The Ant and the Grasshopper

The Spoonflower Design Challenge this week is:

"Teamwork" can be interpreted any way you like – from beavers building a dam to honeybees buzzing around their hive to make honey . . ." 

or ants?

A previous challenge was Garden Party -- so I was already thinking about ants coming to the party.  And who hasn't seen them working as a team carrying cookie crumbs back to their nest? And from there my mind wandered to the tale of The Ant and the Grasshopper.

NEW -- Black Cream Floral Repeat Design

 

Just added my Black Cream Flower Collection to my Spoonflower shop. This is a large bold print with flowers

A Real Kenyan Safari

Sunset in Kenya

Those of you who follow me on social media already know that I enjoyed a wonderful family Christmas adventure. Seven members of the family traveled to Kenya for a safari. 

Spoonflower Design Challenge | Insect Safari

Insect Safari is my first Spoonflower Challenge design for the new year. It was inspired by the section Insect Safari in the chapter

Lurking on Spoonflower

Not sure how long I've been lurking on Spoonflower -- maybe 10 years --  following the challenges, voting, and sometimes entering a design.  I tried repeat designs maybe 20 years ago but doing them by hand is a real chore. I think I just got frustrated -- that and life got in the way. 

This past Christmas my daughters gave me an iPad Pro

And Then . . ,

 geared up and ready to start a brand new year! I planned to write more blog posts. I signed up for #MAE and #100dayproject, reviewed designs on #SpoonFlower thinking about revising and developing them into collections and explored ideas for new #Zazzle designs.  And, to make this even better, my daughters gave me a new iPadPro for Christmas. I downloaded ProCreate and I was ready to make this a creative year.

To blog or not to blog?

First web site in 1996

I’ve had a website since 1996 so it is hard to give it up. But I did – sorta. When I first started the website, it was innovative and worked well for me because I was in the DIY industry. I used it as a portfolio to promote my design work to vendors and picked up newsletter followers who were interested in the work I was doing for publications.

Around 2003, life got in the way –