Wordless -- is it already Wednesday again?

Patriotic Super Stars

My entry into the Spoonflower's Stars and Stripes Contest.  There are lots of vote-worthy designs this week.  Take a look and choose your faves.

Which Star?

One of these four designs is going to be entered into Spoonflowers Stars and Stripes Fabric of the Week contest but I need help deciding which color scheme to submit.  Leave a comment to tell me which star design is your fave!

Star Wishes

I'm working on a new collection to compliment this design that I created a while ago.  Looking at my designs, I notice that I tend toward blue and pink a LOT!  I'm imagining another children's theme with this one. 

Autumn Morning Free Desktop

It happens every year, the trees shed their beautiful colors and we're left with brown sticks to look at.  If only it could stay like this just a bit longer. 

Wordless Thursday

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Restful Blue

Sometimes you just want a background-y background that doesn't hide all of your icons or distract people from your content.  Here is a serene, blue, quietly abstract ocean to float behind your Twitter, MySpace, Desktop or Blog.

Two-Fer Thursday

Wordless Thursday was a wash anyway because I had to go blabbing there at the end of my post. It's rare that I post twice in a day so what's the occaision? Well, I'm a bit of a yesterday's newshound but I just discovered that one of my dearest wishes came true (last month.) Blogger has added a feature that allows us to upload our OWN pictures and papers to use as backgrounds. YAY! I've only wanted them to do that since 4-Eva! So to celebrate I am sharing three new lovely background designs with you. Use them for your blog ('cause now you can!) MySpace, Twitter or Desktop. Designs will tile.
You may not reproduce or redistribute to sell my designs, personal use only, please!

 Enjoy these sweet flavors!  Top to bottom: Paisley's Candydish Black, Paisley's Candydish Orange, Paisley's Candydish Pink.

A Pack of Wet Papers

The watery scrapbook paper pack that I've been working on is now in my Etsy store.  You always need watery looking backgrounds for those pics at the beach, pool and other summer fun.  I loved the challenge of creating nine different water designs and thinking about all of the forms that water takes, waves, bubbles, foam and that's just a few. 

This one is my favorite.  I am sure that you can guess why ;)

Paisley of the Week! Strawberry Swirl

This week's paisley is one of my own.  It is called Strawberry Swirl because it reminds me of sherbet or sorbet (one of those frozen 'bets' anyway.)  Last post was called Italian Ice, this one's a sorbet -- can you tell it's been HOT?  Anyway, this paisley is one of my traditionally drawn designs that has been mirror repeated.  I've been working on some new collections that revolve around hand drawn work. 

Cool Off With Italian Ice!

I've been working on a set of watery background papers for my Etsy Shop (they'll be up soon!) and this one, while I totally LOVE it, didn't quite go with the feel of others.  I designed it after a particularly sweltering day when we'd all enjoyed a box of Luigi's Watemelon and Blue Raspberry Ices after dinner.  As everyone knows, treats are better when shared so I am sharing this wallpaper with you. It will tile so you may use it as a desktop, Twitter or MySpace background.  Enjoy and stay cool.

Robots on my Mind

This week has been a week for robots.  My almost 12 year old son was attending a camp all this week where they learned to build robots that could navigate a maze.  The robots were made out of Legos and used Mindstorms software to make it move. 

 I also finished a collection based on one of my favorite drawings.  It's one of my favorites because I used shapes I ordinarily don't use, colors I ordinarily don't prefer and subject matter rather than abstraction and it came out really cool. 

The way I like to design is to take pieces and parts of a picture and make a new design from it.  Like this:

Or this:

See if you can spot which bits I used.  And if you are burning with curiosity you can check out the whole collection of Robots and Rectangles.

Design Blog

It hasn't been that blissful creating a design blog.

After much gnashing of teeth, some swearing and major eyestrain, I've finally gotten my design blog up.  I wouldn't quite say it's running.  I still very much prefer the format and ease of use that DeviantArt gives me but it's been implied that people might not take me seriously on Deviant.  It's too really bad, because their interface is a dream to use for a portfolio.  Blogger -- not so much.  Someone suggested though, that I use Photobucket for image placement and it's great because you can upload an entire  file of images in less than a minute.  For anyone else who has felt the need to hurl their computer out of a window when trying to set up an entire image collection on blogger the solution I found was this:  after you've placed about three images in compose mode, hit return a couple of times to start a new row.  Otherwise your pix are all over the place.  Who knew?

Pick Me!

I haven't submitted a design to a Spoonflower contest in a while,  but I liked the theme of this contest: Summer Flowers.  It had a limited palette which I like the challange of using and the colors they chose this time weren't too difficult to like.  Purple -n- Blue are always fine with me!  Anyway, if you have a minute to go and vote, I'd greatly appreciate it!  I know that I've not done a Paisley of the Week! this week.  Maybe I ought to change the name to Paisley of the Weak instead?  Next Monday for sure!

Hmmmmm....

This one I am sure of.

This one, not so sure.  What actually goes with mauve? It hasn't been around for so long that I forgot.  It might be peach or it might not.  What do you think?

Three Cheers...

For the Red White and Blue!

The paisley bandana, one of the most classic paisleys ever.  Navy or red used to be your only choices but now, you can get a bandana in just about any color you can think of.   I love the twist on this one from Wholesale For Everyone with both colors together at once.  Perfect for July 4th!  Go USA!

The Real Reason...

Mmm mmm, this is why my plan to license my art hasn't gotten off of the ground yet. Yeah, that's the ticket.  I need a better plan, which is something I've been working on little by little.  But I need to include "Stop making excuses" in this plan somewhere.  So I won't mention that it's been difficult with my kids home from school for the summer...oops. 

Paisley of the Week! Turquoise Batik

Gah!  It's Wednesday already and I'm late doing Paisley of the Week!  Let me 'splain.  I have a fave turquiose paisley tee shirt that I was going to do as Paisley of the Week! but then I spilled chocolate on it.  And I've been remiss in doing my laundry this week as well...So enough excuses.

  This week's Paisley of the Week! is this gorgeous aqua batik from E-Quilter.  It reminds me of the beaches in Cancun where I went on my honeymoon.  Nothing but turquoise as far as you can see.  I can imagine capri pants, or a little girl's dress, or a short summer robe or a cute sleeveless blouse.  Lots of possiblities with such a pretty color!

Looky Look

Here's a little looky look at something I've been working on.  From the left going clockwise:  Jungle Parrots, Surfin' Safari, Pinky's Paradise and Hibiscus Orange.  I'm very excited about these four costal looks!

About my Glorious design...

When I posted this last week it was an experiment to see if  any of my blog readers would notice--seeing as it was Easter and all. Nobody said one way or the other so I'll just hope you did. 'Glorious' is an abstract design but it's made up of Christian symbols.  For those of you who like search and find-y things, in the design are:

fish

lillies

turbulent water

doves

The Trinity

a cross

the letters 'J' and 'C'

I started off with the fish and worked the other elements into it.  As you know, the fish was a secret symbol for Christians to identify eachother. In today's society, being a Christian is somewhat 'uncool' for the mainstream--unless you're Miley Cyrus.  Or for some Christians, like me, faith is something more private.