Happy Halloween - Spoonflower Contest Top Ten

 

I got an exciting email this morning from the cool people at Spoonflower! After a week of voting, my Victorian Ghosties design made it into the top ten for this weeks Ghost themed fabric design contest!

I was pretty excited to see that most of the designs that made it in the top ten were designs I had voted for! I am especially fond of the winning design. I love the colors and the idea.

Here is what my design looked like.

While I was getting this screenshot I noticed that a photo of the printed fabric had been uploaded. I almost screamed. I definitely need to get my hands on some of this fabric! And how fun to get this awesome news on Halloween morning! This was the first design I had entered into a competition on Spoonflower and only my second design to be uploaded at all. Maybe if I keep trying, one of these weeks I'll win the competition and score that $100 to order beautiful Spoonflower fabric with! 

In other news, I continue to stay happily busy with freelance work and preparing for the swamp creature I am about to give birth to. (More on that soon.) I've also been sewing like a mad person since it's so calming to me. (Most of the time.) Well, I better get back to work. I've wasted most of naptime revamping this blog and writing this post. Not a waste, really, but y'know.

KCW: Baby Raglan Dress (Another Brindille and Twig Patter I love)

Well Kid's Clothes Week just ended and I had a lot of fun working on kid's clothing projects for one hour each evening. I was able to finish two complete garments and get a lot of pattern cutting/taping done. I'm also half-way through a darling dress for the daughter. (I'm going to keep calling her that because I have no idea what we're going to name her anymore...)

This is my favorite project for this week:

I have every intention of uploading better photos of this baby dress. The style is a sort of oversized sweater that I will probably pair with some funky colored leggings. 

The Good:

- This Pattern. Plain and simple. It's easy, straight forward and absolutely DARLING.

- My fabric. Which is actually THIS jersey cotton blend from Girl Charlee. This new journey of sewing clothes for my kids has been full of knit fabric. I have absolutely no fear of knits and neither should you if you want to try sewing. Having a really cool serger helps, too, but is not necessary. Also, ribbing is fun. I need to accumulate a much bigger stash of ribbing with a lot more colors.

- I plan to make a few more of these with some funky color/pattern combinations with the pockets and sleeves. And in different sizes so the daughter can wear them a lot. I just LOVE this pattern.

The Bad:

- I only had one real blunder with this dress and it was 100% my fault. I was finishing this project up around midnight and was extremely tired. I was on the very last step, attaching the ribbing on the bottom of the dress, and I had completely zoned out. SO! The big seam which is supposed to be nicely hidden in the back of the garment is front and center for all to see. Unfortunately, I serged it on and was way too lazy/tired to unpick the darn thing and it's going to stay that way. Oh well!

Free Printable: Latter-Day Prophets!

Some of you may have seen this little print when I had it available in my Etsy shop last year. I no longer sell it so I decided to make it available for download! With General Conference right around the corner, I thought it might be fun to add to any activities you have your kids do for Conference. (Bingo, etc.) It's availble at Scribd for free as a PDF. Enjoy!

Latter-Day Prophet Printable

2013 October GC

I am so excited for General Conference. I just wanted to remind everyone that it's super soon and to get excited with me! Now, my little graphic isn't entirely accurate. The General Relief Society Broadcast (which only happens in October) is actually this weekend on Saturday at 6:00 pm. I haven't made it to one of these in a couple of years, so I'm excited to go.

Click here for the times for the general sessions!

Have a fantastic week everyone! I'm hoping to get a cute Halloween printable up this week, also, but until then...!

After Midnight Again

I couldn't bring myself to write clock the way Parley really pronounces it.

The Hatch family is doing well. We're all feeling extremely blessed as of late. I'm particularly excited that the holidays are just around the corner. I've been too busy filling virtual shopping carts with faux cobwebs and creepy cloth to keep up with my blog. 

But in all seriousness, I have been busy. And busy is a blessing. (Especially right after beginning trimester three of pregnancy number two.) I wish I could show you some of the artwork I have been busy creating, but that will have to wait for now. I'll be sure to have some stuff up on the blog in the next week or so since the holidays really are so soon. I'm thinking more printables and such, but we'll see. I also have a few tutorials in mind for little sewing projects I have planned.

I've been reading Not My Will, but Thine by Neal A. Maxwell in my spare time and it has been really nice. The way the book is written is really so modern and quite refreshing. And of course, the content is a good, uplifting boost of "Fear not; God loves you a lot a lot a lot a lot". Which is something we all need to be reminded occasionally, right?

Until next time! (I'm going to sleep. Why do I do this to myself...)

SHAMELESS PLUG: There's still time to get the early bird special for my Custom Christmas Cards! They're super fun this year and I've already had several orders! Click here to find out more!

Craft Inpiration - Paper Source Glasses

I received the latest Paper Source catalogue this morning. I haven't ordered anything from them in a while, but this catalogue is such a great source of inspiration that I usually carry them around my house for a few weeks. As I was flipping through it today the owl glasses caught my eye.

Now, let me say that last night, I stayed up too late finishing another clipart set for my shop. This time featuring a parliament of particularly goofy looking owls. So, I already have owls on the brain.

Check out the whole set here.

Well, naturally, I thought to myself "How can I get MY owls on a glass like that!?" I would love to have my own set of quirky owl glasses, but I'd love to use my own artwork. So, I think one of these days I might have to give some glass paint a try and do some spiffing up of thrift or dollar store glasses. Martha Stewart has a fancy line of glass paints which come in a variety of colors an finishes, but like most of her craft stuff they are quite pricey. Does anyone have any experience with glass paints? I'd love to hear what you think.

I just might have to do a tutorial on this in the next couple of months if I ever get around to trying it myself.

Tutorial: Customizing PNG Clipart - A Photoshop How-To

There is a lot of really great clipart out there for free or can be purchased! I even have some in my own Etsy Shop! My own clipart is designed to be easy to customize. I do provide several different color options for each element in my premade clipart packs, but I know that for me personally, I would like to have the freedom to make purchased clipart work for ANY project I might have in the future. This is why I decided to include the transparent .PNG lineart in my clipart packs. Check this out:

The thing that is really exciting about having the lineart files with no background is that it gives you a lot of freedom. You can easily fill the lines in with any color of your choice and even change the color of the lineart itself. This makes it easy to get a perfectly matching bow for your cute blog graphic, invitation, etc. 

I'm going to show you my favorite ways to do this in Photoshop and then I will make a separate post for using GIMP for anyone who doesn't own Photoshop. :)

I am using Photoshop CS3 for this tutorial, but this technique should work for any version of PS you may currently be using.

We'll start with the clipart element you'd like to customize.

(I added a white background layer to make the bow easier to see.) First I'll show you how I add color to my lineart.

I always keep my lineart and colors on separate layers. Create a layer below the layer your lineart is on and call it "color". (Or whatever you want. Some of my layer names get kind of crazy when I've got more than 20.)

Now, I actually fill color in like a coloring book with my tablet and neatly color inside the lines, but since I know most of you probably don't have tablets, I'll show you how I did in my pre-tablet days. Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool from the toolbar. The hotkey for this is "L". If your lasso button looks different, simply right click on the button and select the Polygonal one from the drop-down menu.

Trace the linart (around the outside edge) with the Polygonal Lasso Tool. I did mine in two sections, but you can trace the whole thing at once. 

Once you have made your selection, select the Paint Bucket Tool from the toolbar. I think the default for this button is the Gradient Tool, so you will have to right click on the button to have the option of using the Paint Bucket Tool. Click inside your selection with the Paint Bucket Tool and VIOLA! A newly colored clipart.

And if you can imagine in, coloring the lineart is even easier. Make sure your lineart layer is selected. 

Now, for one of my very favorite (and most used) tools in Photoshop.

You see that teeny tiny checkered box in the layers window? That is the "Lock Transparent Pixels" button and it's seriously one of the most important tools I use for creating digital art. What this will do is make it so that the only thing you can make changes to on this layer are pixels which are NOT transparent. So, since my lineart is the only thing drawn on this layer, the lineart is the only thing which can be altered. So, I dare you to click on it. 

Once you have clicked that button to activate the "Lock Transparent Pixels" all you have to do is fill your layer with your desired color. I use the hotkey "Shift + Backspace" (Foreground Color, Normal, 100%) to fill, but the clicking on the lineart with the Paint Bucket Tool works, too. 

If you look at the clipart pack that this bow comes in, you may notice that I combine both these techniques for a softer look. I love using colored lineart in my artwork and you'll see it in almost everything I do, even my big, complicated illustrations.

Now, go. Use your new Photoshop knowledge and make something fabulous.