Wallpaper on Spoonflower

My maternal grandparents owned a paint and wallpaper store in Miami, Oklahoma in the 1950s and 1960s.  The introduction of wallpaper on Spoonflower has brought back a lot of memories for me.
I used to spend summers with my grandparents and everyday, except Sundays, we'd go to Davis Paint Store and spend the day.

One wall of  the store was covered with storage bins.  There were flaps over each of the bins, each flap covered with a different design of wallpaper.  Inside each of these bins were rolls of wallpaper matching whatever design was on the outside flap.  I'd lift the flaps and stare in at all the rolls of wallpaper.  I enjoyed looking at the different designs and feeling the textures of each design.

There was a tall wooden cart with wheels that had a large ball of twine.  When a customer came in to look at wallpaper and then make a choice, my grandfather loaded the rolls up on that cart and pushed the cart to the checkout counter.   If there were several rolls of wallpaper, my grandfather bundled them with the twine from the cart.

I particularly enjoyed it when someone would come in to buy a gallon of paint.  Then I could watch the can of paint shake up and down and all around.  It was a simpler time then.  No television, just a radio.  No cell phones, hand held games.  The only game I played on those hot summer days was tic-tac-toe with my grandmother. She and I would sit out front and mind the store while my grandfather rested at noon on a cot in the back of the store. 

It occurred to me the other day that that wall of different wallpaper designs that was inside my grandparents' paint and wallpaper store had been recreated in my "Fear of Commitment" half bath and laundry room.  It's covered with different swatches of Spoonflower wallpaper.  Here's a picture:

The wall is covered with Spoonflower wallpaper swatches of some of my designs.

 

The window is curtained with a hemmed and trimmed piece of fabric showing swatches from one of my Spoonflower design collections.

My fear of commitment to wallpaper comes from an incident when I was growing up.  My parents had wallpaper in every room of their 1950s ranch style house.  At some point, my parents decided they would rather have paint.  What followed afterward should never be experienced by young children.  Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth as water was sprayed on the walls to loosen the  wallpaper paste so that the wallpaper could be scraped off!

But, make note, Spoonflower's wallpaper is not like the wallpaper of old.  It is so simple to put up and even simpler to remove. The texture is lovely and the colors in all the varied designs are rich and vivid.

Check  out Spoonflower  and their new wallpaper and decal designs. 

Wallpaper and Decals too!

In addition to fabric, Spoonflower announced this morning that it will begin printing wallpaper and decals  using indie designers' designs.  This is exciting news.  I had the opportunity to try out the wallpaper and I ordered swatches of several of my fabric designs to see how they looked on wallpaper.  Fantastic.

Spoonflower's printing process picks up all the color and detail that a designer puts into his or her design.  There is a visible richness and depth to the design when printed on wallpaper.

The surface of the wallpaper is smooth and just slightly -- very slightly glossy -- actually I would call it a "glossy matte" which I know is a contradiction.    

Here are two photos  of my design, Blue River Stalactites printed on Spoonflower Kona cotton and printed on a swatch of Spoonflower wallpaper:

I am afraid of wallpaper, commitment phobe that I am. I took one swatch and applied it to one of my walls.  The surface of the wall was very slightly textured.  The paper is easy to work with and easy to apply.  I left the swatch on for five days.  On the fifth day I removed it.  The wallpaper is easy to put on and easy to remove.  There is a brief video shot of my hand removing the wallpaper in the video above..

As Spoonflower says, the wallpaper is great for people who rent their homes, apartments, duplexes, etc. 

Spoonflower is an easy web site to work with.  Setting up your home page and shop is fairly simple.  If you have questions, there are lots of other designers to answer your questions or you can contact Spoonflower directly.  Spoonflower posts regularly to its blog and  there are lots of answers to common questions posted there.

There is no fee to join.  You can upload a design and see what it will look like in fabric, wallpaper or a decal for free.  Your designs will need to be proofed before they can be put up for sale which does involve money but Spoonflower tells you about creating collections so that the proof swatches will be as inexpensive as possible. And, if one of your designs sells, even if it is just a swatch, you will receive ten percent of the sale in Spoondollars which can be applied to your purchases of fabric or wallpaper. 

If  you have ever thought about designing your own fabric or wallpaper, give Spoonflower a try.  Spoonflower . . . what a concept!

My "Make Me Laugh" Throw Pillow

There are two designers on Spoonflower: Amy_G and Whimzwhirled.  Each designer has her own distinctive style and they both produced designs that made me laugh out loud.  So I decided to sew a "Make Me Laugh" Pillow.

For one side, I chose a fat quarter of Amy_G's "Flying Tin Cans brought to you by Can-Do Airlines!"  printed on Spoonflower Kona cotton.  Here's a pic:

For the other side of my "Make Me Laugh" Pillow I chose Whimzwhirled's "Pick Me" design in a fat quarter of Spoonflower Kona cotton.

Look at that frog.

Lots of talented designers on Spoonflower.  Take a look.

Designing your own font

I was doing my usual "lurking" in the Spoonflower-Flickr Fabric Design discussion group.  I always learn something new.  Spoonflower has an upcoming contest which involves designing a calendar for 2013.  Fonts came into discussion.  I knew someone designed those fonts that are available in the different software programs that we use on our computers.  I was not aware, though, that those fonts are copyrighted.  So in designs that involve text, designers walk a fine line regarding copyright infringement.  What to do?

Design your own font.  I "Googled" designing your own font and found this web site:

http://www.yourfonts.com/

It's a fairly simple process.  You print off a template provided by the web site, then carefully fill in each block with the appropriate letters and numbers, using a black felt tip pen.  Once done, scan the completed template at 300 dpi and upload it to the web site.  In a few minutes, a sample of your font will appear.

Your own personal font costs around $9.95.  But it's worth peace of mind.  You know that all of your designs which contain text will have your very own font.

Just thought I'd share. I'm going to practice some more on this font designing.

Update on 9/25/2012:  Part of this very post appeared in my font, Summersgaze 2, last night when I posted this entry. I'm not sure what happened and I won't question the powers that be, but the font will work and stay on documents and artwork created on your computer.

Spoonflower Projects Apr. 2012-Aug. 2012

I recently uploaded a brief video to Flickr showing some of the projects that have been completed using Spoonflower fabric by two Spoonflower designers and me during a four month period.  As  usual, I didn't get as many projects completed as I wanted.  Since the weather has cooled off now, I can work in my little house, "Summersgaze"  longer during the day.

The video appears here:  Spoonflower Projects Apr. 2012-Aug. 2012

I have more ideas and fabric than time, but with autumn comes a resurgence of energy so I hope to complete more projects.  Looking forward to my shipments from Spoonflower.  It's always like Christmas when the orders arrive.

Fat Quarters

Fat Quarters on Spoonflower

Aside from finding the terms "fat quarters" amusing, I am also attracted to the size of a fat quarter of fabric.  It is not intimidating -- 21" by 18", yet it's bigger than an 8 x 8 swatch.  One can get a better feel for a design, plus, let's face it, it's less expensive than a yard of fabric.  For those of us who paint or sketch, a fat quarter of fabric is the same as a waiting canvas.

The above highlighted link will take you, not to Spoonflower, but to Flickr, where there is a 60 second film clip featuring designs created specifically for the fat quarter.  While I enjoy looking at photographs of swatches, I also enjoy combining motion, music plus the fabric swatches.  The designs on Spoonflower are art, after all, and art and music are an unbeatable combination.

Something a little different

I made a little film clip using Muvee Reveal (the trial version).  The film features the designs I sized at four fat quarters per one yard of Spoonflower Kona cotton.  Also, "Only the Cat Saw" is on this film clip.  "Only the Cat Saw" is my entry in the Spoonflower zigzag cheater quilt design.  Hope you enjoy the clip.  I had fun making it.

Just click on the link below to Flickr and the film should come up.  It's just a minutes in length.

Flickr

My Tree Frog Green Art Wall

At the above link on Flickr you can see my Tree Frog Green Wall of Art.  I recently put designs for sale on Spoonflower from my collection "Fly Away Clothes."  Some of the designs are based on the large collage in the white frame.  This collection can be viewed here.  

The collage on which the collection "Seems Like Old Times"  is based also be seen hanging above my collage, "Flyaway Clothes."

At the suggestion of another Spoonflower designer, Phoebe (feebeedee), I've also been experimenting with putting my fat quarter designs on one yard of fabric.  Then four fat quarters can be purchased for $18 rather than, say, four fat quarters at $11 per fat quarter.  Designers such as Su_G in Sydney and feebeedee have been at this far longer than I have and when one of these ladies makes a suggestion or offer a criticism, I listen.  (If you click on the highlighted Su_G and feebeedee, you can visit their Spoonflower shops.)

My "Four Fat Quarters on One Yard" collection.

My next post will be:  I've discovered fractals!  Woohoo!

Fabric Design using digital photographs

Many of my designs on Spoonflower are based on photographs or scans of original artwork.  The fantastic thing about living in this moment in time is that we live in the age of digital.  We can take pictures of objects and work with them instantaneously rather than going to a dark room and developing our photographs or, even better, throwing a roll of film in a drawer until we get around to taking it for developing to one of those tiny Kodak Photomats that used to sit out in the middle of shopping center parking lots.

Our digital photographs can be manipulated using Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter Essentials, just to name two.  There are also online editing sites such as PicMonkey and Sumo.  The more I work with this kind of software, the more I learn how cool pixels are.  For instance, one morning a beautiful morning glory was blooming outside our front porch so I got the camera and took this picture:

I came back into the house and took the SD card out of the camera, opened up Adobe Photoshop and ended up with this photograph:

Now, whether or not  I choose to inflict this design on Spoonflower(!), or perhaps I ask myself the question, "Isn't a purple morning glory more beautiful than a psychedelic one?", that this can even be done is amazing to me.

Happy designing!