Personalised Wedding

Personalised printed wedding bunting

Spring is finally here and summer is around the corner....for some it's that time of year when people all over the world tie the knot, get hitched, elope and say I do all in the name of love! 

Yes it's Wedding Season and now more than ever couples want to add that personal touch to that special day. With so many decisions to make and things to plan here are a couple ideas on how to personalise aspects of your wedding.

Not to forget the lucky couple here are some great ideas to create a unique gift list- yes it's in Australia but lots of couples plan honeymoons to the great land of OZ so why not think big...

Champagne Dreams

http://www.champagnedreams.com.au/product/helicopter-true-blue-mountains-experience/

From helicopter rides over the Blue Mountains to a chocolate indulgence for couples there is something to suit all budgets.... 

Create that gift list with a difference!

For couples who are concerned about ethical and sustainable gifts how about using personalised Jute bags for favours and/or placing table gifts and name placings within them. They are great for filling with toys to keep little hands busy during any speeches.

Available in a range of colours and feature the Love Birds design by Dawn Sheridan. 

This design is also available as cards for invites... visit...http://folksy.com/items/3147086-My-Fluttering-Heart

https://www.facebook.com/sheridanart

Folksy have a great feature for the handmade wedding here...http://folksy.com/themes/handmadewedding

Happy wedding planning....

Getting your own designs digitally printed on fabric

Ever wanted to take your designs to the next level? Have a fabric project but can't quite find the fabric you want? I'm going to explain how you can do it with basic computer know how with the help of Spoonflower as the fabric provider of choice.

As a printmaker and illustrator I see the benefits of both traditional methods such as screen printed and relief printed images onto fabric but I also appreciate not everyone has access to the facilities to use these methods. For the purpose of this post we are going to look at how this can be achieved by using digital methods.

Firstly, if you have your own image (copyright owned of course) that you would like to use you need to capture the image so that you have a high resolution- this basically means that it is nice and crisp and won't blur if enlarged. I scan mine but some people use photos, but in our British weather is not always possible. OK so here is the 'how to' part....

1- Scan image at 300dpi JPEG or similar file format (I use a local printers they charge a small fee)

2- Using a simple image editing programme such as Adobe or Paint.net is a free one chop off any spare space around the image, delete any small imperfections. If you don't really like using the computer much I suggest before you scan your image use a good old fashion rubber and cut the image to size, then you can skip this bit!

3- Upload the image to the spoonflower website and hey presto- repeat it, mirror it and do what you like using their image editor to get the fabric you want. http://www.spoonflower.com (No I am not getting paid for advertising!)

Here are some examples of the fabrics taken from my lino cut designs and repeated in Spoonflowers website.... Have a go it's easier than you think...

Digital Printed Fabric

Why Digital?

I wanted to experiment by using my lino cut designs by repeating and reducing the images to create a design for fabrics. Was there a way to get my designs in multi-colour/smaller/larger etc? I could use the lino itself but there are a few factors which influenced my choice. Lino is great for printing one or two images upon fabric after that screen printing is a much more economical process in terms of time and possible errors when wanting to print a large area and meters of fabric. For the best visual design, depending on the size of the lino when using digital you can adapt the design very easily. For example when carving an image which you would like to repeat and turn it will only face one direction and you would have to carve another if you would like the two images to mirror each other.

So I started to explore what other options there are for fabric design. Spoonflower seems popular but I wondered what is out there a bit closer to home and whether Spoonflower is worth all the hype? So far I have found a few companies based in the UK, so it is a limited investigation so far but most quality ones have swatch testing and colour matching, here are the ones I have sampled so far...

Price:

HTS Web Site   Under 10 meters around £31 per meter on Linen not including postage. Over 10meters then it goes down to £23 per meter without postage.
Liberty Press Web Site   Small quantities £23 per meter on canvas cotton includes postage.
Spoonflower Web Site   Small quantities £18 per meter on linen/cotton mix includes postage.

As you can see it is tricky to beat Spoonflower on price, but what about quality?

Quality:

Colour matching- HTS offer the best quality in terms of fabric and best match to my colour design, the Linen is a natural colour and lovely and heavy perfect for cushions. After them Spoonflower were a close second and unfortunately Liberty came a poor last. After a cool wash the Liberty Press fabric was a real disappointment, patchy and faded! The Liberty Press fabric arrived within a day but I won't be ordering more. Such a shame as the Liberty Press site is easy to use and they offer wall paper and scarf design service which I can not pass comment on.

After washing @30 degrees reduced spin cycle-Liberty Press- Left side.

Compare that with the quality of what you can achieve by hand, even after washing it is light fast.

Lino relief printing

OK so you could hand wash the Liberty Press fabric but it still can't compare to hand printing.

If you like the idea of using a British based company and are going to order several meters of fabric then HTS would be a good starting point, with good customer service and quality fabrics, if however you only want a meter or so then Spoonflower is a great option if you are in no rush for the fabric as it takes 3 weeks minimum to arrive to the UK.

I never realised how complicated it would be just to get my designs onto fabric, there are lots of types of printed fabric and as a savvy customer I like to know my options! You really need to have an idea of the types of printing that is available, this page was helpful in developing my understanding... Types of Digital Printing:  I think as digital printing develops it will become more readily available to the end user but as for now it really is only affordable in the UK on larger quantities. 

So for me Spoonflower came out on top but I think, after all the best results for me, in terms of colour and fastness has to be using the Lino directly! Full circle! I think I will be having a go at screen printing also so I will keep you posted on my results. I have just found a gorgeous heavy Russian Linen so I can't wait to print on that :) Here are samples of my hand printed cushions...

Please feel free to share your explorations into digital printing...

Hand Printed Cushions

I hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Year!

A new year a new project for me and my deadline is tight which is one of the reasons I am very cross with myself! What's the saying, "Less haste, more speed!" I don't like negative posts as I am a positive person and negativity is never productive but a problem shared and all that...

A Lesson Learned:

Always Plan Thoroughly!

I have been making hand printed fabric for some prototype cushions and took time to sew the cushions first, adding piping and everything, printed on lovely 100% linen!

Because I decided to make envelope cushions I had a nice thick seam on the back which would cross where the image would be printed. If I had planned and printed first this would have been avoided! I should know better-slaps back of the hand! Well, in reality I can make another and mistakes are there to be learnt from but time lost I can't get back. Hopefully others can learn from my mistake!

unacceptable uneven image

On the upside I was able to print some other images onto fabric... on a natural mixed cotton:

3 pigeons in plum

Watch this space as I will be printing more of the Red Doves until I am completely happy with the result.