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Make It Monday: Holiday Calendars

November 30, 2015

December’s upon us, and we couldn’t be more excited to start our holiday decorating! This year, we love the idea of creating a calendar that unites the whole family in celebrating the special days of the season. Take an afternoon this week to whip up one of these customizable calendar DIYs sure to delight you and yours. Please do share the DIY holiday calendars you’re making by tagging #makeitmonday on your social platform of choice!

Ashlee over at My So Called Crafty Life created this DIY Drawstring Bag Advent Calendar with a complete tutorial and cut-and-sew kit on Spoonflower, to boot!

Eight Nights of Surprises Wall Hanging by Creative Jewish Mom makes a lovely focal point for the family room.

The X-mas Calendar design from Demigoutte on Spoonflower has everything you need to DIY your Advent calendar.

Create this Dreidel Garland by Scrumdilly-do! with old neck ties!

This DIY Origami Box Advent Calendar by Gathering Beauty is a great way to use any small gift wrap scraps.

Mix and match these ideas to create a calendar of your very own, and please do show us what you’re creating with a #makeitmonday shout out!

Happy holidays,

Becca

Announcing the Top 10 2016 Tea Towel Calendars!

November 5, 2015

We've been counting down the days and it's finally tea towel calendar time again! Out of almost 300 entries, you voted on the 10 most beautiful calendars and the results are in. Congratulations to first-time winner and North Carolina based designer Jayme Hennel for her lovely "2016 Citrus Tea Towel-Navy" design! Marvel at all the top 10 winners and don't forget to check out our Facebook page today to see photos of all the finished tea towels printed on Linen Cotton Canvas!

450 votes for 2016 Citrus Tea Towel – Navy by jaymehennel
2. 431 votes for 2016 Tea Towel Calendar-Let Your Soul Blossom and Grow_dark by groovity
3. 411 votes for Succulents 2016 Tea Towel Calendar by nadiahassan
4. 387 votes for Hello Fox, Hello Squirrel 2016 Tea Towel by creativetaylor
5. 365 votes for 2016 Peacock Tea Towel Calendar by Andrea Lauren by andrea_lauren
6. 361 votes for 2016 A day in the forest by vo_aka_virginiao
7. 340 votes for my family tree 2016 calendar by doodleandhoob
8. 326 votes for 2016 garden calendar by cjldesigns
9. 325 votes for Another Year, Another Circus! by mariaspeyer
10. 324 votes for 2016 Raven Tea Towel Calendar by mariafaithgarcia

Vote for Your Favorite 2016 Tea Towel Calendar

October 30, 2015

Shake off the chills from the Post-apocalyptic Toile contest by voting on some charming 2016 tea towel calendars, which happen to be perfect for holiday gift giving. You won't believe all the beauty and functions that these designers can fit onto a fat quarter! Vote now for all your favorites!

VOTE NOW!

Homemaker Magazine Calendar Featuring Spoonflower Designers!

December 17, 2013

Homemaker magazine's Christmas issue includes a 2014 calendar featuring Spoonflower designers and their perfect-for-every-season fabric patterns! This UK-based magazine is full of creative ideas for beautiful living spaces, and you can dowload free templates for some of the festive projects featured in Issue 12, like the lovely papercut card on the cover. Congratulations to these fantastic designers selected by Homemaker magazine!

Check out the top ten Advent calendar kits | Congrats to winner Kayajoy

November 24, 2011

Coming out on top in our contest to design a fabric kit for sewing an Advent calendar is 5-time contest winner Kayajoy, a talented artist who hails from Montreal. If you're planning to sew her kit (or any of the other top ten) in time to use this year you'll have to hurry!

See the Top Ten Advent Calendar Kits

The final voting results:

1. 626 votes for Festive Forest Tree Decorating – Advent Calendar by kayajoy
2. 449 votes for Advent Calendar by irrimiri
3. 375 votes for birdy advent calendar by amel24
4. 354 votes for Quiet Winter Town by theboerwar
5. 312 votes for X-mas Calendar by demigoutte
6. 294 votes for Christmas Countdown Wreath by jennartdesigns
7. 274 votes for Festive Fun Advent Tree by spellstone
8. 270 votes for Baby Owls Advent Calendar by natitys
9. 269 votes for Cookie Advent Calendar by modgeek
10. 265 votes for Nativity Scene Advent Calendar, Finger Puppets & Hanging Ornaments too! by elizabethjones

2011 Tea-Towel Calendar Template… so you can design your own tea-towel calendar!

December 2, 2010

For those of you wondering how to make your own 2011 tea towel calendars to print on Spoonflower, below is a calendar template to get you started.

We're a bit late posting this, given that our 2-for-1 tea towel sale ends tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 3), but better late than never. There's still almost a month to go before the New Year starts.

Download 2011 Tea-Towel Calendar Template In MS Word Format

Download 2011 Tea-Towel Calendar Template as a PDF

If you download the Word version, you can edit the fonts and colors as you wish, then save the file as a PDF that can be imported into a graphics program like Photoshop, or the much cheaper Pixelmator (for Macs only).

If you're in a hurry, just download and import the PDF we've set up. Please note that, while I dearly love Google docs, importing the .doc file into Google docs will mangle the formatting. I haven't tried it, but it might survive the transition to OpenOffice, however.

For our tea-towel calendar, Stephanie and I scanned some fall leaves on our office scanner, then I outlined them in Pixelmator and pasted the leaves around the edges of the PDF calendar layer I had imported.

I also photographed, on a white paper background, a few pine cones, nuts and leaves. By playing with the brightness and contrast in the finished photo, I managed to get rid of any shadows in the background of the images. Then — just as with the leaves — I pasted the individual elements (as transparent PNGs) into new layers in the calendar file in Pixelmator.

The resulting calendar is set up to fit on a fat-quarter of quilting weight cotton (21" x 18"), but I'm printing it on linen-cotton canvas, which will make a sturdier tea towel.

<— Here it is coming off one of our printers!

Buy Stephen's Tea Towel Calendar

Shop for great tea towels by real artists

Check out Cynthia’s birdies, winner of the 2011 Tea-Towel Calendar design contest!

November 11, 2010

Congrats To Tea-Towel Calendar Winner Cynthia Frenette

The winner of our tea-towel calendar contest is Canadian designer and longtime Spoonflower community member Cynthia Frenette of Green Couch Designs. Her '2011 Birdies,' which fits nicely onto a fat quarter of any of our fabrics, won the most votes from a grCoup of terrific entries and would make a great, easy-to-sew gift for the holidays.

See the Top Ten Tea-Towel Calendars

Thank you to all the great designers who participated! I hope you're all planning to make your towel patterns available for sale. [Psst… Don't forget to set them up as 'centered'!]

The final votes were:

1. 922 votes for 2011 Birdies by cynthiafrenette
2. 747 votes for 2011 Tea Towel Calendar by pennycandy
3. 691 votes for Hello 2011 by valentinaramos
4. 642 votes for Four Seasons by snowflower
5. 620 votes for Fridge Monsters by pikoti
6. 617 votes for sweet-year-tree-2011 by lisaekstrom
7. 571 votes for a year in the city by francine
8. 548 votes for "au fil des saisons 2011" by nadja_p
9. 545 votes for Let's bake a big cake for 2011! by bora
10. 538 votes for garland 2011 calendar towel by monmeehan

Tea-towel calendar contest starts Thursday. Upcoming contests: Christmas stocking patterns, candles

November 1, 2010

The voting for our hotly anticipated contest for 2011 tea-towel calendar designs starts on Thursday. Latecomers, you have until the end of the day Tuesday (Nov. 2) to enter a design, which must fit onto a fat quarter of quilting-weight fabric (21 inches by 18 inches).

Note that while our contest previews show the designs at 21" wide by 18" tall, you can design your calendar for either dimension. If the preview shows it sideways, voters will still know that the printed fabric is meant to hang vertically. This was a fun contest last time around and tea-towels (which need not be printed on quilting-weight cotton) make terrific gifts.

[Check out Danielle Hanson's winning calendar from last year.]

Upcoming contests announced so far include a 1-yard pattern contest for Christmas stockings as well as a candle fabric contest. Before either of those, we've also got a Celebrity Fabric Design Smackdown to look forward to!

SEE UPCOMING FABRIC OF THE WEEK CONTESTS (& RULES)

Tea-towel calendar template

December 10, 2009

For any of you who would like to create your own tea-towel calendar and who lack either the time or expertise to make one from scratch, here is a calendar template you can download and use with one of your own design images. Click to download the full-size version. [also: Download htm file (editable in Word) or download a rasterized Photoshop file]

By way of an example, below is a fun calendar I made using photos of contest fabrics as a background (compiled using the 'collage' feature of Picnik), and inserting a semi-transparent layer between the calendar text and the photos. I wouldn't offer this to anyone else, of course, without securing permission from the designers of the various pictured fabrics, but it's a fun idea.

Fabric of the Week Winner: Bird Calendar Flies Away With It!

November 30, 2009

Congratulations to Danielle Hanson of Ragtales! Her 2010 hanging calendar design won the most votes in our tea-towel calendar-themed contest. Looking for gift ideas? You can buy this — and many of the other terrific calendars people submitted — in the Spoonflower marketplace.

The voting results from last week appear below. Thanks to all who participated!

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