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.

I just entered my "Dream" pattern design in this week's Spoonflower "Bohemian Paradise" design challenge! If you have a minute, I would very much appreciate your vote (voting ends Feb 26). Maybe it might take more than a minute because you'll probably get wrapped up in all the amazing designs in the challenge. You can vote for as many as you like and don't need to have an account. Click here to go directly to the Spoonflower Challenge Voting Page!
BTW: I have been uploading a bunch of new pattern designs to My Spoonflower Shop and they should be "Available for Sale" in the next week or two on fabric, giftwrap and wallpaper, and on home decor products at Roostery.com too! Stay tuned!
ADDENDUM: Just wanted to let you know that this design came in #26 out of over 700 entries in this Spoonflower challenge! Thanks to everyone of you who took the time to vote! A happy result for my first Spoonflower design challenge! More to come...

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!

​Here is the start of a new pattern design collection that I am going to call "Celestun" because it was influenced by the trip I took a couple years ago to Merida in the Yucatan, Mexico. Nearby is the Celestun Biosphere Reserve where flocks of wild pink flamingos feed on shrimps that live in mangrove forests along the Ria Celestun. 

Thought I would share one of my latest pattern designs today! This month's theme in The Colour Gang, as I've mentioned in previous posts, is travel inspiration and I chose Japan as my inspiration (since I was fortunate to have visited there last summer!) So here is my "Edo" design named for the name of the ancient Japanese capital where Tokyo now stands. The temples, castles and torii gates are amazing and are part of everyday life all over Japan. I MUST go back! Although I posted them in previous posts, here also are the other two designs in this collection, "Kimono Ladies" and "Cherry Blossoms".

I think I tried a gazillion different colour combos for this one. All I knew is I liked the colour of the blue background and that I wanted some neutral-y colours too. I tried to use the Japan moodboards I had created last week (see my earlier post!), but it just didn't work for me! So here is a brand new colour palette for this one! And I guess it was influenced by 2 trips I took recently: one to London where I saw all the dressed mannequins in a show of 1930's fashion at the Textile & Fashion Museum and my summer trip to Japan! Let me know what you think of the colour palette AND whether you think it is a little "weird" looking! I also included a couple photos of the mannequins too.
AND I had to add another Japan-inspired pattern to coordinate with this one...Cherry Blossoms, of course!

Kew Gardens in London was wonderfully inspiring for me. I took so many photos and managed to make some of the "specimens" I saw into this repeat pattern design (part of a new tropical-themed pattern design collection!) I've also included a few photos that inspired this pattern!
One of Kew's purposes is plant conservation, and it is thought-provoking and alarming that some of the plants in the Palm and Temperate Houses here are the last of their kind and now extinct in the wild; in one case, there are two plants of a specific species growing at Kew and all specimens of this species that now exist in the world are clones of the two plants here.