Ocean 2012

I found out about Ocean 2012 through this stunning animation from Uli Henrik Streckenbach - have a look!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Denim Dinos Repeat

Denim Dinos repeat pattern.

I've adapted the dinosaur print I made last year into a repeat pattern and added a few extra characters for this contest over here.

Details - click for a larger view.

The creatures and plants are all from the Cretaceous. Butterflies are rare in rock fossils but these amber pieces from the Dominican Republic have shown that they're much older than once thought and could have coexisted with T.Rex!

Have a great weekend whatever you're up to :)

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Polkka Jam

I hadn't heard of this Finnish design team until Deborah at Kickcan & Conkers hosted a great giveaway a while back, in which I won not one but two of their fantastic linen-cotton tea towels.

Lintukoto (native bird) and Kissanpäivät (cat days) linen-cotton tea towels.

Kristiina Haapalaisen and Sami Vähä-Aho have a beautiful range of posters, postcards and home textiles which are produced as ecologically as possible and all in their home town of Turku. See more of their range here or read their design news on their blog.

Deborah has a brilliant collection of modern and vintage books, toys and games in the Kickcan & Conkers shop and she writes daily about her life in France and hunt for vintage gems here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Midyear Calendar: Love, Luck and Happiness

Midyear Calendar: Love, Luck & Happiness

I can't believe midsummer is almost here (we definitely haven't had the weather for it the last few days)! To celebrate anyway, I've made a midyear calendar which runs from July 2012 to June 2013. It's based on this one I did for the beginning of the year featuring symbols used in many eastern cultures to bring prosperity, longevity, happiness, harmony and good luck; so if you fancy a bit of zen in tea towel form, you can find it here on a linen cotton blend!

Calendar detail with different colours for 2012 and 13 :)

Details - click to view larger.

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Update 2014: The new 2015 calendar is available to order here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Palace Garden Repeat

Hi all, hope you had a good weekend! We had a relaxed one with a bit of shopping, a bit of wine and plenty of reading and sleeping!

I've been meaning to make a repeat pattern partner to this design for quite a while now and last week I had the perfect opportunity to concentrate my efforts with the hand drawn design contest. There were over 500 entries this week, the competition over at spoonflower is growing fast!

Palace Garden Repeat

Details of Palace Garden Repeat - click to view larger!

I'm planning on reworking the original too, as soon as I have enough time; so if any of you have had your eye on the colours currently available, now's the time to grab some!

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Update 2014: You can read about the new colours for this pattern here; they're available to order here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Semifinals!

You may have already heard that the lovely peeps over at Spoonflower have teamed up with Robert Kaufman Fabrics on their latest contest with a pen & ink / watercolour theme. The judges have been working hard this week on narrowing down over 750 entries to just 100 semifinalists and I was so happy to find out that my design got through!

I would really, really appreciate your vote if you have a minute or two :) Click here!

Forest Garden

11th May:
Thanks to everyone who voted and congratulations to the finalists, whose beautiful winning designs you can see here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Celandine

Celandine

A member of the buttercup family, apparently these sunny flowers are named from the Greek for Swallow (chelidon), blooming as the swallows return for the summer. If you feel like making something sunny, this design is up in my spoonflower shop and available in 9 different kinds of cloth!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Bees & Blooms

Bees & Blooms - Medieval Woodcut

What says summer better than lying in the grass hearing bees going about their work? As you've probably read, these indispensable pollinators have mysteriously been in trouble for the last few years. A couple of new studies published this week have helped to establish that a certain group of nerve agent pesticides are a large part of that puzzle but there are things that we can do to help! Buzz About Bees have a list of 10 simple things you can do, even if it's just buying local honey and scattering a few wildflower seeds on your lawn.

The bees shown here are adapted from my Medieval Woodcut design. I've made a repeat pattern with them which you can find on fabric, wrapping paper and wallpaper here!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Print & Pattern Kids

Bowie Style over at the Print & Pattern blog is working on a third book and this time the theme will be children's design. Patterns for fabrics and wallpaper as well as wall art, illustration and greetings cards may be included and I've submitted a bit of everything!

Five-a-day placemats:

Around the World in Fruit & Veg - see the original here

a couple of birthday card designs:

and repeat patterns for fabrics:  

Sand Dollars in Pink Pearl, Seaglass, Honey & Seaweed | Butterflies | Scatter! (see more about the sea lions here!)

I think the book will be more geared towards 70s retro-style graphic design and illustration but fingers crossed - I'd love to be in a Print & Pattern book!

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

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware