making cushions!

So this week is vacation week! YAY

I have spent the best part of this week hanging out with my sister and my daughter Rosie or helping my mom in her new place (I will post photos!)

My sister is also redecorating and that gave me the idea of making her some custom throw pillow covers.

Here is the process:

I started with blank IKEA Gurli pillow covers...  At 4.99 a pop, it is certainly worth not making them myself (i.e never get it done...)

These are my scribbled sketches!

I cut up a piece of foam with a plastic liner used for installing laminate flooring and placed it inside the pillow to avoid bleeding through to the other side.

I also taped the edges to get a clean look.  I used regular latex paint and some tri-art acrylic paint for the red.

These are the looks so far.  This was super fun to do and quick, all done during Rosie's nap time!!

xox Manuela

Sweet S6 and a free shipping promo

My Society6 shop opened officially on June 16th, 2013 and so far I have had over 20 prints selected for the Society6 store, and 8 sales and counting...  Okay, okay, I made like 20$, but considering I am a NEWB at this, I think it's not bad at all!  I love that I can just upload anything, no need to make it a repeat pattern or anything, like on Spoonflower.  Not that I mind, it's just that creating without boundaries is more liberating!!

A selection of my work from Society6

My most popular designs have been the aqua bird silhouettes and the midsummer pattern in MINT, which is one of my personal faves ;)  I ordered the 'natural graffitti' pillow for my house, as well as the aqua birds...  Can't wait to get them and check out the quality, packaging, colours...etc.

 'Natural Graffiti' pillow on Society6 by MAJA Studio

There is a new promotion for Free Shipping until JULY 14th, 2013.  You must click on this link in order to redeem it: http://society6.com/MAJAstudio?promo=32d77f

Happy shopping :)

Society6

All this surface design has inevitably led to me spending countless hours online searching for places to share and mingle with other designers.  I have been busy uploading work onto my new Society6 shop.  To me, there is nothing more exciting than seeing something I made on a product or in somebody's home.  I like STUFF, which I think is a good thing when you create for consumers!

Anyway, I was pretty happy to see a sale after just 2 days of my store opening!  How exciting!  Hopefully more will come...  I know this is a brand new venture for me, and I need to be making MORE and MORE designs if I want a chance to make it in the business, but I feel like this is for me.  

CHEERS to a new adventure!

Spoonflower

I am having a splendid adventure on the website Spoonflower these days...  A few weeks back I entered their weekly design contest on the theme GEEK CHIC and presented this design.  I made it to the semi-finals (top 100) and after the voting round, I was in the top 8 finalists!!

mathematical tension, my original design for the competition

I have been creating new coordinating designs for the final round for a little over two weeks now.  I am pretty happy with my overall collection, considering I am rather new at this!  My background as a commercial artist is really coming in handy in terms of colouration and scale and overall composition.  Turns out I can manage pretty good with this digital stuff!!  These were all done using Photoshop CS6 and my Wacom tablet.  The voting round begins June 6th (this thursday!!)  

dots & numbers coordinating fabric, Fabric8 Geek Chic collection

problems to solve coordinating fabric, Fabric8 Geek Chic collection

know your angles coordinating fabric, Fabric8 Geek Chic collection

Here are some of the other designs I made:  Some of them will be available for purchase at Spoonflower once the contest is over:

The winner of this contest will score a licensing contract with Robert Kaufman fabrics, a 1000$ advance on royalties and a huge Wacom tablet.  NOT BAD ;)  Last year's winner Andie Hanna seems to be doing pretty well, her collection launched this spring and looks fantastic!

My fingers are crossed xxxxx