Spoonflower Handbook

The Pillow Every Pet Owner Needs to Have

February 17, 2017

One of our favorite custom-fabric projects of all time is the doppelgänger dog pillow. Originally dreamed up by Spoonflower co-founder Stephen, this brilliantly clever pillow was designed for Ruby, the first of the two rescue dogs that have come to live in Stephen and Kim’s home. Since then, the project has exploded — and we’ve seen everything from hedgehog to bunny rabbit versions stitched up by our customers. Get inspired and learn to make your own snuggly pet pillow!

Square pillow fabric is Freestyle (Black) by Domesticate in Linen Cotton Canvas

Register Today for the Spoonflower Handbook Master Class Summer Session!

June 10, 2016

After reading last month's Spoonflower Handbook Master Class recap by instructor Becka Rahn, were you itching to road trip to the Spoonflower HQ? If the answer is yes, you're in luck! We are excited to announce registration is now open for the summer session of the Spoonflower Handbook Master Class on August 26-28. This workshop will be an introduction to using Photoshop for fabric design, with a specific focus on using layers and seamless textures to add depth to your designs.

Ready to get designing? Click here to reserve your spot today!

The Spoonflower Handbook Master Class Review

May 20, 2016

On a quiet weekend in April, the Spoonflower Greenhouse was bustling with creativity as 12 students from all over the country came together for the Spoonflower Handbook Master Class taught by co-author, Becka Rahn. Today, Becka visits the Spoonflower blog to share her experience teaching the first of this one-of-a-kind class! Want to reserve your spot for August’s master class? Click here to learn more.

Spoonflower Handbook Master Class students proudly show off their custom designs created over the weekend.

Becka: Just a few weeks ago, a group of twelve aspiring fabric designers met at Spoonflower Headquarters to spend 18 intense hours immersed in vectors, Illustrator and inspiration. I got to be their teacher. The first-ever Spoonflower Handbook Master Class was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more!

Register Today for the Spoonflower Handbook Masterclass!

January 4, 2016

Are you stuck in a designing rut and need a guiding hand to take your skills to the next level? Have you dreamed about making a trip to visit the Spoonflower HQ but just haven't found the opportunity? Let Spoonflower Handbook Co-Author Becka Rahn lead the way during the first ever Spoonflower Handbook Masterclass!

Save the Date for the Spoonflower Handbook Masterclass

December 5, 2015

Ready to take your fabric design skills to the next level? Join Co-Author of the Spoonflower Handbook, Becka Rahn, for a weekend of designing with vectors! Click here for more details.

How To Make DIY Ammonite Gift Boxes

September 19, 2015

Today's bonus project from The Spoonflower Handbook comes for our friend Kelly (Weaving Major on the site). Take a peek at how she creates ammonite wallpaper, a small and large version, to cover custom cardboard boxes–perfect for organizing all your sewing notions and bits and bobs!

I love star and spiral shapes, and I'm always fascinated that there are so many different examples of both in nature. Starfish, petoskey stones, flowers, and the cross-sections of apples all have star shapes, and spirals show up in everything from galaxies to swirling water to the ammonite fossils that inspired these wallpaper designs. The spirals I usually draw have all the lines the same distance apart, but when I was looking at a photo of ammonites one day, I noticed that as the spiral got larger, so did the space between the lines. That made me want to get out my markers and see how it looked to draw spirals that way. You can do so many fun things with this wallpaper design, including making this easy gift box.

Recapping the Spoonflower Handbook Launch Party

September 12, 2015

Last week at Spoonflower HQ, we opened our doors to Spoonflower fans from around North Carolina to party with us for an evening! Why? Well, to celebrate the release of our first book, The Spoonflower Handbook: A DIY Guide to Designing Fabric, Wallpaper, and Gift wrap, of course!

The night was full of cupcakes, local craft beer, plushies, polaroids, and surface design! About one hundred folks turned out to take tours of the Spoonflower factory and pick up a freshly signed copy of the book.

The underwater selfie station was very popular, and chock full of aquatic Minky creatures designed by Sharon Turner (Scrummy)!

Minky shark designed by Scrummy. Photo courtesy of Marianne Milliken.

By the end of the night, polaroids and #spoonflowerhandbookselfies were scattered about the lobby. Thanks for the amazing shark plushie, Srummy!

Stephen Fraser, Spoonflower cofounder, spoke about the origins of Spoonflower and gave a playful walkthrough of one of the most popular projects in the book: the Doppelgänger Dog Pillow!

Doppelgänger dog friends hanging out on the couch! Photos courtesy of Marianne Millikan

The launch party and book signing was a fun opportunity to mingle with crafters, surface designers and sewists from around North Carolina, not to mention get acquainted with Spoonflower staff and factory operations. It's a colorful place, and we hope everyone had a blast. We sure did! Thanks to everyone who came out for the party.

Pepper the Cat pillow making the rounds.

Switch faceplates customized with Woven Peel and Stick Wallpaper. Photo courtesy of Marianne Millikin.

Projects from the Spoonflower Handbook

Have you started reading The Spoonflower Handbook? What's the first project you're going to tackle? Let us know in the comments, and don't forget to enter our #SpoonflowerHandbookSelfie giveaway by posting a selfie with our Handbook to Instagram!

The Spoonflower Handbook Blog Tour Starts Saturday!

September 11, 2015

With all the excitement surrounding the release of our new (and first!) book, The Spoonflower Handbook: A DIY Guide to Designing Fabric, Wallpaper, and Gift Wrap, we still have many surprises up our sleeves, we'll have you know.

In addition to the book signing & launch party we hosted last week at Spoonflower HQ, and the #SpoonflowerHandbookSelfie giveaway announcement along with it, we're sharing the excitement with a handful of talented and crafty bloggers around the Internet! They will be giving you a taste of the design and sewing projects found within the pages of the Handbook!

The Spoonflower Handbook contains 30+ projects for the fledgling surface designer, including everything from design how-to's to approachable tutorials for making some of the most unique, fun and stylish crafts you've ever seen.

Over the next five weeks, be sure to stop by the blogs below to find out how they approached their chosen Handbook project with zest and creativity!

Blog Tour Schedule:

Saturday, Sept.12th >>> Sammy K of Just Arting Around… featuring the Recipe Tea Towel project

Tuesday, Sept. 15th <<< Sherri Lynn Wood of Dainty Time featuring the Doppelgänger Dog Pillow

Thursday, Sept. 17th >>> Audrey Smit of This Little Street featuring the Coloring Desk Wrap

Tuesday, Sept. 22nd <<< Kate B of See Kate Sew featuring Photo Panel Wall Art

Friday, Oct. 16th >>> Emma Jeffery of Hello Beautiful featuring Geometric Soiree Kitchen Chairs project

Thanks to all the bloggers who stepped up to play with the new book to show us what they learned and created! Please do join us as we hop from blog to blog to uncover a new project from the book each time!

Still need to pick up your copy of the Spoonflower Handbook? Right this way!

The Spoonflower Handbook has Arrived!!

September 1, 2015

We've been eagerly awaiting this day for years, literally. The Spoonflower Handbook has arrived–cue the confetti and pop the champagne! We're thrilled to finally share our first book with our community. The Spoonflower Handbook puts surface design for fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap well within the reach of creative people everywhere.

This book is an essential step-by-step user’s manual and project collection for this booming new creative outlet. Written for both new and experienced users of this print-on-demand technology, it covers everything from equipment to software to working with photos, scans, repeats, and vector files, and includes projects for the home and wardrobe as well as special tutorials contributed by members of the Spoonflower community.

Can't wait to pick up a copy? Go ahead and order one today! Share a photo of yourself on Instagram with the book using the hashtag #Spoonflowerhandbookselfie for a chance to win two yards of custom-printed Spoonflower fabric of your choice. We'll be drawing one winner every Tuesday for the next six weeks, so grab a copy and show us your best selfie!

ORDER NOW!

If you're local to North Carolina, join us for a book signing and party at Spoonflower HQ on Thursday, September 3, from 6-8pm, to celebrate the release of The Spoonflower Handbook!

How to Turn Kids’ Art into Fabric

August 22, 2015

When you run out of real estate on the fridge, it’s time to incorporate your children’s precious artwork into other projects! With Spoonflower, you can upload drawings and print fabric featuring your little one’s masterpieces. In this bonus tutorial submitted by Beth Davis for The Spoonflower Handbook, we’ll be using Adobe Photoshop to create a fabric design from elements in a child’s drawing.

I recently had the opportunity to color with my favorite 4-year-old friend Willa, and the self portrait that she created was too precious not to capture in a more lasting form than printer paper. With the power of very basic photo editing (I used Photoshop) and tools on Spoonflower’s website, I was able to take elements from Willa’s amazing portrait and arrange them into a fun repeating pattern, and I even used her signature to create a custom coordinate!