Oh Hi 2013... Please Don't Hurt Me

Hey there! Happy new year! True confession: I'm honestly really torn between being super optimistic and goal-setter-y and being the New Year's Scrooge. Bah Humbug! Perhaps its because 2012 turned out so differently than I expected... which was good but really busy. However, I feel like the internet is all like, "rah rah sis-boom-bah!" when it comes to making resolutions which is great.

So here are some things that I miiiight do but in no way commit, to you internet, to doing pending any other major, life changing surprises. Here's to (maybe) drawing, sewing, running, pattern-ing (that's a thing right?), blogging and IT ALL BEING AWESOME. Yeah! Boom! *Deep breathe* yeah...

It's a Birthday Miracle!

For my birthday this past weekend, Kevin ordered me several fabrics from Spoonflower. Not just any fabrics though, fabrics with my patterns on them!

This one is also my Twitter background :)

Since I've been on a pattern-design hiatus with school and now wedding planning, it was an amazing surprise to see how patterns I designed looked on real fabric instead of just on-screen.

An example of where I actually tried to carry colors through multiple patterns.

I think I had been hesitating to actually order them, even though that had been my intention for a while, because I was so nervous they wouldn't turn out right.

This is Kevin's favorite. I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do.

And while, there were definitely some little nit-picks that probably only I would notice, seeing them on fabric made me feel kind of like a legitimate designer. Kind of like when I got my iPhone cover made.

We got a whole yard of this! What to do, what to do.

Now I just need to think of some sewing projects to use these! We ordered a couple different sizes but hopefully I'll be able to put them all to good use. What do you think? Which one is your favorite?

It's All Part of a Plan

Here's something I made yesterday that's the start of the "big plan" I've been thinking about over the last few months.

So I'm thinking a lot about the "what to sell" question and if I want to sell prints I should probably make something that has a more central image. Here's what I came up with that builds on the above pattern:

Lastly, I tried to eek out another quick matching pattern. (I got sleepy though and had to set it aside for a while so I'm not in love with it.)

So all this is a demonstration of something I think I want to try and that's creating art prints and coordinating fabrics. I figure I can sell the prints on Etsy and link to the coordinating fabrics on Spoonflower. 

At very minimum, creating a few fabric collections on Spoonflower I think would be a good start. The commission is only 10 percent, but it's a start, right? So yeah, it's something thats going to take a few weeks, but I'm excited about it. 

Let's Call it Plan B-Dot-0

Alright, let's talk a little about me. If you don't want to talk about me, you can just admire my latest and greatest pattern seen below. If you want, you can click on it and make it your desktop wallpaper! Because I love you Internet. Ok? Ok. 

Let's be real. I am not an easily motivated person. Really. I know that's shocking. So I've decided I need to lay out a plan to help me be more motivated towards a creative goal. Here are some of the steps:

1. Draw: I doodle a lot, but now the goal is to make those doodles into patterns. Also, I just need to practice, practice, practice to keep getting better at drawing and stuff.

2. Share: Share everything I'm drawing/creating plus maybe get some feedback?

3. Read: There's a lot of people on the internet that like to give advice to creative people about how to turn their creativity into a living. I'm gonna read some of it. I'm also going to read the blogs of illustrators, graphic designers and surface designers who inspire me.

So, I'm hoping that these first three steps will help me decide the next steps to take. Despite the fact that I'll be finishing my grad degree in Public Relations in December, should I go get an art/graphic design degree next? What kind of products could I make/sell with my patterns? Should I open an Etsy store? Is this just a hobby that I love and nothing more?

Yeah, that's A LOT to decide and it's pretty important to me. I'm not gonna quit my day job or anything, but I really love this stuff. Anyways, enough about me, what do you think? Do you have a three-step plan? Any suggestions on what to read?