Fabric Design on Spoonflower

Have you heard of Spoonflower? It's a place where you can upload your own design- something as simple as a photo- and have it printed on 21 different types of fabric...everything from basic quilting cotton to silk crepe de chine to upholstery weight twill. You can also have your design printed onto wallpaper and wrapping paper. Fabric design and manufacture is no longer limited to those who can afford to order hundreds of yards. You can order as little as an 8"x8" test swatch up to multiple yards. The site is user friendly and easy to navigate.

I designed fabric on Spoonflower several years ago from my collages but since then, they have added a wider selection of fabrics and improved the site immensely. These pieces were designed from my original Spoonflower Collage Collection which are still available.

Clutch designed with "For the Love of Frida"

Makeup bag designed with "Wanderlust"

Handbag designed with "For the Love of Frida"

Clutch designed with "Scentual"

My newest idea was to transfer my drawings onto fabric. To do this,  I had to learn how to do a repeat design.  It was a little tricky because I don't use Photoshop or Illustrator.  I had to remind myself that fabric was designed a long time before computer graphics programs. It just required more hand illustration and time. I ended up creating 41 different fabrics-  8 different designs in up to 7 different color ways. Here's a screen shot of the website interface showing how simple they've made it to order custom fabric in any amount you choose.

Visit my Lorimarsha shop and click on Fabric Collections. There you can view all my fabric designs. To purchase, click on the design you like. You'll next see a screen that looks like the one above where you can select the fabric you like and the size and amount.

Here's a great gift idea: Order a fat quarter (21' x 18") of Linen Cotton Canvas in my "Liqueured Up" design and make this bar towel.  It's perfectly sized- all you'll need to do is stitch up the sides. Use it to wrap up a bottle of whiskey and tie on your favorite cocktail recipe. Voila! Housewarming, birthday, Father's Day...a bottle of whiskey is appropriate for every occasion.

A fun idea is to upload a handwritten family recipe card and have it printed as a tea towel. It would make a great personalized gift. Here's an image that I found on Martha Stewart's blog:

Image from marthastewart.com

The gift ideas are endless! I hope you enjoy visiting Spoonflower and that you are inspired by the possibilities.

Pure fun

Untitled 2014

Before designing clothes, jewelry and handbags, there was collage and assemblage. I'm unsure when my love affair with paper began but I know that by the age of 10 I felt it necessary to save certain things.  Inside a box in my upstairs closet sits the November 22, 1963 Fresno Bee from the day of President Kennedy's assassination. Beneath it lies the Beatles captioned photo book I received for my 10th birthday.  Tucked even deeper is the worn, faded spelling book cover made from a brown bag and covered with the signatures and doodles of my fourth grade classmates. I've always saved letters. My favorite ephemerae are true finds- an old paper Sno-Cone cup hidden beneath a vintage photo album from a garage sale. A graphic design textbook full of interesting paper samples and fonts, water stained at the spine but a steal at $2.00. These collections were my first foray into "art" although I declined to call it that.  Later in life, as my interest in collage grew, I was walking down the street in LA, and saw pieces of paper falling from the sky. I looked up to see a man on a billboard tearing off the existing ad while the highly pixelated remnants fell down like big colorful snowflakes. I scrambled to pick up as many as I could.  I used them judiciously in my work,  as a jeweler works with 18K gold.

This love of paper evolved into a line of handmade greeting cards with collaged images stitched to heavy kraft paper.  It became a business. Greeting cards transitioned to cigar box handbags with Bakelite bead handles. Which transitioned to experimenting with image transfer on other surfaces. Which transitioned to Bakelite button jewelry. Which transitioned to collaged vintage tea towel designs. Which transitioned to dresses and tops.  The list continued. My creativity evolved from one thing to another but the consistent theme was an eclectic mix- a collage of one kind or another.  And it was always about business.

Assemblage continues to be the only medium that I do purely for myself- for the simple joy of creating.  Perhaps that's why I enjoy it so.  There's freedom in doing something that is not commerce-driven. Something that doesn't need to reach an end consumer. It starts and stops with me.  It feels pure and fun. When I first started working in assemblage someone mentioned Joseph Cornell. I had no idea who he was.  So I did whatever we did in the late 1990s before Google (Ask Jeeves?) and was overjoyed with what I saw. Simplicity and mystery within the confines of a box.  He had succeeded in doing what I was reaching for.  In a box! My first major project was a set of boxes each one referencing one of the five senses. Vintage sewing machine drawers held ephemera related to sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.  I designed this collection in 1997- to this day, they are my favorite pieces. Perhaps because they are my own?  Without a price point and the scrutiny of others?

The Five Senses 1997

Detail "To Smell"

Detail "To Touch"

Detail "To Taste"

Detail "To Hear"

I recently began to feel the pull toward assemblage.  I pulled out my boxes of "stuff" divided into metal, wood, stone and paper (much lighter after the major cleanse and purge of 2013) and began to assemble.

Each little segmented box ... a life of its own

 

My little Bakelite man now has a home

Vintage wooden bobbins an homage to stitchery

A separate, closed box to house the monkey mind

Feelings of freedom and joy immediately returned.

Preparing for El Dia de Los Muertos

As I'm preparing for El Dia de Los Muertos this year, I've sidetracked (again) and spent a few weeks working on small shrines. They cover a variety of subjects and ideas. I'm enjoying working in the small format- many are re-designed Altoid tins. Getting back to to my roots of collage and assemblage feels right. Here are a few photos of my recent work.

My friend, Penny McElroy, and I are hosting an Open House for El Dia de Los Muertos on Friday, November 2 from 4-10pm.  We're creating a community altar and would love for you to join us in honoring friends and family who are no longer with us.

Sneak Peek!

Sometime after the first of the year, I'll be opening my Etsy store Re:find Goods.  It will be stocked with textiles, found objects, wood, metal, jewelry parts and pieces and who knows what else! My goal is two-fold: to help you jump start your creativity with some interesting odds and ends ...and...to let go of some things that I've had for a while.  Everything will be priced fairly with the intent on moving things out! Here's a link to the store so that you can bookmark it and check back in January.

Have a wonderful holiday season! Be safe. Have fun.

Collage-Covered Journal

I've gotten back into collage and decoupage recently and made a few personalized notebooks and journals for friends for Christmas. What I like about collage is that if you know a person reasonably well you can find ephemera that relates to them. Think about how they like to spend their time,  things they've told you about their history, where they live, etc. Then the fun begins! Search out snippets from books, magazines, clippings, maps...paper of all forms. For this project I used an Italian leather journal as the base and adhered the paper with Mod Podge, but watered down white glue works, also.  After covering the book, I coated it with several layers of matte medium.  I designed the book mark from ribbon, a vintage rhinestone button and a small thread spool.