​For this week’s Spoonflower “Off the Wall Toile” Design Challenge I thought my “Edo” design would be perfect! And it made me nostalgic for the family trip we took to Japan in 2018...what a different world we live in now.
If you want to see all the entries, check out the Voting Page!

The idea behind this week’s Spoonflower “Pastel Cafe” Design Challenge is to “evoke the aesthetics and atmosphere of a typical Italian or French cafe one might find in the 1950s and ‘60s”! So here is my “Party Time!” entry! What do you think? Does it make you imagine Audrey Hepburn having a romantic birthday luncheon (with martinis, of course)?! Check out the Voting Page to see all the entries! It is also available for sale now in my Spoonflower Shop!

“GO BANANAS!” This is what I named my entry for this week’s Spoonflower “Line Art Safari Wallpaper” Design Challenge!
And I hope you’re not literally going bananas after a month of staying home...
If you would like to see all the entries, check out the Voting Page!
And this fun design is now available to purchase in my Spoonflower Shop on all kinds of fabrics, wallpaper and home decor!

One of our favourite family recipes of all time is “Pasta Con Mollica di Pane” (or Pasta with Bread Crumbs). It’s a quick, easy, uncomplicated pasta sauce recipe with tomatoes, anchovies, garlic and parsley, sprinkled with toasted breadcrumbs and it is YUMMY! We make it all the time! I originally created an illustrated recipe for this dish and posted it to the They Draw and Cook website where it was noticed and found its way into a 2020 They Draw and Cook Wall Calendar published by Amber Lotus Publishing! I also turned the illustration into this repeat pattern and entered it in this week’s Spoonflower “Noodle Bowl” Design Challenge (I think it makes fun sheets!) Check out the Voting Page here (voting ends April 14) to see all the entries!
HINT: If you want to make this dish yourself (I suggest you do!), check out the illustrated recipe in my Portfolio or at my Illustrator Page on the They Draw and Cook website!

The Nugget Play Couch created by nuggetcomfort.com is a kid’s play couch that is “Part-furniture, part-toy, and all-around the best thing to happen to playtime since, well, ever!" Sounds like my kinda furniture! This week Nugget partnered with Spoonflower for this week’s “Nugget Couch" Design Challenge: to create a pattern to be used on a limited-edition Nugget to come out later this year. Some of the design elements they requested: colour-blocking, non-directional, bright colours (max 8), geometric, fitting into multiple room styles, design for stylish parents who might lean to minimalist style. And also remembering when my kids were younger we read endless books about shapes, sizes and colours, and played with building toys endlessly (I think we had every building toy out there), plus keeping older kids and "stylish” parents in mind, here is my entry which I call, not surprisingly, "Shapes Sizes Colours” (which I also quite like on bedding, pillows, table linens and wallpaper too!) This challenge is a FUN one, so I would be grateful for your VOTE on this one! Have a look at all the entries at the Voting Page!

Many of you have seen my “Floating World” pattern design before and asked if it was available on fabric, so I decided to enter it in this week’s Spoonflower “Vintage Kitsch” Design Challenge (one of my favourite themes so far I think!) If it is voted into the Top 50 it will be immediately available to purchase on fabric and lots of other products next week (see below), but even if not it will still become available but will just take a bit longer. If you would like to check out all the fun designs this week, you can link to the Voting Page here...Groovy! And check out my Spoonflower Shop here if you like!

If you walked into a candy store, could you resist these chocolate bars wrapped in my Mexican-inspired “Bougainvillea”, “Sayulita” and “La Lancha” pattern designs??! Not me!!
Maybe they would have flavours like Mexican hot chocolate or cacao bean...These designs are available to license now, and not just for packaging! Contact me for more info!

Sometimes I have patterns that I love but feel the need to "revisit" by either changing some of the layouts of the motifs or maybe, just going wild with a re-colour! My folk-inspired "El Campo" Collection is a wonderful example of this! I re-arranged the motifs in two of the patterns and gave it a completely new, bright and happy colour palette. I would love to know what you think of this collection now!

My submission to this week’s Spoonflower Design Challenge “Bird’s Eye View”! I wanted to make it completely abstract and have a bit of a terrazzo feel. I was imagining a suburban-scape in a warmer climate (thus all the swimming pools!) Check out all the entries and cast your vote at the Voting Page!

The next Design Challenge in the They Draw & Cook's Handpicked series is "Birthday Bash" and will be curated by Ceci Butler, Owner and Creative Director of Design House Greetings. I couldn't resist...I had to submit my "After Hours" repeat pattern which I recently re-coloured with these festive, summery colours! I thought it would be perfect for celebrating someone's birthday, right?! You can see my submission on the They Draw & Cook website here!

This months creative challenge in The Colour Gang is "Indigo"! So I couldn’t resist re-colouring my “Handprints” Collection in various shades of blue! Check out how different it looks in both the original colours (on the right, below) and in beautiful blue (on the left). I think blue is my fave, which do you prefer?

I've been playing with my newest pattern designs the last few days, and visualizing them on pillows and fabrics! I think my Far East Collection would look gorgeous on a set of pillows; my Fanciful Collection would be great for quilters or girl's dresses; my newest tropical patterns, including my Botanical Gardens Collection, Celestun and Hibiscus, would cheer up any wardrobe or interior space, and I think my Koyasan Collection would be so calming in any room! What do you think?! Can you envision these designs on other products? Let me know!