Home Anniversary 2

As alluded to during yesterday’s Monthly Roundup today is a very special day here at the roost.  Two years ago today, was the day that I closed on my first house!  Happy two-year anniversary to us!  And by us I mean the house and I (and my handyman, boy toy, Colby too).  I can’t believe that just two short years ago today, I was a goofy (still am) 26 year old who realized her home ownership dreams and was ready to unleash some pent up DIY energy.

That was such a great day and I remember it like it was yesterday.  We may still have a long way to go before the house is really, truly done if there is such a thing but we can’t deny how far we’ve come in turning our 100+ year old, seventies decor nightmare into something with a little more style.  But anyway, on to the home anniversary celebration.  Last year, during Home Anniversary 1 I bought the house flowers for our anniversary; some tulips for the side yard.  And I publicly proclaimed to make it a tradition.  But that didn’t quite workout this year.  I thought of something better.  Technically, on one’s second anniversary, you give the gift of cotton.  So I thought about giving the house the gift of cotton, you know, the fabric of our lives, but didn’t REALLY get into it until I stumbled across this article in the most recent Better Homes and Gardens magazine:

By the way…I am sooooo making that cake!  It was an article about spoonflower.com, which is a site where you can design and print your own fabric.  It’s a designer’s dream!  After reading the article, I couldn’t believe I had not heard of Spoonflower before.  I must have been living under a rock!  But what a perfect home anniversary gift; design some fabric for the house.  And I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to design and EXACTLY what I wanted to make with the fabric.  I have had visions of turquoise/light sea foam colored, wide striped curtains for a solid year.  However, you can’t find fabric like that anywhere and I didn’t really want to have seams in the horizontal stripes from piecing together white fabric with turquoise fabric.  Solution…enter Spoonflower.

Thankfully I’m a whiz at Photoshop so I designed my fabric there.  But if you don’t have the program or the skills, Spoonflower recommends a number of different sites/programs you can use for free or cheap.  It’s in their info/FAQs section.  But Photoshop is totally my thing and I have it on my home computer so that was my weapon program of choice.

My design was super easy to make and took me no more than 10 minutes.  Wide, light turquoise stripes.

After flattening and minorly compressing my design, I uploaded it to the Spoonflower site using the “Create” tab.

And when designing your fabric, you don’t have to design the whole thing.  Just make a section and make it so it’s easily repeatable into a pattern or some sort of configuration.  Mine was easy to replicate since it was simple, horizontal stripes, each about a foot tall.  There’s even a grid to help you figure out your pattern and you can click on different fabrics/sizes to change the grid and see how your pattern lays out.

The hardest part of the process was deciding which fabric (they have many different blends/sizes) to purchase and how much of it I would need.  I was torn between a light, cotton and a heavier weight cotton-canvas.  In the end I chose the heavier weight since the fabric was wider than the lightweight cotton.  This meant I could make two panels of the canvas out of 3 yards instead of 6 yards of the lighter material.  In the end it wound up cheaper, but still not totally cheap.  I ordered enough fabric to make only two panels, which will go in the curtainless parlor.  Eventually I’ll order more fabric and replace the curtains in the living room with these, but I couldn’t justify spending over $200 on fabric when I wasn’t 100% certain I made the right decisions and ordered the right stuff.  I could justify spending $80 on just 3 yards, and if for some reason the fabric didn’t work out for curtains, I could figure out something to do with the fabric.  Pillows perhaps?!  So I placed my order and it’s expected to be made and shipped within the next seven days!

I’m so excited, or should I say “sew excited” (har, har, har!  Bad pun!) to get the fabric in hand and start working on my first solo sewing project.  I’m a little nervous but it should be a nice and simple first project to tackle.

Oh…and the other cool thing about Spoonflower is that once you create and order a fabric, you can then list your creation for sale on the website.  If someone else orders your design you receive “commission” in the form of PayPal dollars or Spoonflower credit.  It just fuels the addiction and keeps the vicious cycle going!  Store credit please!  I already have about five other fabric designs that I’ve had in my head for ages but have yet to track it down at the local fabric store.

Pssst…So all you readers out there who have tried Spoonflower, what do you all think?  Love it?  Hate it?  Any tips or tricks?