DESIGN SEMINAR - carol eldridge

carol eldridge is a surface designer with a wealth of experience and she is now preparing to share it with others at her 'art licensing seminar'. carol will be explaining the terminology, marketing strategies, how to prepare your artwork to be suitable for licensing, contract negotiations, market trends, basics of licensing, building a website, promotions and other useful tips of the trade. she'll even be looking at individual portfolios and giving advice to those who book one of her 30 minute sessions. you can get all the details here for the event which will take place on september 20th in marblehead, massachusetts. cute design above by carol.

TEXTILES - romo

i thought i'd check in and see whats been happening at romo fabrics lately. in recent years they've become famous for their stylish contemporary prints. i was pleased to see the new manderley collection, and if you are still keen to research even more fabric prints you can also check out their sister label villa nova.

ONLINE SHOP - lagom

greetings card company lagom have just launched online shopping at their website. besides cards and gift wrap they also offer so much more with well designed accessories and furniture. the two gorgeous patterns shown below are from their autumn winter giftwrap range. click here to see more.

FABRICS - volksfaden

some of my current faves at volksfaden fabrics.

NOTEBOOKS - petra boase

keeping a blog can have its real benefits, and just lately ive been sent some really great samples as gifts. especially this little parcel that arrived from petra boase, one of my favourite designers. inside was this set of cute notebooks. they will hopefully be going live in petra's online shop next week. apart from the beautiful covers they also have vintage patterns on the inside and back covers.

MUGS - skinny la minx

more freebies now, and i was thrilled to be chosen by heather moore of skinny la minx to be a guinea pig for her new mug designs. heather wanted to test out the packaging and the price to send one across the world, and so i recieved this lovely mug all the way from south africa. a selection of designs have now gone on sale in her etsy shop here and i see that some have been snapped up already. there are more mug design pics here on heather's blog.

NOTEBOOKS - ecojot

many of the people who have been submitting cds for the 'print & pattern' book have included little extras such as greetings cards, postcards, badges, and stickers. but imagine my suprise upon opening this parcel from carolyn at ecojot. i was blown away by her generosity. ive always admired ecojot's fantastic books, and now im using them im a dedicated fan. the covers feature brilliant designs in really fun colours and they have the added kudos of being enviromentally friendly. i noticed recently that UK readers can buy ecojot online at papernation, and in some paperchase stores.

DESIGNER - ellen.G

as soon as i saw these bold designs from new zealand's ellen.G i loved them, each design is created by hand cutting specially coloured paper. ellen giggenbach was born in germany but moved to new zealand where she enjoyed a successful design career. but her dream was to create her own collection which is inspired by "simple 1950’s and 60’s shapes, european folk art and traditional romantic imagery". ellen has transferred her wonderful designs onto cushions and bags which can be seen here and she can be contacted for freelance commissions or wholesale.