my mind.

I've been trying so very hard to get the resin pouring thing right. Everyone says it's so easy, but...maybe it's the climate here...they seem to either stay sticky or if not, something else goes wrong. I'm pretty happy with these babies, though. Once I figure out a safe way to polish them, they will be transformed to pendants and listed in the shop, too. NOTE the glow-in-the-dark glitter!! YES.

Before I took my machine to the doctor, I did some experimenting with creating appliques from sketches I did years ago. I am still learning how to get the stitching just right. I am so excited to make these a reality - zip pouches with giant yummy appliques. Did I mention I miss my machine?



Finally, yes, I am radioactive thanks to Iodine pill #1 to treat my thyroid cancer. For the next 10 days, I have to isolate myself...hmmm...not so hard for an obsessive full-time crafter! But let me tell you something: never take any hugs or doggie kisses or kitties in your face for granted! WAAHH! Okay, I'm fine now. Off to lay for an hour in a loud me-sized tube (edit: it wasn't loud) to have my body digitally sliced into a million bits. xxxooo

P.S. I want to make my own coloring book.

An Etsy Experiment: Downloadables

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and here it goes! Downloadable files for purchase in the shop. A bargain (if the images appeal to you) in that you can print them out as often as you like once you buy the files. Risky for me, of course, because I have no control over duplication. But this is how it is, and I believe that most people in the crafting community are both honorable and want to honor other crafters.

It took hours to put this listing together! First, the image must be created and perfected. Then, images for etsy viewing must be generated along with a user-friendly product for download (aka the pdf file).

This is my first time to do something like this, so hopefully customers will be pleased with their purchase!

Here are some fellow Etsians selling downloadable files that I admire:

vink

wildolive

Sally1

MariekeVDesign

Coffee + No Sleep = Cupcakes!

It's our last day in Oregon. In fact, our plane leaves in a few hours. We are staying in a luxurious corner sweet of a lovely hotel in downtown Portland. I spent most of the night working on this luscious cupcake fabric. This bed is so delicious, I'm rolling around in it with both glee (because, hey, cupcakes!) and sadness that I didn't spend more time in it.

So, what we have here is the blackline from my sketches, the color tile, and a prototype of what the fabric will look like, although lots of color matching work remains to be done. This is style 1, "rainbow cupcakes on white" and a number of variations are in the works. Spoonflower, here I come! Look for cupcake goodies in the shop in September.

Fabric Designs

I'm playing around with the possibility of designing my own fabric to use in my projects. Here are a few prototypes:

A round logo

Feedback is welcome!

In an apple-y mood

Button flowers

I like the idea of merging fabric and sewing elements with digital drawings,
so I'm doing some experimenting...