After taking the Create Collections course from Victoria Johnson Create Explore and creating my "Bugology" Collection (check out the #createcollections hashtag on IG for more designs created during this class!), I couldn't resist designing another collection on the theme of "birds, butterflies and blooms"! So here is my "Palace Walls" Collection partially inspired by all the gorgeous colours and patterned textiles I've seen on several trips to India!

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!

I decided to enter my "Pink Flamingos" pattern design in this week's Spoonflower "Paint By Numbers" Design Challenge because it reminds me of all those black velvet paintings...remember those? You can link to the Voting Page here to see all the entries!

I just submitted my “Summer Folk Fest” design to this week’s Spoonflower “Small-Scale Summer” Design Challenge! Rather than thinking of the beach, I was inspired by all those summer music festivals I’ve been to: psychedelic tie-dye, flowers and...peace symbols! Head to the Voting Page to see all the entries and vote if you like! Voting ends May 7 3:00 EDT.

This week's Spoonflower Design Challenge is "Australian Flora". Being Canadian, I wasn't that familiar with Aussie flowers (although I did visit there and stayed for quite awhile many years ago), but when I did some research of Aussie plants, I just loved the flowers of the eucalyptus. So I designed my stylized "Eucalyptus" pattern and tried it out in several different colour ways. I love all the colours, but finally decided to enter the orange/pink/green one into the challenge. Did I choose the right one? What do you think? Check out the Voting Page to see all the other designs and vote your faves! Voting ends April 23 at 3:00 EDT.

I use this pattern, called "Sunny With Cloudy Periods" as my phone’s wallpaper because it’s so happy and always makes me smile. Its now available on fabric, gift wrap and wallpaper (how fun would this be in a kids room?!) at Spoonflower and on home decor items at Roostery Home AND I just entered it in this week’s Spoonflower “April Showers” Design Challenge! Check out the entries on the Voting Page (voting ends April 16).

Here on Vancouver Island which is usually milder than the rest of Canada, we've had an "unusually" long winter. February 2019 was the coldest on record apparently and we actually had lots of snow (I know, I know, it's nothing compared to our Eastern provinces but everything is relative, right?)! But today it is finally feeling like the cold snap is ending. So to celebrate, I am posting one of my newest surface pattern designs. I call it "Fruitastical" and it features some ripe fruits you probably won't see anywhere because they are a bit fantastical, but it does make me think of Spring!

I decided to turn my "Geraniums" journal cover design (see my Feb 15 post) into this botanical repeat pattern. To me it looks a bit Art Nouveau which pleases me since I'm a big fan of William Morris. Funny enough, when I did the repeat with the blooms in the original Hot Pink, something was urging me to try it in Deep Red. So I did. And you know what? Although I love the Hot Pink on the journal cover design, I think I prefer the Deep Red in the repeat pattern. It really makes me think of statement wallpaper or big velvet couches...So I decided to enter the Deep Red one in next week's "Moody Florals" Design Challenge on Spoonflower. Voting is now open until March 5 2019 3:00 EST.
​VOTING TIP: There are over 800 designs to choose from, so to make it easy to find mine you can do a Page Search on the voting page. Just make sure ALL the images have loaded (by scrolling all the way to the bottom), then do a Page Search (Ctl+F on PC, Cmd+F on Mac) and search my studio name, unblink.