How One Artist Helped Her Child Feel Seen in Their Home Decor

When apparel sewist and blogger Aaronica B. Cole’s daughter Aurora lamented feeling invisible, Aaronica turned to Aurora’s budding artistic talents and the pair got to work creating a seamless repeat design together. Read on to hear how they used Procreate to make a pattern for a throw blanket and matching pajamas just perfect for some mother-daughter time, and so Aurora could feel seen too. By allowing you to see your work on home decor, wallpaper and fabric, Spoonflower gives artists of all ages and experience infinite room to create designs that inspire, foster and celebrate creativity.

Aaronica: “Mommy, sometimes I feel invisible.” 

Aurora, my 8-year-old middle daughter, shared this confession with me when her siblings left the dinner table one night after we moved into our new house. I was gutted to hear this. My little love, the one that sparked my need to leave the corporate world, the one that is my literal sunshine on rainy days, the one whose cries break my heart to this day was telling me she didn’t feel seen. I knew that I had to change that. 

Aurora is so creative and loves painting, drawing, designing—her art has really started flourishing. This year we made the decision to buy her a sewing machine and begin to nurture her budding creativity. After a recent art show at her school, I knew I needed to make some of her designs into fabric and decor around the house. Not only is she REALLY good, but I want to make sure that when she looks around, she sees herself and knows that there’s a space for her in our home, our family and our hearts.  

I’ve dibbled and dabbled in creating some repeating patterns but this is NOT my area of expertise. I pulled up Jennifer Nichols’s Procreate seamless repeat blog post for some guidance in how to do this—needless to say, I need more practice! But snuggles are her love language and I knew she would absolutely go gaga over a Spoonflower throw blanket. I had the opportunity to feel one in person at QuiltCon 2023 and knew this would be perfect for our home.  

I wish I could say something like I decided on the color palette or gave her direction but I didn’t. I told her that we needed to create something that Mommy would be able to turn into a repeating pattern. And baby girl went to work on my iPad. She did her first design and scratched it wanting to have something that felt more like the doodles she does in her notebooks and I loved it.  

As much as I would like to believe that I’ll be the one using this blanket, I know she will. So I added some of the things I say to her and my other two children onto the blanket. Little “I love you mosts” and reminders about making wise decisions. My goal for this blanket is for it to outlast my life but provide the reminders that I gave to them all throughout theirs. This blanket is our new family heirloom and I couldn’t be more proud about creating it with my little creative genius.  

Before I share my process, I want to remind you that I’m a work in progress! I love the way the design came out and here’s how I did it.  

On my iPad, we used Procreate. If you don’t have an iPad or don’t want to pay for Procreate, you can do this for free in Canva as well. We used a square canvas to start. After Aurora made her initial design, I made sure all the layers were grouped. 

I duplicated the design 4 times—1 for each quadrant. Using guides and the snap grid, I moved each group to one corner. After these were in place, I created a new layer for the background color. The last thing I did was connect some of the lines to create more of a seamless effect and add in my little mom-isms. 

Spoonflower makes bringing your designs to life SO easy. I exported our design as a .png and uploaded it to the Spoonflower website. After confirming that this was an original design that we had authority to reproduce, it uploaded in a matter of seconds. Because I love doing the most, in addition to creating the pattern for a blanket, we also got matching Modern Jersey fabric to make our mommy + me slumber parties and movie nights complete.  

My favorite thing about this process is that we made a keepsake that took next to no time and will last for years to come. I love that I was able to do this with my daughter and make her feel like she matters because she does. I’m looking forward to creating more together with the help of Spoonflower!