Floral design T shirt competition

Here’s a competition that creative people might be interested in – the closing date for entries is tomorrow (June 9th) but if you’re very quick there’s still time to enter today!  (Apologies for the late notice, I only entered my design yesterday).

The contest is being run by Bags of Love and The People’s Print and there are some great prizes!  All you need to do is come up with a design for their all over printed t-shirt.  They have created a tutorial using flower photographs which you could follow, but you can create your own floral design too.  More details of the competition can be found here.

This is my entry to the competition…

I created my design from drawings of the flowers in my garden.  The pen line drawings of individual flowers were scanned and coloured digitally, then combined to create a repeat pattern.  I would love to see how this design prints on fabric!  If you like my design I would really appreciate your vote! and if you enter please send me a link so I can see your entry too! :)

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!

Butterflies Printable Wedding Stationery

I’ve been working on some butterfly themed designs and have just finished the first set of products featuring my new drawings!

While researching butterflies to draw I found some beautiful species – I love the colour of the blue Ulysses butterfly and the patterns of the Monarch butterfly (above).  All of the butterflies were drawn in pencil first, then scanned and coloured digitally.  I’ve been using the drawings to create patterned papers as well as a variety of other printable products.  This wedding stationery set is the first of my butterfly designs to be finished and listed in my Etsy shop...

The stationery set includes an invitation, save the date card, rsvp card and thank you card.  I really like the simplicity of these designs and think they would be lovely printed on textured card stock.

There are 5 different butterflies to choose from;

* Cairns Birdwing (green)
* Ulysses (blue)
* Monarch (Orange and Black)
* Postman (Red, Ochre and Black)
* Peacock ( Red with eye spots)

This set is available to buy from my shop, the invitation, save the date etc can also be bought individually.

New Website Design for 2013

As it’s a new year I decided it was time to give my blog and website a bit of a new look!  I thought I would try something a bit more modern and cleaner for a change – so have a new yellow zigzag pattern background and a simpler header.
I’ve made the blog a little wider and tweaked things like colours and fonts but still have a few other things I want to play around with over the next few weeks.

The website has had bigger changes with all of the pages being updated and new pages added for wedding stationery, party supplies and craft supplies.  There are still new pictures I want to add but for now I’m happy with it showing a wider range of my work.
Hope you like the changes so far! :)

More new greeting card designs!

I have more new card designs to share with you today!  There are a couple of Christmas cards, a birthday cupcake card and 2 blank cards which could be used for a range of occasions.

Most of these have been printed on white card with a lovely linen texture - the pigeons and umbrellas card is printed on white card with a very slightly rough surface.  As I print the cards myself I can do personalised cards too; if you like a design but would prefer a different message I am happy to do custom orders.

The cards all measure 12.5cm square (approximately 4.9 inches) and come with white envelopes.  They are blank inside ready for you to add your own message.

Some cards have also been embellished after printing, like this Clematis pattern notecard which has glitter in the centres of the flowers...

My greeting cards are available to buy from my Folksy shop.

Bright as a Button - new printable papers!

Organising the Creations Craft Fayre has been taking over my time a bit recently - I set up a new facebook page for it: www.facebook.com/CreationsCraftFayre and the hall is nearly fully booked with stalls.  I've just started this year's round of stall features on the blog too www.creationsfayre.blogspot.co.uk  It's exciting to see everything starting to come together!

 

I'm trying not to fall too far behind on my other work though - I'm always full of ideas, just lacking the time to do everything!

This is my newest set of printable scrapbooking papers, similar to my Pastel Buttons papers but in brighter colours.  The set contains 10 papers in 5 colour schemes - each colour scheme has a buttons patterned paper with a coordinating striped pattern...

This blue colour scheme is my favourite!

The set of printable papers is now available to buy from my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/111226290/bright-as-a-button-printable

I have some other new buttons designs in progress too - just waiting for a few supplies before they will be finished!! :)

Clematis Note Cards

The first set of my new note cards is finished!  This pretty set has a Clematis theme and contains 4 square cards, each with a different design.  I have designed this set so that you can use them for a range of occasions, two cards have ‘Thank you’ messages on the front, one says ‘Just to say…’ and the last has no message.  The size of these cards (10cm x 10cm) makes them great for writing little notes.

The cards are printed on lovely white linen textured card and come with white envelopes.  As I am printing these cards myself I am able to offer personalised cards too – so if you like the designs but would prefer different messages on them I am happy to do custom orders!
 

At the moment these cards will only be available to buy from my Folksy shop.

More card sets will be released soon!  As well as other sets of small square cards I will also be making cards to sell individually and in other sizes.

Sneak peek at the start of a new range of cards

I'm currently working on a new range of greeting cards.  It's something that I've been planning for a while and now I have a new supply of card stock they are actually starting to come to life!  Here is one of my new designs...

Before my card designs have been printed by Moo and although I love the quality of their cards I have decided to start printing cards myself.  There are a few reasons for this change; it means that I can print on different sized card, different types of card (the card photographed is on lovely linen textured card) and I will be able to print customised cards.

The first sets of cards will be ready very soon - so keep an eye out for those appearing on the blog and my shops!



Ball Games party

This new printable party set has a ball games theme - great for sports themed birthday parties!  The set comes in two colour schemes - either green and orange or blue and red and features a range of sports balls from football and basketball to tennis and cricket.

The party set includes an invitation, cupcake toppers, tent cards, name place cards, straw flags and a birthday bunting banner.  The invitations, cupcake toppers and tent cards come personalised too with your own choice of wording.

For more details see this listing in my Etsy shop here:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/105788658/ball-games-personalised-printable-party

Ball Games

I'm looking forward to an evening in front of the tv tonight watching the Olympic opening ceremony - will you be watching too?  From some of the video clips I saw this morning it looks like it's going to be a great show!

There are strict rules about using words and images associated with the games.  I can understand that sponsors would want to protect their logos etc, but when we have been told how the whole country will benefit from the games it seems a bit harsh to be telling small businesses to take down their window displays when all they want to do is show their support for their country.  So I will be careful not to mention anything I shouldn't here!

With so much sport around at the moment I was inspired to draw some ball game themed illustrations and turn them into scrapbooking papers (a printable party set is in progress and should be finished soon!).  This set of 8 papers features balls and rackets from a range of sports: football, basketball, tennis, badminton (I know it's not really a ball game but thought it would go in anyway), cricket, baseball, table tennis and squash.

These printable papers are available to buy from my Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/105406943/ball-games-sport-themed-printable

Buttons Preview

Here's a sneak peak at my newest set of paper designs inspired by my collection of vintage buttons...

Digital Collage Sheets

I've recently been working on a new branch to my supplies shop and have been designing digital collage sheets - these are sold as jpeg (or pdf) files which you can download and print yourself to use in your own personal crafting projects or for small scale business, selling things you've made from the sheets.

I've seen collage sheets online before but it wasn't until recently that I thought I would have a go at making my own - I then realised how fun and addictive they were so I'm starting to get a little collection of them in my shop now!

So far my designs range from photographs of my vintage button collection to background papers made from layered textures and old handwriting. The latest addition is this set of 12 inch scrapbooking papers featuring my rabbit illustration, spots, checks, carrots and flowers...

You can see the full range so far in my etsy supplies shop www.hfcsupplies.etsy.com