You’re an instagram master, right? You’ve got tons of amazing pictures just waiting to be loved by your adoring fans. We know.. What if we told you that you could take it a step further and use your amazing Instagram designs to create your own fabric so you could show it off anytime in the form of a bag, skirt or even a dress. It’s true! Would we lie to you??
First, you need to pick out a few of your favorite instagram shots. It’s best not to select too detailed a picture. Keep in mind, this is going to be a fabric design. The Picture we’ve selected to the left is a close up of some tissue paper flowers. It has great abstract detail for fabric design. Next, we uploaded the picture to Picmonkey.com. This is a great (and free) online tool that you can use for photo editing. For a measly $4.99 you can upgrade to use even more cool filters and fonts. .
Use the color adjustment tools, the filters, the overlays and play with your picture until you get something that is visually appealing. We used posterize on this picture and then played with the fade and detail until we got it to look like the picture on the left. Once you have the image the way you like it, save it to your computer. Head on over to Spoonflower.com, an amazing site that lets you design and order (or sell!) your own fabric design.
If you don’t have a spoonflower account, you will need to open one in order to save your images to your gallery. Fortunately, you can simply log on using your facebook account and voila! All done.
Now that your account is all set, the next thing you want to do is upload your picture into your photo gallery. Once it’s there, you can do all sorts of fun things to manipulate it into the fabric you want! Here are a few tips on navigating your way through: ♥ Fabric Gallery – This is where your uploaded images and will appear. ♥ Medium Options – Here, you will be able to select the type of medium you would like your pattern printed on ♥ Pattern Selections – We used mirror for the cool kaleidoscope effect! ♥ Fabric Selections – Choose your material type and amount ♥ Tool Box – This is where you can make changes, download, delete or edit your picture That’s it! Once you’ve finished, you can order a swatch (or a bunch) and either put your fabric up for sale or keep it all to yourself.
Have fun!
Tutorial: Vintage Lace Upcycled into Earring Organizer by Jeri Burtchell Who doesn’t love vintage lace? I have a passion for upcycling discarded or damaged things from long ago. I like to repurpose them into brand new functional elements that will get used and adored. In this tutorial the only tools you’ll need are a glue gun and a pair of scissors.
Materials: ● ●
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Embroidery Hoop - you can use any size hoop, but whatever you select will dictate the amounts for the rest of the materials. Vintage Lace - Pieces that are otherwise stained or have holes are an excellent choice for this project. All you need is an undamaged portion large enough to fit your embroidery hoop. Lace Trim - Enough to circle your hoop’s edge with a little overage for tucking the ends. Length of Ribbon - enough to tie a bow and leave a loop for hanging. Length depends on personal taste. Glue Gun - Mini glue gun used 1.5 glue sticks for this project Broken Necklace (not shown above) - Long enough to circle the rim of embroidery hoop Scissors
Instructions:
1. Select the area of your lace to use for your project. I like to move the hoop around to get the most interesting section framed in the circle. 2. Secure the embroidery hoop tightly. If you have a preference for how your lace pattern is displayed, remember that the hoop screw is going to be centered at the top of your finished project. 3. Trim away excess lace fabric so that you have a quarter inch sticking past your hoop frame in the back. You can tack this in place with dots of glue around the edge, but it’s not necessary if you’ve tightened the hoop sufficiently.
4. Next, grab your lace trim. Don’t cut it yet. Tuck ½” of the trim under to make a clean edge and start from the hoop’s screwed opening. Place a dot of glue there and press your folded under edge of trim into the glue, lining up the flat edge of your lace trim with the inside edge of the hoop. 5. Lay down a thin layer of glue in 3” sections and press the lace trim into place as you go, following the path of the inner edge of the hoop. 6. Stop about 1” before you reach the end of the circle. Trim the lace with ½” extra, then tuck the ½” and glue into place.
7. Go around the edge again, laying down 3” of glue and pressing your string of broken necklace into place (TIP: If possible, leaving it strung makes easy work of bead handling).
8. Before you cut your ribbon, thread it under the screw clamp and tie a bow. You can tie this as many times as you like until you have the bow / loop combo that you find most appealing.
9. When satisfied with the way it looks, cut the ribbon.
10. Hang your earrings, then hang on the wall.
Jeri blogs at lovemetwiceboutique.blogspot.com and sells her lovely purses at etsy.com/shop/lovemetwiceboutique.
Product photography Tips: Composition There are no rules in photography, only guidelines. Here, I will share with you some guidelines that will help in creating a good photo. 1) Rule of thirds The rule of thirds is fundamental to photography. If you have taken any photography courses or read photography magazines, you would have come across this. This guideline is based on the idea that our eyes are naturally drawn to object that is about two-‐thirds from the edge of a picture.
Let’s imagine a box with nine grids. Now, breakdown your image into nine smaller boxes based on the grids, three on top, three in the middle and three at the bottom. The rule of thirds states that the focus of the image has to be about two-‐thirds from the edge of the picture, which is represented by the blue crosses in this image. Note how I have placed the top of the vase 2/3 from the bottom of the picture. Using the rule of thirds in product photography is pretty straightforward because there is only one item that you want your buyer to focus on. However, when you need to showcase your products, it may get a little complicated. This is where simplicity matters.
2) Simplicity Simplicity of the composition is one of the keys to draw the buyer’s eyes to your product. For e.g. in this image, the buyer’s eyes are immediately drawn to three products. The buyer will not be able to know which product you are selling. Is it the vase? Is it the tea towel? Or the bowls?
By removing the vase and the tea towel, the viewers are immediately drawn to the bowls.
3) The Diagonal rule This is the easiest of the three guidelines mentioned in this tutorial. Arranging products diagonal to each other helps draw the viewer’s eyes to the main focus of the image, which is your product. Not only that, diagonal arrangement adds depth and suggests perspective to the image.
That’s all from me in this issue. I hope you will find these guidelines useful when photographing your products. But remember, rules are meant to be broken, so follow your heart, and enjoy the process! I am a travel and fine art photographer living in Singapore. I am also the owner of AngsanaSeeds Photography (www.angsanaseedsphoto.etsy.com). AngsanaSeeds Photography is about a journey of discovery. Through photography of nature, landscape, and black and white montage during my travel, I hope to share the beauty of God's creation and our interaction with the world that He has created for us.
MATERIALS: J. & P. COATS "KNIT-CRO-SHEEN," Art. A.64: 1 ball of No. 70 Blue Jewel ... A few yards of No. 12 Black ... Milwards Steel Crochet Hook No. 7 ... A piece of yellow felt ... A bone ring. Starting at top of Cage with Blue Jewel, ch 2. 1st row: 5 sc in 2nd ch from hook. Ch 1, turn.
2nd row: 2 sc in first sc, sc in next 3 sc, 2 sc in next sc. Ch 1, turn. 3rd to 24th rows incl: 2 sc in first sc, sc in each sc across, 2 sc in last sc. Ch 1, turn. 25th and 26th rows: Sc in each sc across. Ch 1, turn. 27th row: Dec 1 sc —to dec 1 sc, work off 2 sc as 1 sc— sc in each sc across to within last 2 sc, dec 1 sc. Ch 1, turn. Repeat last 3 rows until 25 sc remain on last row. Break off. Attach Black and sc in each sc across. Ch 1, turn. Sc in each sc across. Break off. Cut out felt bird, pin in place. BAR (Make 4) ... Cut 3 strands of Black about 10 inches long. Sew in place over Bird to shape top and bot-tom of Cage. Embroider bird's eye, feet and stick with Black, embroider bill with a scrap of Flamingo. With Black make a chain to reach across widest part of Cage, sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each ch across. Break off. Sew in place. Cut 3 strands of Black to reach around outer edge of Cage. Sew in place as before. Make another piece the same way. Add quilt batting between pieces. With Black sc closely around bone ring. Join and break off. Sew to top of Cage.
Vintage crochet pattern courtesy of freevintagecrochet.com
BOOKISH The ConstantlyAlice Fall Line
Head into fall in vintage style with pretty tartan skirts, warm wool sweaters and lovely dresses and coats!
All clothing can be found at ConstantlyAlice.com
Thanks to: Our beautiful models, Shannon, Maddie, Jules, Sarah and Emily and The Gilman Library in Alton, NH for the use of their facility!