This is a super-cool concept!
Spoonflower custom prints anything you design onto premium cotton fabric. So you can create your own quilts, aprons, potholders, baby clothes, hats, curtains, purses, and anything else you can think of!
There is no minimum yardage order, and each yard is $18.  For a truly homemade personal gift, that sounds pretty interesting to me.   All the details are available on the Spoonflower website.

Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to go somewhere to take a class. There’s so much to be said for classes…being able to see the technique demonstrated, being able to ask questions, mixing and mingling and meeting new people. It’s all good. But it just doesn’t work out for everyone.
Fortunately, there is the internet!
There are three categories of posts on this very blog that will lead you to lots of techniques, tips, tutorials, and fun new projects to try. There are also lots of new sources that I’ll be adding to these categories pretty regularly.
Collage Techniques
Creating Backgrounds for Artwork
Digital Effects
Image Transfer …read more

What’s Up Wednesday

Fauxto (like “Photo”)
You know how much I rave about Photoshop, how I love it and can’t live without it. So why would I care about free online photo editors? There’s even a free version of PS now that you can download, and if that doesn’t suit you there’s always Gimp, which is a free download.
So again, why care about online photo editors? What about when your computer is in the shop, or you’re traveling without a laptop, stopping into libraries to use their computers? You’ve taken lots of great pictures, and you’d like …read more

I shared with you about the Animoto site the other day. Well, I tried it out today, and even though the free videos are very short (only was able to include 6 of my 12 images), I am still very impressed with what they’re doing.

What’s Up Wednesday
Or from any other images that you want to use! Animoto is an intriguing site: it creates a slideshow to the music of your choice, automatically. You have to register to use it, and I have no information to give you about copyright issues, so please read all the contracts if you decide to register and use it. Here’s a description from the site:

Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.
Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No …read more

What’s Up Wednesday
Here is a brilliant online tool that will allow you to chart your text in six different fonts. These are perfect for cross stitch, backstitch, or even beading! Text in Stitches has been made available by StitchPoint.

What’s Up Wednesday
You may recall awhile back I asked for reports on the various online publishers that would produce one-offs of your artist books. Well, I got a report about MyPublisher that gave it an A+ on all counts!
Robin Atkins, who started the Bead Journal Project that I participated in last year, has used MyPublisher to create a book of her beaded pages and poetry. What a great idea! She was very satisfied with ease of use, options available, customer service, and the end result. You can see her book online here to give you some …read more

Since we been talk off and on about organization around here, I thought I should make you aware of an online freebie you can print out for yourself You’re going to love these, and you’re probably going to get addicted to them! Take one ordinary sheet of paper, visit the PocketMod website, select your preferences, print, cut, and fold. Stick it in your pocket.
Why would you want to print, cut, and fold a piece of paper just to stick it in your pocket? Wait till you see what all your can print out onto that piece …read more

Disclaimer: I have not personally used any of these publishers. I believe that in all cases, you retain complete copyright to your materials; these companies are just printers. I cannot vouch for the professionalism or quality of any of them! Buyer beware
That said, here’s a list of publishers who will do small runs (even just one copy, some of them). It’s self-publishing without the huge cash outlay of having to have 10,000 copies printed…and pay for all of them yourself.
I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually used any of these companies: were …read more

Have fun with Interactivate: Tessellate!
If playing with this cool tool isn’t enough, you can look at lots of tessellation art at the Tessellation Database. In addition, there’s always Tessellations.org …check out the tessellating frenchfries
Here are two of my previous posts with ideas about how to use these patterns:
Expanded Squares
Making a digital stamp