Colouring Book Wallpaper

When I was a kid, colouring in was one of my favourite things to do. At one time, I even had it in my head that I would be a professional cartoon colourer-inner (!) and so I had to enter the contest over at Spoonflower this week. Their idea is to print black and white wallpaper designs to use as a colouring book once in place and I've made a black and white version of the Palace Garden repeat pattern for it. Have a look at everyone else's designs and vote over here!

Palace Garden | Black & White

I had to print off a version to try out!

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Linen Washi Tape

A new phone case I made this week out of linen scraps and a new washi tape design; it's great for borders or to add just a bit of decorative pattern:

Phone case using the blue strip.

The multicolour version is available here if you'd like some on fabric, paper or peel and stick decals in all these colours:

It's been a while since I posted - I hope everyone's having a great summer!

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Kitchenalia, Retro Stylee

Spoonflower are keeping with the trends for this week's contest by combining a kitchen theme with a retro one.

Everything but the Sink

The palette was limited to these four colours plus white; I really needed to see some blue or green after staring at this for hours but for the retro-vintage theme, they were perfect.

Details - click for larger view!

See what everyone else came up with (and vote for your favourites) here! Have a great weekend :)

May 17th:
This design won 6th place! Thanks so much if you had a chance to vote, you can see all top ten fabrics here :)

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Around the World in Fruit & Veg

A new and improved version of this! I really like the way the polar regions worked out in the different shade of wood.

Around the world in Fruit & Veg Details - click to view larger.

They're available as linen place mats here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

North Carolina Sun

I'm so excited to have come 8th in the contest at Spoonflower, where they've been busy printing this week's top ten!

Printed up and billowing in the North Carolina sun!

Thank you those who voted for this design! Poppy Field in Fuzzy Felts is now available here (also in the white version) on cotton and linen; 15% of profits are donated to The Poppy Appeal. If you'd like to have a look at all top ten designs, Spoonflower have posted them on their Flickr page here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Fuzzy Felt

In observance of Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the US), the subject at Spoonflower this week is military. I immediately thought of the poppies worn in countries around the globe to support soldiers and their families on the anniversary of the armistice. I also found out that fuzzy felts were invented by Lois Allan while manufacturing felt gaskets during the second world war. Without wanting to trivialize the subject, this tied in too well to resist and so Poppy Field in Fuzzy Felts was born:

Poppy Field in Fuzzy Felts

Fuzzy Felt texture details - click to view larger.

If you like fuzzy felts, poppies, the military or even my design, head on over to the contest page to vote - 15% of the proceeds from this design go to The Poppy Appeal!#

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

A new background.

Back in March, I submitted a design for the Joseph Joseph brief. You can see the winning designs here and, although mine isn't among them, I was happy with it. It was the first time I'd used vector graphics and really enjoyed learning on this design but was never satisfied with the blue background (put in at the last minute as a bit of a rush job) so I've updated it to something more me: 

A la Carte on Wood.

I think it makes the fruit and veg colours stand out much better and looks more in context laid out on the chopping board, although it's a weird old mix of photo and vector; still, I like it! Especially the new shadows, which you can see better in the details below. It's a happy coincidence that the crack in the board ended up pretty much on the date line :)

Click for detailed view.

I'm sure I can use it for something kitchen related. I was thinking a calendar or placemats; anyone got any other ideas?

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Love your weeds!

Butterflies is the subject for the new Spoonflower contest with a palette limited to just these six colours (I missed yellow!):



It did show me though how habitual my colour use has become and that's the whole idea right? I quite like that it's a pattern that would never have come about if left entirely to me! If you have a spare second, please click through and vote for it :)

Tree-hugger's Lawn

Tree-hugger's Lawn Details - click for larger view.

This weedy design was inspired by the idea of leaving a bit of your garden for wild, native plants to grow.If you're not a lover of weeds but would like to attract more butterflies to your outside space, there are loads of websites about which flowers butterflies will be attracted to - either for nectar or as a food source for their caterpillars. These small, natural areas add up fast to increase the available habitat for local wildlife!

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hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Decisions...

I’ll try to make some time next to get some colour on this:

Fishing

I have piles of sketches stuck at this stage, where I’ve decided the content but just haven’t finished. I think it's because of the vast number of colour combinations and possibilities; it seems a shame to limit it to one.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware