Run! Succulent Fever Outbreak!

As I've been perusing the wild and sometimes overwhelming world of wedding blogs, one trend that I've really loved (but really doesn't fit our farm-y wedding) is the use of succulents. Those weird, kind of chubby little desert plants. Last summer I saw a bunch at the National Botanic Garden and they were pretty amazing inspiration.

Then this week, it's like I contracted succulent fever (possibly contagious) when I saw this store on Etsy. I immediately scooped up the little guy above and named him Elvis Kiwi. Yes, I like to name my plants. Not going to lie, part of the appeal is that I don't have to water them often which is good because I have a certified black thumb.

Then I started doodling them. Watch out for the incoming glut of succulent doodles...

There are more but I will spare you. Anyways, I'm hoping to use these as a jumping off point for some more patterns in the near-ish future, ya know, after we finish our 348 wedding projects, oh, and manage to buy the house of my severely altered dreams. More to come on that... eventually. 

Anyone else been bitten by the succulent bug? 

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle

One of my to-do items is to take some of my old designs and turn them into digital patterns. We'll call this "creativity recycling." But, easier said than done.

Let's just say most of my black and white originals took hours or days or weeks to finish, while most of the patterns I've done recently have taken about an hour.

This is probably because most of the originals were drawn pre-grad school when I actually had hours/days/weeks just to draw (while watching chick flicks of course). I chose this design to try out first because it was easiest to replicate on a tablet.

Here's the result. I need to work on the seams (the lines between the repeatable tiles) to make them less visible. I took the colors from this photo of a succulent at the U.S. Botanic Garden. Aren't the colors so nice and cool? Definitely more Spring than Autumn... but whatever :oP

Orchid You Glad?

Here's the next in my series of botanic garden-inspired prints. The orchids at the U.S. Botanic Gardens are amazing. The different colors and patterns are almost shocking. This was my favorite one (mainly because I'm a little obsessed with pink... talk about shocking, I know).

This is the first stripe I've made so I was unsure about the process but really it was pretty much the same deal. Maybe I'll use this pattern from my DIY Keds that I've been craving? I'm getting ready to order some fat quarters of fabric from Spoonflower to mess with as well. 

I used Kuler again to pull the colors from my photo. You can download them here. Which do you like better the all-green or the green and pink? Should I try something else? As always, try click on them to see the big version and try it out on your desktop! It's a fun, end-of-summer color splash.

A Different Shade of Green

Took some time today to polish the first botanic print I made last week. I used Kuler to pull the actual colors from the photo so that it looks more natural and I really like the results! 

In other news, I finished my final two regular grad school classes last week so I'm onward to my capstone project. My client is the NOAA National Maritime Fisheries Service so expect some fabulous fishy prints coming soon!

It's not easy being green

So here is my first botanic garden inspired print. I really like how if you scoot back (or squint) you can really see the light green outlines.

I'm not really sure what the name of the plant was, but the near-perfect semmetry was so cool. I loved how they were all so tightly packed. If I have time tonight I may go back and try and actually pull some of the actual colors and re-do it. Stay tuned for variations!

Botanic Garden Inspiration, Minus the Snark

When people talk about inspiration I have to admit I sort of tune it out. I feel like its one of those fake things that people brag about. "I'm sooo inspiiired by traaavel." That being said, I had a moment this weekend though where I was like, "Oh, I get it!"

I've talked in the past about where Snarky Beagle doodles come from (I'll give you a hint, the stork doesn't bring them), so on a trip to the U.S. Botanic Gardens I was a little surprised I found myself snapping tons of photos of different beautiful, natural patterns.

Obviously, no one here is shocked that flowers are an amazing inspiration. My favorite is the top right with the pink stripes.

But I also couldn't believe how amazing some of the succulents they had were. The colors and patterns had me staring at them (that is until I melted in the humid 95 degrees temps). So stay tuned for some Botanic Garden-inspired patterns I'll be working on (as soon as I'm done with two 10-page papers for grad school... much less inspiring).

What's your favorite photo? What do you get inspired by?