16 August, 2019

Mini Spoonflower Tutorial: Two ways to see your designs as finished goods

2019-08-17T10:16:15-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials, Videos|2 Comments

Spoonflower recently rolled out some cool new changes to their website and the ways you can look at designs. Instead of only seeing a swatch or a fat quarter, you can now see your designs mocked up as sheets, curtains, pillows, tablecloths and more. And it’s now built in to the site; you just have to know where to click. I made this mini video tutorial (10 min) to show you two ways you can look at these new mockups, both as a shopper and as a designer. I think they are both great ways to help you visualize the scale and impact of your designs. If you don’t see the video thumbnail here, click Read More > below.

Want to learn more about designing fabrics for Spoonflower? Try out my online intro class! It’s free and will walk you through a design from idea to upload.

26 October, 2018

Save This Layout and Selling your Spoonflower designs. (I learned something new.)

2018-10-26T11:33:23-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|3 Comments

I’ve been designing a bunch of tea towels for my Spoonflower shop lately. The September design challenges were all about tea towels and I did a couple of tea towel calendars too. Those kinds of designs aren’t really made to repeat. Instead you are designing a panel that is set up to be exactly the size of a fat quarter of fabric. For linen-cotton canvas, which is my preferred fabric for those, that means I am designing a rectangle that is 27×18 inches.

I had sold several of the designs to people shopping on Spoonflower, but a couple of those shoppers chose a different fabric than the linen-cotton canvas, which might not seem like a problem, except that different fabrics have different widths and so the size of the fat quarter is different. If you choose basic cotton for example, a fat quarter is only 21 x 18 inches. Which means that you are going to lose 6 inches of my design. The top photo here is showing you what a fat quarter of basic cotton looks like; the bottom shows linen-cotton canvas. If you order this design in basic cotton, a third of the calendar will be missing.

If you haven’t used Spoonflower a lot, you might not realize that what you see is exactly what you get – if that design is cut off in the preview, then that’s what your fabric is going to look like. It’s an easy mistake to make. I caught it when I saw these orders come through and contacted Spoonflower to get in touch with those customers, since I was pretty sure they didn’t actually want to have only 2/3 of the design and everything got fixed up. What I didn’t know is that I actually could do one more thing to help make that less likely to happen to other people.

Save this Layout

When you upload a design to Spoonflower there are a few things you can change about the way it uses your design to fill the piece of fabric. The first section is the Repeat of your design. By default it is repeated in a basic grid pattern. The design repeats like tiles on a checkerboard and fills the amount of fabric you have selected. There are 5 different ways that you can repeat it. Basic is the default, but you can also choose from half-drop, half-brick, center or mirror. Half-drop and half-brick offset your design by half vertically or horizontally. If you can imagine what the pattern on a brick wall looks like, you get the idea.

Here is a grapefruit design shown in each of the different repeat patterns; you can see how the pattern changes on the left. You will notice with the “center” option there is only 1 grapefruit. That’s because center takes one of your design and puts it exactly in the center of the fabric. The rest of the fabric is blank. (You might use this if you were printing a photograph of something to make a wall hanging and you didn’t need it to repeat.) The design always starts repeating from the bottom left corner of the fabric. If you look at the basic example, that’s why you see half grapefruits, because the fabric was only large enough for it to fit the repeat 3 1/2 times.

The next thing you can change is Design Size. There are buttons to make the design Smaller or Bigger and it will shift it by increments. The preview will show you exactly what it will look like on the left. You can’t ever make a design bigger than the original that you uploaded (because it can’t invent more pixels than it had originally), but you can scale it smaller just with the click of a button.

Here is the grapefruit at the size I originally uploaded (about 8 inches) and scaled down (about 5 inches).

Both the Repeat and Design Size you can set how you like and save by clicking the Save This Layout button. This does two things: it locks in that layout of repeat and size so that it remembers it the next time you look at this design and if you make it for sale, it locks it in for shoppers. They won’t be able to change anything about your design. (They can message and ask you to make tweaks if they want to have it smaller or a different color) So that way you are sure that it is printing the way you intended it to (and the customer isn’t choosing a repeat style that doesn’t match up).

What I just learned

What I didn’t know until a Spoonflower friend pointed it out to me just recently is that the Save This Layout button ALSO saves a default fabric choice and a default size. How did I not know this? You’d think when you wrote the book on a thing, you would learn all of the tricks. Turns out, there is always something new to learn. Thanks Tina for the heads up!

Why is a default fabric choice important? That takes us back to that tea towel I was talking about earlier in the post. When I set up the layout for that tea towel, I chose Basic for the repeat. Although it isn’t a repeating design necessarily, if you happen to choose to buy a yard of fabric, this design will fit exactly four times on a yard. Four tea towels. Great for gifts.

I didn’t need to change the Design Size so I left that as I uploaded it. Then I clicked Save this Layout. What I didn’t know before is that it ALSO saves the Fabric and Size you have selected (below the Save This Layout button). So I can choose Linen-Cotton Canvas and Fat Quarter and then hit Save This Layout. Now any customer who looks at this design should see it defaulting to the exact fabric/size that the design was made to fit. They can still change those options, but it is much less likely that they might choose something that won’t work because the defaults are now set to the right thing.

I went back through and checked all of my designs that were supposed to be fat quarters (tea towels, cut-and-sew toys) and made sure that I set the default fabrics for those to be a fat quarter of the right size.


If you want to check out my tea towels and tea towel calendars, I have them all in a collection here at Spoonflower.

10 July, 2018

Video Tutorial: Fill-A-Yard Projects with Spoonflower

2020-04-21T21:17:12-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials, Videos|Comments Off on Video Tutorial: Fill-A-Yard Projects with Spoonflower

A quick video tutorial of how to use Spoonflower’s Fill-A-Yard feature. Thanks to a student from my online class for the question.

If you need a little more help working with collections, be sure to check out my online classes. I go through collections in the Spoonflower Step One class.

23 August, 2017

Try it: Spoonflower’s Fill-a-Yard tool and 8-bit Art

2017-08-23T12:39:33-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|Comments Off on Try it: Spoonflower’s Fill-a-Yard tool and 8-bit Art

Spoonflower has a new Fill-A-Yard tool. It’s very simple to use.

  • Create a collection of fabrics.
  • Choose a template (this is 1 yard with 6 inch squares).
  • Click the fabric you want from the thumbnails on the right, then click the square you want to fill with the fabric design.
  • It will print as a “cheater quilt” as one piece of fabric with this design of squares filled with other designs.

As I was demonstrating this for a class a few days ago I suddenly had a brainstorm: I wondered if I could make a picture. It would have to be something ultra simple like 8-bit art (think PacMan or Space Invaders) because there aren’t very many squares to work with. So this morning, I collected a bunch of fabrics to try making a rubber ducky. Here’s my rubber ducky quilt. I think it’s pretty charming and it would make a sweet baby gift.

Want to see how it works? You can try this out with the Just Duckie collection of fabrics I put together. From that collection, just click where it says “Want to use this collection for a Fill-A-Yard project? Start Designing”.

What else can you “draw” using just 42 squares? I’d love to hear about it!

20 July, 2016

Fabric Design Tutorial: Photo Collage Bonus Mashup

2016-07-19T22:56:06-05:00Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|Comments Off on Fabric Design Tutorial: Photo Collage Bonus Mashup

I posted a tutorial just a few days ago showing how to create a “scrapbook style” fabric design from a collection of photos. You can think of this post a variation on that theme. It’s a different way of using the same tutorial.

Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 10.11.07 PM

In my last artist newsletter, the free download I sent to subscribers was a photo of a sunflower on a transparent background. It went along with the Prospect Park utility boxes project that I did recently; in fact, you can see that sunflower in the cafe scene and on the bicycle headlight on one of the boxes.

Maybe a fabric design with photos of your dogs or friends and family isn’t something you are interested in. What about flowers? This fabric design is a mashup; it uses that sunflower photo (and several other flowers) plus exactly the technique I described in the scrapbook style tutorial to make something totally new. I used the “color cell” option in the Background tool set (paint palette icon) to add the blocks of solid color to this design.

Screen Shot 2016-07-19 at 10.40.04 PM

What other variations on this theme can you come up with?

14 July, 2016

Fabric Design Tutorial: Create a “Mini Photo Scrapbook” Fabric Design

2016-07-19T09:53:53-05:00Everything Else, Spoonflower & Fabric Design, Tutorials|Comments Off on Fabric Design Tutorial: Create a “Mini Photo Scrapbook” Fabric Design

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 11.48.36 AMI am going to call this tutorial the first in what I hope will be a series of “Suggestion Box Tutorials“.

I got an email from a woman this morning asking for help designing a fabric to make a keepsake zipper bag. She and a collection of friends are meeting up this summer and she wanted a little something to give each of them to commemorate the occasion. She had a great idea for what she wanted the fabric to look like: a collection of photos and little graphics that were all significant to this group of friends. The photos should be scattered like postage stamps on a white background. She even sent me a sketch.

Her question was: did I know of anywhere there was a tutorial that could show her how to do this and how could she make sure that it was just the scale and size she wanted?

Could I think of anything? No. So, this seemed like the perfect tutorial for me to write.

What does your intention tell you about your design?

If you have had the chance to take a class from me, you know that one of my tips for creating really successful fabric designs is to design with intention. The intended use for your fabric can give you so many hints about how you need to set up your design files.

This fabric is intended to be a lining for a small zipper bag. So we know that will use pieces of fabric that are maybe 10-12″ square. If I create a repeating tile that is larger than 12″, I won’t see all of the photos that will be in the design because I will be just cutting out a piece. Maybe that’s ok. Or maybe you want to make sure that each bag has every photo visible. That’s a choice for you to make.

I also know that if my zipper bag is 10-12 inches, I probably need the photos to be pretty small in relation to that so that the scale makes sense. If the photos are each 6 inches, I will only be able to see a couple of them once I cut it out.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.12.30 PM

Do the math.

So for this project, I am going to use that information to set up my design file (aka do the math). Why do I need to do that now? Can’t I just do the fun part (designing it) and worry about that math stuff later?

The number one thing I hear from new fabric designers is:

I uploaded my thing to Spoonflower and it was so awesome, but it was totally the wrong size! I thought it would be small but when I uploaded it, it was huge! I don’t know what happened. I was so surprised.

This is the step where you can make it turn out exactly the size you want it to be. It just involves a tiny bit of math.

  1. Decide what size you want your repeat to be. By “repeat” I mean the file that you will upload to Spoonflower. Spoonflower computers will repeat that file it to fill as much fabric as you want to print. Yes, you repeat your repeat. English is weird.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.25.24 PM

I decided that for this zipper bag lining, I want my repeat to be 12″ because I want to be able to see the whole thing with all of the little photos when I cut out my lining piece. That’s my design choice. You make your choice.

2. The magic number is 150.

The only thing you need to remember about resolution for this project is 150. Resolution is the number of dots (or pixels) per inch that the file needs in order to print at the size you want. Dots per inch = DPI.

Spoonflower’s printers use a resolution of 150 DPI. That’s why 150 is our magic number. That means if you set your file to 150 DPI, you will get exactly what you expect to get. That’s a rule. 150 uploaded = 150 printed. In otherwords, if I make a file that is 12 inches at 150DPI, I will get a printed design that is 12 inches. No more, no less. So how do I set up the file?

3. Figure out how many pixels that is.

Resolution is the number of pixels per inch. Since we know how many inches we need (12″) and we know how many pixels per inch (150 DPI) we can figure out how many total pixels that is. And we need to know the total number of pixels because that’s the number our graphics program will ask for.

inches x resolution = pixels

12 inches x 150 pixels per inch = 1800 pixels

That means if I want a file that will print exactly 12 inches wide, I need to make a file in my graphics program that is 1800 pixels wide.

Remember that number. 1800 pixels. Write it down on a scrap of paper.

Create a new blank file.

For this design, I am going to use a program called PicMonkey because I think it is the ideal tool for this design. It’s going to make it easy. You can use any program you want to to make your designs, but PicMonkey has some built in tools that I know will work really well for this. That’s why I picked it. It’s a free online graphics software that works right in your web browser. You don’t need to download anything.

Go to PicMonkey.com. At the top of the screen you will see a menu bar.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.44.02 PM

Click on the option on the right that says Collage.

Set up the Layout.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.22.09 PMThe reason that PicMonkey is such a great tool for this project is because of this collage tool. Look at the left sidebar on your screen for the icon that looks like a grid. If you hover your mouse over it, it will say “Layouts”. Click the Layouts button.

Feel free to explore the options in this panel! These are all of the different ways that PicMonkey can layout a collage for you.

(There are some options that are marked with a crown – those are part of the upgraded “Royale” package that PicMonkey offers, which is an annual fee of $40/year. We will use a free layout option for this project but that $40 per year membership is totally worth it. Note: I don’t get anything from PicMonkey for telling you that; it’s just my personal opinion. I just love PicMonkey.)

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.24.22 PMClick on the option called “Square Deal” out of that list and then pick the little icon at the very far right (a grid of 25 squares.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember when I told you to write down “1800 pixels”. The very next thing you want to do is set this file to be 1800 pixels. Look at the bottom center of the screen and you will see where to type that in. I put in 1800 for both the width and the height, so I will have a 12 x 12 inch square as my file size. (See how easy that was!) Hint, if you click the Lock Icon after you do this, it will keep it at this size while you are doing the next steps and rearranging things.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.32.25 PM

Add your photos.

The dotted lines in this layout represent the places I can drop in my photos and graphics to make up this design. But first I need to load them into Picmonkey.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.35.43 PMLook back again at the left sidebar. Choose the top icon that looks like a picture of mountains and is labeled “Images”. The very first thing in the panel of thumbnails will be a button (top left) that says “Open Photos”. Click that and it will pop up a window for you to find the files on your hard drive.Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.36.58 PM

A hint: It’s super helpful if you collect everything you want to use for this design and put it all together in a folder on your Desktop (or somewhere else handy). Then you can select and upload them all at once instead of needing to hunt and peck all over your computer to find what you need. Load all of the photos you want to use right now. You can click that “Open Photos” button more than once to keep adding photos.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 1.44.14 PMYou will see all of your photos pop up in the thumbnails along the left side of the screen. They don’t have to be photos. Anything in a .jpg format will work, like little graphics or screenshots. Just make sure you have permission to use them.

Now the photos are ready to use. I chose a bunch of photos of my dogs for this example.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fill in the blanks.

You can now click and drag the photos from the left sidebar and drop them in the boxes in the template on the right. If I look back to the sketch my friend made, she has photos scattered all around the design, so I am not going to fill in every box in the template, but I will leave some spaces.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 3.05.41 PMWant to vary the sizes of the boxes a little? You can click and drag to change the size and shape of the rows and columns. Hover with your mouse between a couple of boxes and you will see a double arrow pop up. You can drag with that double arrow to make the columns and rows bigger and smaller.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 3.07.20 PM

 

 

 

 

Recenter a photos? Hover over a picture and wait for your cursor to change to a 4-pointed arrow. Now you can move the photo around within the box (to recenter it).

Want to add another photo and insert an extra box into the template? Grab a photo from the thumbnails, drag it over to where you want to add it and wait for a blue outlined box to pop up. When you drop the photo it will add a new box where that blue outline was. Now there are two photos in that space.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 3.11.02 PMScreen Shot 2016-07-13 at 3.11.10 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zoom? Click any photo in the collage to see an Edit button (top left) or an “X” (top right). Click the “Edit” button and a menu will pop up that will let you zoom and rotate that photo you have selected. Click the “X” to remove the photo.

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 4.08.10 PM

How do you know if the photos you are using are going to work and not look pixellated? Pretty much it is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. I could help you do the math to check that you have enough pixels in each of these photos and so on, but honestly, if it looks blurry, or pixellated, or in any way yucky when you look at it in this step, it’s going to look that way when you print it. It’s pretty simple. Your best bet is: if it looks yucky, choose a different picture. You can’t fix blurry or pixellated.

(more…)

Go to Top