I’ve updated my Spoonflower shop with a new collection for 2025, “Mushrooms.” I’ve also tried to get better about adding coordinating solids, simple blenders, and different scales to all the collections I’ve been uploading.
I really like this purple colorway, which was the second color way I did after making the green.
I think I may have to order a set of tea towels from this collection.
Have a great day. If you do happen to place an order from my shop, I would LOVE to see what you make. You can share here or tag me on instagram @twistnpout13
I’ve also been revamping some of my older designs which I will share here soon.
Wow – first post of the year. I know you’ve been wondering where I’ve been. I’ve been here, thinking and contemplating. There’s been so much to contemplate lately.
I made these little mushroom motifs because I thought it would be fun to practice my drawing skills in Illustrator after being away from it for so long.
I was surprised at how quick it all came back to me. But the drawing part is easy. What is difficult is working with a limited color palette and then taking those same exact designs and creating them in different color ways. There’s a real trick to it. So the focus of this exercise was to get more thoughtful and organized with my pallet. I ended up with 18 colors and my ultimat goal is to limit myself to 5. Obviously, I need more practice.
For the second colorway, I created a palette with brighter colors, then very mindfully used the recolor artwork tool to make the adjustments, rather than just my usual way of toggling the random selection button. I also added some textures and made a texture for the background to use as an overlay ontop of the solid background color.
After the two colorways were decided, I then created different patterns with each of the separate elements. I’ll be uploading those to my Spoonflower and RedBubble shops very soon. In fact, they may already be posted before this post comes out. But, I’ll make another post about that. I will eventually work on another colorway, but this is all I have for now.
Overall, I am pretty happy with the designs, but I am proud of myself for working in a slower, more methodical way. It does take patience. This exercise was also helpful in keeping me focused on the importance of organization and having a plan. I tend to jump in and draw and just see what happens, which often ends up taking me in several different directions, and then nothing gets finished. And randomly choosing colors willy-nilly often results in a palette of more than 30 colors where many of those colors are so close that one could easily replace 2, 3, or even 4 colors.
So, that’s what I’ve been up to so far this year. I am trying to spend less time fussing and stressing about all of this and starting to embrace the phrase “good enough.” It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating this year – developing a different mindset and doing more for myself rather than trying to gain followers or grow my social media. I just want to relax and enjoy other things in my life.
Thanks for reading – hard to make such a topic interesting or entertaining.
I’ve decided to start my daily drawing practice again. I used to try to start off my day with a daily drawing, but that hasn’t been attainable for quite some time. So now I’ve decided evenings are better. I find it’s the best way to relax and allow my brain to power down at the end of the day.
Some of these drawings take a few days to complete, but I’m fine with that. There’s no pressure to finish a drawing in a specific time. The goal is to just let my intuition guide me and let the lines happen naturally. And it has been interesting to see how these drawings take shape over days.
I’ve also started doing these drawings on my iPad. Though I really do prefer to work in a sketchbook with my micron pens, I find working on the iPad to be quite convenient. I can’t believe it never occurred to me before to use the iPad for these daily exercises til just a few months ago.
Anyway, I thought I’d start documenting the daily line drawings here, though I won’t be posting every day – perhaps a weekly or monthly round-up of some of my favorites.
I’m also still working on new surface pattern designs for 2025, which will be uploaded to my Spoonflower shop as they get finished.
I’m still struggling with where I want to dedicate most of my creative energy, trying to figure out that “brand identity” thing and trying to juggle how to fit all my interests into one tidy little cohesive category. Perhaps ’25 will be the year that finally happens. Until then, I’ll keep on the path I’m on now.
BTW books make pretty nice stocking stuffers, especially activity books for that budding artist in your life. Click the link or on the image to find out more about my book, Intuitive Line Drawing for Relaxation, if you are still looking for a few last-minute gifts.
I know – we haven’t even made it through Halloween and you don’t even have the brain power to think about Christmas yet. I’m not trying to add to the stress, but I thought I’d write a quick post on creative ways to do a little gift wrapping. Nothing necessarily new, time-saving, or mind-blowing here, just a few ideas to get you thinking – if indeed you are giving physical gifts this year.
When I was a kid, my favorite part of giving and receiving gifts was the wrapping. Ribbons, bows, strings, textured papers, unusual wrapping choices like newspaper, hand-drawn designs on paper, or little gifts wrapped in pretty handkerchiefs – it makes my heart sing thinking about it now. I always found so much joy in wrapping up a gift for someone in a creative, personalized, and sometimes over-the-top way, which made the wrapping feel like part of the gift itself.
Now, though, it feels like a huge effort just to walk to my closet, find a gift bag to repurpose, drop in the actual gift, and attempt to dress it up with a sheet of tissue paper. I’m not sure when this happened exactly – Oh wait….
Part of it was experiencing my first Christmas with pets. Bows would become cat toys; gifts would always end up ripped and tattered by indifferent cats. Curly ribbon soon became banned from the house and still is (yes, there is a story there), and that all robbed me (a little) of that joy of wrapping I had as a kid.
Then, when we had kids (and now a grandson living with us), it became a tradition to put all the presents under the tree on Christmas Eve. Any creative wrapping techniques I was excited about presenting looked like something from several Christmases past after being shuffled around from hiding place to hiding place in the lead-up to the big day. Why go to all the trouble of creating a beautiful gift presentation only to have them end up under the tree for only a few hours while looking like something the cat dragged in from a rummage sale? Years of this stole any small flicker of excitement about gift wrapping I had left. I can’t even walk past a gift wrap display without feeling a little stabby pain in my heart.
These days, I’m starting to rethink my gift wrap choices and came up with a few ideas I thought I’d share.
How about using a tote bag in place of a gift bag? There are many fun, funky, quirky totes available to match any personality type, and most everyone can use a tote bag throughout the year, even a festive, holiday-themed tote can be used over again for several years.
Wrapping a gift in a piece of material, Furoshiki style is one of my favorite wrapping choices.
Ideally, you’d want the wrapping cloth to be thin enough to nicely gather the corners together in a pretty knot on top of the gift. But anything would work, depending on the size of the gift and the type of fabric used. A tea towel might be cute for kitchen gadgets or a cookbook. A piece of fabric with a patterned theme to complement the gift in which it is wrapped is a nice touch.
How could I not mention the Christmas stocking? I mean, this is the best part of the whole gifting thing, isn’t it? If you’re feeling really motivated, you could sew a stocking together with really unique fabric and gift it to someone special and fill it with lots of fun things they might never buy for themselves. This is way more than I can take on, but hey, a girl can dream, right? Perhaps some holiday in the future, I just might dust off the sewing machine and whip up a few personalized stockings for our pets.
And, of course, there is the standard paper wrapping. You could take the theme and go with a tote filled with gifts wrapped in coordinating paper. I used to like to make bows or little sculptures from the wrapping paper to top off the wrapped gift.
Well, that is about the extent of my creative gift-wrapping ideas for now. How do you like that title? I used Chat GPT, because titles are the hardest part for me. After a few little tweaks of my own, I came up with this one. “Hack” was from Chat, and I thought it was perfect because isn’t everything a life hack these days? And that thought might be great fodder for a future post!
I just wanted to share that I have some new stickers available in my RedBubble shop. I haven’t ordered any yet, but when I do I’ll be sure to leave a little review here. I have been pretty happy with other stickers I’ve made and ordered from RedBubble so I decided it would be fun to have some cute Whippet elves for all my Whippet-loving friends.
Ok, this will be the last time I mention Christmas this month! I can’t make any promises for August though.
I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been focusing on a few Christmas designs. These are part of a pattern called “Cozy Whippet Christmas Eve” – I really wanted to call it “Not a Creature was Stirring”, but thought the title should more accurately fit the image. For the search engine. (eye roll).
I tend to really put in a lot of little details in these designs, but the tiny details dont always translate once printed on fabric, so I’ve learned to keep it simple. Which cuts my time spent designing way down. I may add more details should I decide to use these in something other than a pattern.
Tea towels are a subtle but fun way to express a little holiday spirit without going all out with the holiday decor.
Well, I’m feeling a little just a little happy with myself for setting and getting my goals accomplished for the holidays. Though I took it a little easy on myself by working with what I already had and focusing only on what I can get done in a day, I am not beating myself up about it.
One of the hardest things to get my head around with this business is thinking ahead – thinking about the fall and winter holidays while summer is in full swing and there’s a raging heat wave going. It feels so wrong. Unnatural. Plus, I want to create what is on my mind in the moment, not plan everything around a retail calendar. But, my goal for this year was to do things differently; so far, I’ve stuck to that pretty well.
I’ve been working on updating my stores with a few patterns that will be or are available on a variety of products. I’ve decided to focus mostly on Spoonflower and Redbubble. I’ll be posting them here as they are released.
Currently, I have this little mini collection of Whippet-inspired holiday fabric available in my Spoonflower shop. Spoonflower offers many varieties of fabric with your choice of designs by thousands (?) of independent artists – there’s something for everyone there. And if sewing from scratch isn’t your thing,, you can purchase ready-made items with your choice of design as well.
I appreciate every bit of support I’ve been shown by friends and followers. And it isn’t just about sales, it’s the shares, likes and encouraging comments that come my way – usually when I need it the most.
If you happen to ever purchase anything from my Spoonflower shop I would LOVE to see your creation! Please do share by tagging me on Instagram – I would be over-the-moon excited to hear from you!
Thought I’d play around with this pink Christmas color theme I’ve had on my mind. Obviously, some adjustments will be needed. Thinking about changing up Monday mood board to Motif Monday. I have plenty to share.
How do you feel about the “Christmas in July” theme?
I know, it’s super annoying to have Christmas motifs show up so early in the year but every year, it sneaks up on me and every year I tell myself “Next year will be different.” I’m happy to say that this year I am tracking with my holiday goals (though I am feeling a little anxious about missing my Halloween deadline). I told myself to keep it simple, rework things I’ve already made, and focus on just a few patterns rather than trying to make an entire collection.
But first, I had to come up with a color combo. I started with this retro color palette and thought I’d leave it at that. Color always trips me up. There are just too many possibilities. I’ve been working on limiting my palettes, trying to confine myself to no more than 8 colors, then I expand that to 13, then the next thing I know I’ve got a design with 32 colors in it!
I decided to play around with the recolor artwork tool in Illustrator with just the 9 original colors (8 if you don’t count white) to see what other combos might be possible. I also thought this could be an efficient way to discover some Halloween combos too. I gave myself 10 minutes to play with the recolor tool. I usually avoid that tool because I end up spending way too much time in there and before I know it, I’ve lost hours and gained more colors.
I feel fairly confident with what I have to work with now. Of course, I need to make some adjustments, but this is a good starting point.
Marie Friddle 