The 2015 Tea Towel Calendar Contest Is Here!

Last weekend I was sifting through some old envelopes to find one I could reuse and I came upon a small, white Tyvek one with a piece of paper inside. That piece of paper was a receipt from my very first Spoonflower order, dated November 11, 2010.

Included in the order was a swatch of the first tea towel calendar I ever designed, which was also my first entry into a Spoonflower Fabric-of-the-Week contest (and it ultimately placed second, which became fuel for the fire…). Finding this little bit of nostalgia was quite timely, since this week kicks off the voting for the 2015 Tea Towel Calendar design contest! And here is my entry this year:

This time around I decided to dig into my collection of vintage ephemera: playing cards, labels, seals, stars, milk caps, stamps, envelopes, seed packets, flash cards, dictionary clippings, playing pieces, price tags, receipts, and more! I combined them with some retro Dymo labels and homemade washi tape to create 12 monthly collages. They hang across a chalkboard with hand-drawn chalk illustrations, each tag attached by a clothespin to vintage string from an old toy wooden bead set. Put it all together and you have one scrappy new year!

Below are closeups of each month. I'd really appreciate your vote in this year's competition, and all of the entries can be viewed here. You can vote for as many designs as you like, and you don't even have to be registered on the Spoonflower site to do so! Thank you so much!

Candy Color Collages

Devour these sweet color collages by photographer Emily Blincoe. See the whole rainbow, super-huge, on her blog, These Woods. A penny candy lover's dream! I had forgotten about the Necco Banana Split and Primrose Black Taffy...*sigh*...but I still chew Black Jack, Clove, and Teaberry gum!

Letters of L-O-V-E (a.k.a., Love Letters)

It's been awhile since I've entered a Spoonflower Fabric-of-the-Week contest. I've had to sort of pick and choose my "battles", with sickness in the family usually winning this past month. But I've also been busy with some personal projects, Etsy orders, and revamping my website (more on that in the coming weeks!).

This week's Spoonflower contest theme, in celebration of Valentine's Day, is "Love Letters". I had two completely different ideas in my head--sketched out and researched one, but ultimately decided to go really literal, using the letters in the word 'LOVE'. All of us have probably done cut-out magazine collages at some point, right? Or at least seen ransom notes made on TV crime shows. So I cut out L's, O's, V's, and E's from one magazine, had a nice little pile going, but after some thought realized I would need to buy many more magazines in order to get a nice variety. Conclusion? Go digital. In Illustrator I created each cut letter piece, added color to each individually, then made a "whole lotta LOVEs", and organized and fit them into a design. I did three additional color ways for now: one in black-and-white, one in the style of a Xerox photocopy, and one inverted with red.

You can view the pattern in yardage here. If you like my design, you can vote for it, and all your favorite "Love Letters" designs, here. Thank you!

12 DIYs of Christmas: Paint Chip Geometric Christmas Tree

For Day 2, here's a fun, modern Christmas décor idea (and a space-saver!) from The Red Thread's Lisa Tilse: a geometric Christmas tree made from paint chips (free!) that you display on your wall. Very cool! And the paper ornaments hung with Washi tape are a nice touch!

BLINKBLINK Collaged Patterns

I just can't get enough of these amazing collages by Berliner Anna Niestroj. Made with washi tape and miscellaneous stickers carefully placed on fabulous graph paper, Anna creates beautiful patterns with texture and movement. You can see more of Anna's work, including some really cool patterns drawn with markers, on her Flickr photostream.

Scrap-tastic!

Juxtaposing found images and scraps of type, Mister Edwards pieces together colorful collages that can be both amusing and a little disturbing. And I can't stop looking at them! Here are some of my favorites, but you can find more of his work, including pages from his Crap Book (as opposed to scrapbook) on his Flickr photostream.