I've been messing around with plaids because they are just colorful stripes. Which allow me to get to know the tools in Illustrator. For me, it just feels like the best place to start. This particular pattern was for a Spoonflower challenge with an Autumn Botanicals theme. Mostly it's just a very simple plaid with an acorn thrown in there...not very botanical. (What're you gonna do?) But, I'm digging the Fall colors. And since, lately, my son and I can't go for a walk without him filling my pockets full of acorns it captures something sweet. (And also annoying when I forget and do laundry.)

Spoonflower was definitely trying to get a jump on the Halloween market with their Pastel Halloween prompt. I happen to like little ghosties, so that's the direction I headed. To keep with the pastel, I chose candy corn as an extra. I thought about messing around with the ghosts' transparency, and maybe making it look like they have candy in their tummies, but I wasn't convinced that it worked. I sure have been working with a lot of pink lately, and it's always that full pepto pink (flashback to having a lot of tummy troubles as a kiddo?) It's not even a favorite color of mine. I do want to revisit this one at some point. I started to add some additional lattice shapes to the background before I ran out of time. I think the design needs just a smidge more. Plus then I could make the ghosts see-through and you'd actually be able to tell. This one isn't for sale yet at Spoonflower yet, but will be.

These were really just add-ons to some Christmas-ey prints I'd already made. But, I figured stars work for lots of things so maybe these totally basic prints can find good use. 

These are available at Spoonflower along with other matching holiday prints.

This is a throwback to one of my very first designs AKA Procreate experiments. Really, I just added mustard stripes to the background. And that was the upshot of a quick Skillshare class I took meant to improve designs with small tweaks. Ta-daaaa! 

This pattern is available at Spoonflower. And if you want to check out the OG banana prints, they're here.

This was a fun one. I've been using plaids to practice Illustrator - getting used to to the tools, etc. The Spoonflower Retro Bugs challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to he dig in on some 1970s colors. I happen to think ladybugs are cute, so chose them as my bug. And the ginghamy style has a picnic vibe that I thought worked quite well. I am going to swoop back for this one to either add a subtle shadow under each bug and also cut down the number of bugs. I'm pretty smitten with just the print sans bugs, so I'll be making that available soon too.

A Spoonflower Stone Fruit theme lead to this pattern. I wanted imperfect circles and color mixing. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it. Maybe the leaves should have been different shades of green too? I'll try it! Simplicity! Orange doesn't get a lot of play with me, so it was fun working with these shades. What is it about fruit? It's fun, right? This one is available in the Spoonflower shop in two size scales. I think it would make a very cute ruffly dress. 

Finally, I actually went back and fixed up an older design. A Garden Gnome design challenge at Spoonflower was the impetus for this one. I originally made a bandana/gnome print for a work colleague who relies heavily on gnomes for her business branding. She's also is very classic and has a soft spot for Americana/preppy style. So I thought infusing gnomes into a good old fashioned bandana print would be perfect. I'm much happier with the newer, cleaner version. Progress!

I was attempting to do a continuous image with this one. It just repeats: trees, trees, trees, mountains, starry skies, mountains. And repeat. It turned out pretty cute and as a palette I like the colors. Though, I'm not sure what I would do with it...so I'm open to ideas. A shower curtain...?

The truth is that I just like simple shapes with not a lot of depth or dimension. Buuuut,..I'm probably going to have to mature it up a bit if I'm going to get serious about designing patterns. That's for later! For now, here are some green circles fashioned to look like little slices of cucumbers. This one was for a Spoonflower "Vegetable and Herb Garden" challenge. It was hot at the time and I didn't feel much like outdoor gardens, but I did feel like a nice cool spa with cucumber infused ice water and maybe cold slices on the eyes. Basically I was dreaming of self-care and massages, and pedicures, and all the awesome things you get to do when you have time and money and there's not a pandemic going on.

This one is available in my Spoonflower shop. 

The Spoonflower theme was Moody Tropics...or something like that. I went out side my usually style and comfort zone. To save time, I used the banana leaves in my That's Bananas print as a basis. Then three on the shadow. Although that was an afterthought, so it's not as consistent as it needs to be. I wanted to try to draw dark (purple) cheetah print. Wow. This one is not at all my thing. Oh well. Fun to try new things.