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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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@engravogirl-blog
I’m mourning the death of Stan Lee. Although I never met him, I know his legacy well. I will forever feel connected to the characters he had a hand in creating. I feel a peculiar kinship to Spiderman...http://www.engravogirl.com/my-adventures/real-life-super-powers/
It’s Fire Prevention Week! Protect yourself, your family and your friends and neighbors. Encourage them to practice a home escape paln!
-->>Learn about NFPA fire prevention week.<<--
My Escape to SPI
My big sis kidnapped me this week for 3 glorious days in South Padre Island. The weather was fantastic despite the threat of rain from this year’s unusually busy hurricane season. I soaked in the sun, got sand between my toes and enjoyed, some much treasured time in the waves with my sister. I miss it already.....
Check out that little Laughing Gull above. This plucky guy is missing a foot. His handicap didn’t deter him at all from doing all the things that Gulls like to do such as begging for food, running in the surf, fishing, and enjoying all the things that life on Padre Island has to offer him. I think I could learn something from him....
Mod Pattern Revival
This week’s Spoonflower Challenge takes me way back to the 1960s. Although I wasn’t around at the time, there’s something about the Mod fashion prints of that era that just get me. I love their bold colors and in-your-face, daring quirkyness that says, “Yes, I went THERE with this! And it was GROOVY!”
Above are two designs pictured with their vintage inspirations. I’ve tried to recreate the look and feel of the originals without altogether copying them - because that would be rude and unethical. I like to think of my redesigns as homages to the vintage designs; emulating what I like about them while creating something all my own.
You can see different colorways of these patterns in my Spoonflower shop: Snowed Under Mod, 60′s Boss Floral Mod.
In photographs, the process I used to create encaustic tiles from cardboard for Spoonflower’s 1950s design challenge. Inspired by Jasper John’s encaustic paintings. I began with cardboard tiles.
I peeled away portions to reveal the corrougated center and colored randomly with silver marker.
Then melted crayons in foil trays at 250F in the oven - I used coins and other flat objects to create interesting textures and seperations in color.
I pressed the tiles face down in the wax then pulled them out to dry.
Next I scanned the tiles into my paint program to manipulate into a pleasing pattern.
Killing time in Waco with tacos
Waiting in my car - something I find myself doing a lot of as a mom. I decided to work on this week’s Spoonflower design challenge - “Tacos and Burritos”.
Fire Prevention 2018 Preperations
I have a secret! I AM A CLOWN! I’m not talking about my personallity (although I’m sometimes a gigantic goofball). I mean a real, honest-to-goodness, white face, wig-wearing CLOWN.
I hang out with a bunch of other clowns. We visit local elemenary schools tying shoelaces and teaching the kidos about Fire and Life Safety. Our clowning activities happen mainly during Fire Prevention Week. The rest of the year, we spend planning our next big show. This year our characters are rennovating a home. Pictured above is the 2018 set design. I have to keep the design simple, because firefighters do all our painting. I can’t wait for all the fun we’ll have working on our show once it’s all painted.
If you also enjoy clowning around and teaching the kids a thing or two, check out my Fire & Life Safety collection on Spoonflower. I’m currently working on some new designs for this collection so check back often to see what I’ve cooked up.
“Holy Mailboxes, Batman!”
While Spoonflower is my prefered platfrom for sharing my work with everyone, I also work in other mediums. I especially love using my super powers to ceate unique one-of-a-kind gifts. My sons and I spent last week in the lair working on a secret Father’s Day project. Hubby is a GIGANTIC Batman fan. His home office is a shrine to the Caped Crusader. Our old mailbox was looking faded and needed replacing; so we decided to gift him with this fun Batman themed mailbox.
In between coats of paint, I built this little Spoonflower collection inspired by all things Batty. This one was a challenge to put together. Due to copyright issues, there aren’t any blatant Batman related designs avaliable. However, I think this combination of Bat and Pop-Art inspired prints gets the idea across nicely. I’m going to make Hubby a cheater quilt throw for his office from this collection.
Patriotic Inspiration for the Bauhaus Movement Design Challenge
This week’s design challenge theme threw me for a bit of a loop. The hot weather and sudden appearance watermelon for sale on street corners has put me in a patriotic mood. I was anticipating another holiday themed contest. However, I was pleasantly surprised when new themes for the next few months were posted. I adore Modernist art. I revel in works with swooping curves and geometric shapes that lead the eye on a journey - putting feelings into texture, color, layers and shapes - like music on canvas...
I’m still feeling partiotic - and Challenged! For this challenge I decided to pull a memory from my closet. I chose a painting I made many years ago. I hang the arcrylic canvas on my front door every year to celebrate July 4th. I took a photo with my phone, loaded it into Adobe Photoshop, and got to work. I think I’m in love with the results...
May Samples & Design Scale
Here’s a snapshot of my May Spoonflower samples. I’m in love with the pastel microdot prints.
You can tell by looking at these that my initial Spoonflower designs are large in scale. When I’m working, I fill my 32 inch monitor with the design; a habit I blame on my High School Art teacher. He was always reminding me to fill the space on the canvas. I also find it easier to work on the details when things are big.
It’s best to remember that once your designs are uploaded you can easily make them smaller - but you can’t make your original any larger. Working in the large is a good habit for me, I can re-size patterns for customers as needed after uploading them to Spoonflower. This means I can make singular prints that work for everything from doll dresses to curtians.
Shoe Cubby Storage w/ Spoonflower Swatches
I have a lot of Spoonflower fabric samples - a LOT. I’ve been brainstorming about how to use some of them. Here’s one of my projects. This old shoe cubby was too small for my boys’ size 13s. It’s been repourpoused into small tool and junk storage. I found cardboard boxes that are a nearly perfect fit for the cubicles. I decoupaged the samples to the front of the boxes and covered the rest of the box with peel and stick contact paper. I will be adding some wooden knobs to the box fronts in the near future....
Why I ALWAYS Hand Wash Spoonflower Fabric!
While there is something to be said about lessons learned the hard way; I regret this one was learned during this project. This 1 yard cheater quilt is an apartment warming gift for my daughter. While she still loves it, I'm not comfortable with the fact that it isn’t perfect.
Here’s what I did WRONG: I followed Spoonflower’s machine washing instructions.
Spoonflower reccomends pre-washing (machine or by hand) before sewing for all of their fabrics. It’s good advice. However I question the wisdom of reccomending a machine wash.
This time I was very busy, and in a hurry - in most cases, a recipe for disaster. I used Woolite - a phospate free soap - and tossed the fabric into my washing machine on a cold gentle cycle. Next, without examining the fabric, I put it into the dryer for a nice and gentle low heat tumble. When I took it from the dryer I discovered white creases where the fabric must have bunched up and creased during the spin cycle in the washer.
These creases are not stains! Rubbing with a damp cloth only created a worn spot and made them worse. These creases are where the dye was literally rubbed off and sucked out of the fabric during the washer’s spin cycle.
Spoonflower uses a heat process to bond dye to the fabric to make it permenant. My experience tells me that this process isn’t always completely successful. Saturated colors tend to fade when machine washed. This leads me to conclude that washing machines are far too rough on Spoonflower’s printed fabric - especially designs with dark, saturated colors. This may be because heavy colors have more dye and take more effort to bond to fabric. From now on, I’m reccomending only hand washing with gentle machine drying followed by ironing at an appropriate setting for the fabric.
In my case, Spoonflower reimbursed me with Spoondollars for the fabric after I made a complaint. I can use the credit for a future purchase from Spoonflower :)
Spoonflower Samples!
Did you know that there are 3 ways to order Spoonflower samples?
1> Individually - an 8x8in test swatch can be ordered from any design’s page by selecting the test swatch option and adding it to your cart. A test swatch costs $5.
2> Samplers - Spoonflower Designers can order samplers of their own collections by viewing the collection in the Design Library and selecting the ‘Get A Sampler’ button on the top right of the page. 1-5 designs cost $12.00, 6-15 designs cost $20.00, and 16-30 designs cost $35.00. Samples are 8x8 inches.
3> Fill-A-Yard - (My favorite way to order samples) - Spoonflower users can order samples of any collection using the Fill-A-Yard feature. You can create your own collection, or use another Spoonflower user’s collection. Click here for more info how to use the Fill-A-Yard feature. The best part is that Designers can use the Fill-A-Yard option to order proofs of their own unpublished designs. I often use the Fill-A-Yard cheater quilt templates to order proofs of my designs. As with the ‘Sampler’ option, I can publish my designs for sale after they are printed in the Fill-A-Yard project. It’s far more economical than the ‘Sampler’ option mentioned above. I use the 1 Yard Cheater Quilt template. It has space for 42 design samples that are 6x6 inches each and costs $17.50 printed on Basic Cotton. The price of Fill-A-Yard varies with the template and fabric options.
Beltsander Prime creamed the competition at this years Power Tool Drag Race for Relay for Life hosted by Benbrook’s Troop 95!
A dizzying black and red Cheater Quilt from my Spoonflower shop. This quilt uses a traditional Whirling Geese pattern. Spoonflower cheater quilts take the piecework out of quilting. I put this one together over a couple of days.
My entry for this year’s Relay for Life Power Tool Drag Racing event. My sons’ Boy Scout Troop has hosted this event for the past 3 years. I have been dying to enter. This little beauty was my grandfather’s. All metal construction. They don’t make them like this anymore. It will need some gussying up and modifications first. I’ll post photos of the makeover later.
A Spoonflower collection inspired by the sport of Power Tool Racing. Why am I inspired by Power Tool Racing? More on that later....In the meantime, click the link for some YouTube Power Tool Racing videos!