Sea Life Bedroom

May 14, 2019 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Sea Life Bedroom | Kid Ocean Bedroom ideas fabrics color palette
When my son was small, he loved all the creatures in the sea. He carried around plastic whales, sharks, sea turtles and knew the names and types of all of them. The ocean is a wondrous place! I’m so pleased to announced my latest collection of fabric celebrating life in the sea. Have fun with the blue and turquoise palette I’ve created. Mix and match the fabrics. Add a sprinkling of the coral and mustard accent colors as desired. Enjoy picking out ocean inspired accessories to add to your room.

The Sea Life fabric can be ordered from my Spoonflower shop.

Want ready made – order bedding, window panels, and more? Order from Roostery. Wallpaper is available too!

Add sea life art to your child’s walls. This shark print is a available for download in my Etsy shop. Download and print at home, or send to a local or online print shop.

Look at some of the fun sea life accessories I found on Amazon. Click the image to learn more.

I’d love to see your room design! Tag me on Instagram @eileenmckenna.

This posts contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission whenever you buy using these links, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

Crown and Bunny Fabrics

March 8, 2018March 5, 2018 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Crown and Bunny fabrics Here are two new fabric designs – Purple Royal Crown and Easter Bunnies. Purple Royal Crown was designed using an illustration I created back when Prince William and Kate had their first baby. I was recently inspired to create the pattern after watching The Crown on Netflix. Awesome show! The Easter Bunnies fabric was also created from an illustration in my sketchbook. You can see my growing collection of fabrics in my Spoonflower shop.

Want a dose of creative inspiration? Sign up for my newsletter “My Creative Collection” by clicking here. Learn more here.

My collection of seascape paintings is growing! Visit shop.eileenmckenna.com to see!

Designing Fabric Print Patterns – the first of 2018!

January 10, 2018 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Pineapple Party fabric print #fabric #pineapples
I’ve been designing fabric prints since 2015. To date I have 28 designs available in my Spoonflower shop. When I approve the swatch of this new “Pineapple Party” print it will be 29!

I first started designing patterns in 2015 with my “pattern a month project,” although I didn’t upload them all to my shop. In 2016 without the deadline of “one a month,” I designed them sporadically. I went back to my “one a month” project in 2017 to motivate myself and uploaded 12 new designs, plus 4 variations of other designs.

Recently I was flipping through my old sketchbooks and found watercolor pineapples, already arranged like a pattern. I grabbed my favorite black gel pen, added some black lines, scanned it, and played with the arrangement in Photoshop to create my repeat. I uploaded the repeat file to Spoonflower and am excitedly waiting for a swatch!

Read this post to learn how to turn art into fabric print patterns.
and

“Turn Your Artwork Into A Fabric Print Pattern” on doodlewash.com.

Want a dose of creative inspiration? Sign up for my newsletter “My Creative Collection” by clicking here. Learn more here.

Have you visited my online shop? Prints of my seascapes are available on watercolor paper or canvas, in many sizes including the new “mini” canvas 11″ x 14″ at shop.eileenmckenna.com. Take a peek!

This post contains affiliate links to products/brands I use and recommend. I earn a small commission whenever you buy using these links, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting my blog!

Fabric Design

June 4, 2017June 2, 2017 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Fabric designs by Eileen McKenna. Available for purchase at https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/eileenmckenna I enjoy designing fabric prints and love getting an email from Spoonflower that says someone ordered one. I’m excited to design some new fabrics with summer as inspiration. I have a few collaborations in the works, and am looking forward to seeing some of these fabrics put to use. If you sew, please contact me if you are interested in collaborating.

All fabrics are available for sale at Spoonflower.com.

Gardening Fabric Print

March 2, 2016 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Sunday was so warm, we could almost imagine working in the garden. Which reminds me … I recently uploaded my “Love Gardening” print to Spoonflower. I love the little swatch I ordered! I’ve been pinning ideas for projects I could make with the print. See my Pinterest board here.

Since my sewing skills are nil, I really need to team up with a sewing blogger. It could be a mutually beneficial relationship – I’ll design the prints, and you sew them into something great! Let me know if anyone is interested, or knows someone. 🙂

The “Love Gardening” print is available as fabric, gift wrap, and wallpaper! Click here to check it out.

Valentine’s Day Patterns

January 22, 2016 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Last February I designed my second pattern, ever, in the Valentine’s Day theme. As I continued throughout the year, designing more patterns, my style evolved and my techniques changed. I wanted to design another pattern, this year, in the same theme, to see how I would approach it differently. Even though last year’s design was created with hand drawn elements – it was painted digitally.

Last year’s pattern:

Learn more about that process here.

This year I painted, in watercolor, several squares in pinks and reds. I thought it would be interesting to arrange them as tiles. The squares would be uneven and irregular because they were hand painted. Then (separately) I painted several hearts and the word love. In Photoshop, I arranged the watercolor squares, and “knocked” the hearts and words out of the squares, and created a repeating pattern.

The original artwork:

This year’s Valentine’s Day Pattern:

I got extremely enthusiastic about my design and, even though I haven’t purchased a single Valentine’s Day gift, I ordered a roll of gift wrap from Spoonflower.com. I either have to start shopping for things to wrap, or start crafting. Hmmm, I have some ideas!

Bananas for Monkeys

January 21, 2016 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

When I was little I wanted a pet monkey so badly. I told my mom, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it in the closet when we go out.” As if that was the least of her worries. I doubt monkeys were on the approved pet list in my NYC suburb.

The latest Spoonflower design challenge is “Year of the Monkey.” A couple of weeks back, I played around in my sketchbook, but nothing great emerged. But, I couldn’t get the contest out of my mind. So, with just a couple of days left until the deadline, I started sketching again. See my sketches here and what I’m learning about surface design.

It feels great to follow through and enter the contest. Before I started “My Creative Resolution” in 2014, I was notorious for having an idea and not following through, especially if my first draft wasn’t successful.

If you’d like to check out the other “Year of the Monkey” submissions, or vote for someone you know’s design (wink wink) click here. 🙂

Learning the keys to successful surface design

January 14, 2016January 14, 2016 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

At the end of last year, I had just started ordering my pattern designs in wrapping paper and fabric. It’s totally different, to not only see the pattern printed, but then work with the gift wrap and fabric. As I wrapped presents in my designs and other designs, I became aware of things that I never noticed before. Most importantly that a lot of the designs have some elements that are upside down and some right side up. This way, there is no correct side.

Over the summer, when I ordered fabric in my sandcastles design, I experimented with making it into a pillow. I realized how important the size of the repeat is. If it is too big, and you try to make a small pillow (or wrap a small present), then most of the design gets cut off.

These are things you don’t notice when you are creating on the computer. As I continue to pursue surface design this year, my goal is to not only design patterns, but have them printed as gift wrap or fabric, and (most importantly) create something with them – to be the end user. I think it’s the best way for me to learn how to make successful designs.

Earlier this week I tweaked last year’s Valentine’s Day design and ordered a swatch (see above). Specifically, I changed how the pattern repeated. I’m am excitedly waiting it’s arrival! I am also working on a second Valentine’s Day themed pattern, that has more of a watercolor feel.

Original Repeat:

To see the 12 patterns I designed in 2016, click here.

My 12 Surface Designs – one a month this year!

December 13, 2015 | Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

I’m really proud, and happy, that I followed through on my goal to start creating surface designs. I designed the first one in January, and decided to commit to “1 Surface Design a Month.” That goal, and the end of the month deadline, really pushed me to put in the work.

12 Surface Designs
January – Art Supplies

February – Valentine’s Day

March – Gardening

April – Dahlias

May – Sandcastles

June – Echinacea

July – Shells

August – Ice Cream Cones

September- Feathers

October – Leaves

November – Nutcrackers

December – Toy Soldiers

I’m always asking you, “What’s your favorite?” And I would love to hear, but I’ll also tell you my favorites.

I really liked when I started using the technique of creating the ink lines and watercolor backgrounds separately and then merging them in Photoshop. I started this with the shell pattern. I think the watercolor really adds a depth that you can’t get with Photoshop brushes. I started this technique with the shells, and continued it with the leaves – which is my favorite design in this style.

My other technique is drawing the elements in my sketchbook and adding color in Photoshop. My favorite design, using this technique, is the Toy Soldiers. They are just so cute!

Will I be continuing with surface design in 2016? Absolutely! As you know, I’ve made the Nutcracker and Toy Soldier patterns available on Spoonflower, where you can have them printed as fabric or gift wrap. It is really interesting to see the designs printed and to think about how it will be used. It makes you think about the design, and what works and doesn’t. It’s a different perspective than just seeing it flat on the computer screen.

In the new year, I’ll be adding a few of the other “12 designs” onto Spoonflower. And I plan to continue designing one new one a month!

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