Spoonflower - my designs on fabric!

Lots of new, exciting things have been happening with my business recently!  One of my new ventures is opening a Spoonflower shop to sell my designs on fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap.   If you buy any of my designs in the shop they will be digitally printed and sent to you directly from Spoonflower.  The fabric can be bought as swatches, fat quarters or by the yard in a range of different types of fabric.

Before I could list any of my designs to sell I had to order some swatches to check everything looked ok.  Well, the swatches arrived yesterday (it took about 3 weeks for printing and standard delivery to the UK) and they look great!  So you can now buy fabric I have designed to use in your craft projects!

Here are some photos of the swatches I ordered…

This Citrus Fruits pattern was a design I entered into one of Spoonflower’s contests.

Ball Games pattern – lots of balls from different sports on a green background.

Brightly coloured butterflies, including the peacock, ulysses and monarch.

2 different designs featuring budgies – one has rows of blue, green and yellow budgerigars and the other has monochrome birds.

This Nautical, sailing boat themed design coordinates with the chevron pattern.

I have a collection of different designs from my cupcakes and roses themed set – including a pretty rose design, rows of cupcakes and a coordinating spotty pattern in green.  The spotty blue pattern is actually part of the budgie collection, but would go well with the rose design too.

Finally, there are 4 designs in my London Calling themed collection which features my illustrations of British post boxes and phone boxes, London soldiers, Buses and Taxis and a coordinating chevron pattern.

The London bus and taxi design in my shop is actually slightly different to the sample I had printed.  I decided that the buses and taxis looked a bit too close together, so have altered the design so that they are more spaced out.

You could use the fabric in all sorts of sewing projects - I think some of these designs would be great for making into cushion covers or purses.  If you buy any of these fabrics I would love to see what you make!

FIMO pets and buttons

Last weekend I made these cute little animals from Fimo.  They started as basic Fimo shapes which I painted with acrylics after baking then varnished.

I’ve had my Fimo for a very long time (I think there's still a tiny bit left from some I had when I was 8!) – some is Fimo Classic and some is Fimo Soft.  I much prefer using the soft as you can use it almost immediately but the Classic always takes me ages to soften and I end up making a mess with crumbs of Fimo falling everywhere.

The little animals I made are really small – this rabbit is just over an inch long…

I painted the rabbit with dutch markings – I used to have a white and grey dutch rabbit when I was small :)  Rabbits are one of my favourite animals.  I’ve been watching the BBC series The Burrowers – where they’re following the lives of rabbits, badgers and water voles in burrows specially made for the series.  Of course the rabbits are my favourite – especially the babies which are soo cute!!

This budgie (only about 1.75 inches long) was partly inspired by my green and yellow budgie, Bobby.  Although she was a girl and this is a boy budgie, as above his beak is blue.

While the Fimo was out I thought I may as well make a few more buttons to top up my jar…

I love the colour of the rose – it’s more minty coloured in real life than this photo shows.  If you want to see some of the other polymer clay buttons I made and find out a bit about how I made them, take a look at this post which I wrote a couple of years ago: http://hazelfishercreations.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/polymer-clay-buttons.html

Budgie printables and gift wrap idea

The sun is shining and it feels like spring is finally here!  It’s a good day for taking photographs, so here are some pictures of my new budgie designs printed out...

This printable party invitation is available in two sizes – 3.9 x 5.1 inches as shown here, or 5x7 inches.  The invitations feature my illustration of a colourful row of budgies and come personalised with your own choice of text.

I also have some new printable scrapbooking paper designs and gift tags featuring budgies.  Printable patterned papers are great for scrapbooking or cardmaking projects but they can also be used as gift wrap for small gifts.  You need never run out of interesting gift wrap again if you print your own!

For this gift wrap idea I printed the blue budgie design onto A4 paper - if you’re lucky enough to have an A3 printer you can print the full 12x12 inch paper to wrap slightly larger presents! The present was then wrapped in two colours of yarn and a gift tag added, which I had printed onto card.

This is the full set of printable papers – 8 designs with different budgie patterns in colour and monochrome as well as coordinating spots and stripes.
All of these printables are available to buy from my Etsy supplies shop.

Lots of Budgies!

If you follow me on facebook you will already know that my latest designs include lots of budgies!

I experimented with sketching in pencil, pen and colouring digitally before deciding on how to draw the finished row of budgies above (which is in pen and coloured digitally).  There are so many different colour combinations to choose from – the blue one in the middle is a bit like my budgie Charlie.

I’m using the finished illustration to make a range of products from patterned papers to greeting cards, like the ones below…

The birthday card is printed on white popset card which has a very slightly rough surface - I can print this design with other messages too.  The square card is printed on lovely linen textured card.  These cards and other greeting cards are available to buy from my Folksy shop and Etsy shop.

I’ll be sharing more photos of the other budgie themed items I am designing soon!

My little helper...

Why is it that some days never seem to go right?  I spent most of yesterday watching over a sick budgie - Charlie has injured his leg and couldn't sit on his perch properly :(

He had a trip to the vet and some pain killers and spent the night apart from his friend Bobby so he could get some rest.  He seems calmer today and we're keeping a close eye on him.  As he has not eaten much we are hand feeding him too.  Hopefully he will feel better with some rest.

Charlie's friend Bobby is far from calm today though - she's going mad trying to see Charlie in the other cage!  She even managed to escape by pushing the lid off the seed pot and climbed out!  Here she's come to help me at my desk... :)

Somehow I don't think having Bobby on my desk will make today more productive though!

I've been meaning to post a picture of these too - my latest batch of Moo cards :)  Folksy and Moo have an offer of a pack of 50 free cards - you just pay postage and packing and the cards come with the Folksy logo on.

These are not macaroons...

I was planning on sharing some photos of my latest baking project from the new 'Making' magazine, but it turned out to be a macaroon disaster! Hopefully I'll have better luck next time... for now though, here are some new paintings instead :)

These budgies and guinea pig are all ACEOs, drawn in pencil and painted in watercolours.

This is Basil, my pet guinea pig, who loves to eat parsley amongst other things! Drawn in pencil and painted in watercolours (a 5x7 inch painting).

I'm currently adding new ACEOs to my Etsy shop and will also be adding listings for pet portrait commissions.