Happy (late) Halloween

A few pictures of Olive sporting the Halloween glasses I designed for Silhouette. She is such a crack up!

"Passion for Pattern" Bloghop

Hello my awesome blog readers (aka "Hi Mom!"),
;)

Some of the students from my ABSPD class got together to do a little blog hoppin' and share our love of pattern design.

If you just came here from Mary Tanana's blog, welcome!  If you want to join in from the beginning the blog hop starts at Claire Smellie's blog.

Alright. Let's get down to business.

First of all, let me just say that when I tell people that I am taking a course on pattern design and am interested in breaking into that industry, I always have to explain that I am not designing patterns for people to buy at the fabric store to show them how to make a blouse. It seems to me that surface pattern design isn't a very widely known field, which is ironic because pattern is everywhere. And it has to come from somewhere, right?

I have been working on some gift wrap that isn't floral or organic. I had a lot of fun with this one because it really challenged me-- florals are one of my favorites to turn to when designing patterns. When that wasn't an option it really made me step out of my confort zone.

I decided on a "Kitschy" design theme. You know, funny vintage statues of baby deer and stuff like that. What's not to love about Bambi, right? Though, my print with the fawn didn't make the final cut; I chose to replace it with the Scotty dog.  As they say on Project Runway, "Edit Edit Edit."

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look at my pattern designs!

The next blog after mine is Anna Berger. Enjoy the rest of the event!

Catching up

Just a few things to catch up on life a little bit...

Olive has been keeping me on my toes lately! She is crawling around like crazy, and starting to pull herself up to standing. Its really amazing to watch her learn new things and try and figure everything out. As of two days ago her new favorite thing is to find any item of clothing (laundry baskets, stacks of clothes, clothes on her changing table shelves) and throw it on the floor... I wonder where she learned that from?? 

The second module of my surface pattern design class is over and am trying to get caught up on all the work before the next module starts in September. It has been amazing! Basically all I have left to do is the not-so-small task of designing my identity/logo and brand. I am glad that was one of the assignments because this is something I have been meaning to do for the last... oh you know... three years or so!  I am learning so much in the class and will definitely be sad when it is over!

Here are a few of my collections from module two:

Pattern Mania

Things have been crazy around here-- between taking care of Olive, keeping up on my Etsy shop (which I am seriously considering putting on a "summer vacation"), a ton of freelance work and my pattern class. Let's just say dinner doesn't get on the table at a decent time very often lately. And laundry? What's that??

I have finished the first module of "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" and loved it! Rachael Taylor is currently doing a roundup of some of the student's work, and my "dessert blossoms" is in part four which can be found here. Hooray!

I just started part two of the class Monday and am working on putting together pattern collections, and will have some to share soon.

Here are a few of my patterns from the first module:

free printable

I designed a poster recently for an activity at my church which is focused on health and wellness. I thought the artwork turned out really cute and wanted to use it somewhere else, so I had the idea to turn it into a little wall hanging. So, if you are LDS and want a "Word of Wisdom" printable artwork, just click here to download the 5x7 inch jpg.

(for personal use only, please!)

Spoonflower top 10!

As part of my new surface pattern design endeavor, I entered the retro kitchen fabric competition at spoonflower.com a few weeks ago. I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from them this morning that my fabric was voted into the top ten, number three to be exact! Hooray! Here is a picture of it printed from spoonflower's flickr group: It is now available for sale here.

Surface Pattern Design

I have been meaning to share this for a while-- I am taking an ecourse on Surface pattern design called "The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design" by Rachael Taylor. I have always loved pattern and wanted to get into the industry of designing surface patterns, but have never quite known how. I saw this course advertised on one of my favorite blogs, Print and Pattern, about six months ago and started looking into it. The first time it was offered, it was starting right when Olive was born. Um, not really a good idea, I decided. So I emailed and found out that a second session of the class was being offered starting this April. I eagerly waited and got to see what students from the first class were producing... here, here and here (just to show a little bit). The course is divided up into three modules, and I am currently right in the middle of the first one. I am loving it so much. We are just in the beginnings, like going over inspiration and different sketching techniques, and it already has taken me above and beyond where I was before. Here is the first pattern I designed in the course:

Free Little Library

A friend of mine recently headed up this "Mini Library" project in her neighborhood as part of a community improvement effort. It's free and just has the rule that if you take a book, bring it back or leave a new one. I love the idea and wanted to share. I wish I could think of more cool ideas like this!

Mini libraries bring books to kids in Tucson neighborhoods from Cronkite News on Vimeo.

Olive's Birth Announcement

Right before Olive turned three months old I was talking on the phone with my mom and I asked her, "Is it too late to send a birth announcement for Olive?" She didn't think so, and said, "Anyone who cares to see it doesn't care how late it comes!" She also joked that I should do two pictures-- a "then and now." That got the wheels turning in my head and I ended up doing a "highlights of my first three months" themed announcement. It works well as a belated birth announcement and everyone liked seeing pictures of her, too!

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Happy Friday

I love Fridays.

Photo Bookmark Tutorial

I recently did a tutorial on how to create a printable photo book mark on the Scrap Girls blog. You can check it out here. I used a picture of Olive and made it like a birth announcement. I like how here little face peeks up over the top of the page.

(ps. this isn't Olive's "official" birth announcement... I just designed those last week and should be getting them in the mail from the printer this week, so check back soon! I am really excited to share them!)

Silhouette Frames

I was catching up on my blog reading, when I came across this scrapbook page on the Silhouette blog. It uses a lot of my sketch frame designs that I did a while ago, and I think it's adorable!

Olive and Her Grandma Ruth

On Christmas Eve in Utah, we took Olive to meet her Great-Great-Grandma Ruth. With almost 100 years in age difference, it was cool to be able to capture a few of the moments they spent together on film. I am sure these are pictures that Olive will cherish when she is grown.