Orange from abroad

Designers Claire Eglizeaud & Paul Moreau wrote from France to introduce their cool new shop, Bonjour Mon Coussin. They've created a line of graphic pillows (and it looks like they have a penchant for orange.) Have a little fun browsing right here.

And then if you need some more orange to kick off your week, watch this nutty advertisement for a Dutch supermarket giving away soccer mascots (right?). I can't understand a word, but it made me smile.
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More orphans have found a good home

These came in the mail from Barry as part of a swap. They were separated from their families at some point, these poor little Ben Seibel dishes, but we will take good care of them.
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Custom MMs

Did you know you can get personalized M&Ms? They'll print your own message, logo, or even photos on any of 22 shell colors. You can choose your own packaging, too. Fun party favors! Check it out here. Via bb-blog.
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How to make swirls in Illustrator

A handy tutorial from Bittbox for making swirls and curls.
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I'm regressing

My mom sent photos she took of old artwork hanging in her house. I did these in high school.

Here's one from college. And these days I draw like this: I've reverted back to elementary school! So funny!
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Thank you, eBay.

These wanted to come and live in my house. They felt they would be happy here.
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Your chicken says what?

Charming website! Bzzzpeek has collected recordings of children's voices imitating the sounds of vehicles and animals in their native languages. And if you want to see those in writing, click here. Via Coudal Partners.
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Coke + Olympics

Visit mycoke.com, enter, and click Beijing 2008 to see Coca Cola's cool Flash graphics, downloads, and games celebrating the Olympics. And you know how much I love the Olympics. See all the commemorative Coke cans with logos in different languages, download wallpaper with themes from various countries, decorate your own Coke bottle, and more.
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Things you can make

Fabric bird mobile from Spool Sewing
Business card holder from Amy Butler
Memory candles at Inspire Company
Serendipity tote bag at Sewing Republic
Papercraft rabbits driving cars (so funny!) at a Japanese site I can't read
Papier-maché bowls from Painted Fish Studio
DIY roman shade at A Merry Mishap

(Image from Spool Sewing)
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Paper berries and branches

A little Saturday experiment: a tiny vase of branches with origami paper berries. I can't decide if I think it's cute or just strange. Where did the inspiration for this come from, you ask?

This stick-circle theme pops up a lot. It's decades old but experiencing a resurgence. (Here, on Patricia fabric from Ikea.) The motif is based on three dimensional branches and berries found in nature, reduced to flat graphic shapes. Which I then attempted to make 3-D again. Silliness!

To make this, find a few delicate little branches (these are from some sort of pine tree). Trim them with a scissors if some of the ends are too long. Then use a circle punch (it will make your life easier) to cut out paper circles. With gel or liquid craft glue, stick the circles together, sandwiching your branch in between.

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New Flickr groups

I just created two new Flickr groups: this one for your projects inspired by this blog, and this one for your orange-themed photos. I love the orange things you guys find and email me about. Now you can share with everyone.

(Cups image above submitted by Ann Stucki.)
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Getting in the mood

To add to the fabric post, there are three things I require in order to start designing. 1) A happy-looking office—that's my seat there by the window. 2) A nice latte made with this. 3) One of my Pandora radio stations playing on my computer. Then I can settle in and get to work.
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Designing fabric

I've gotten several emails lately asking if I could talk about how I got into designing fabric. It's not a very complicated story... I was working as a graphic designer (still am) and blogging on the side for fun (still am), when Caroline of jcaroline creative sent me an email. I knew of her online shop, but didn't know her at all. Essentially she said, "I like your blog. Want to design some fabric for me?" Essentially I said, "Sure." Without having a clue how to do it.

I have a BS degree in Design Communication and have been working as a graphic designer since college. I use Adobe's Creative Suite every day, which includes Illustrator and Photoshop, so I imagined it couldn't be that hard. Other people do it, right?

So I figured out how to make repeating tiles of pattern in Illustrator, my program of choice because I like flat graphic shapes. Essentially you do it like this (the best tutorial I could find for you.) I set to work making a page of patterns, and from those Caroline selected her favorites. I designed some prints to coordinate with them. Then Caroline picked a set and I refined them until we ended up with Modern Flora, my first collection. She found a vendor to manage the printing. I sent them files and they magically turned them into screens. Yes, using magic! And then in January of 2008, Caroline and I met in Massachusetts for the print run, which was great fun.

An aside: the prepress/printing process will cost you thousands of dollars, unless you find someone to license your artwork and they foot the printing bill. Or unless you go the digital Spoonflower route, which at the time of this writing, is still in Beta. (Their minimums are tiny.) I'm curious to see their quality.

My process: If I have an idea for a pattern or interesting shape, I might spend a nanosecond sketching it on whatever piece of scratch paper is handy. Or I might not sketch it at all. I might just start making it in Illustrator. I don't have a sketchbook. Sometimes I doodle on computer paper, or notebook pages, or junk mail. Then I put it next to my computer until it's time to make it in Illustrator. Sometimes I lose it or decide to throw it away because it sucks. I don't try to make nice sketches AT ALL. Just a shorthand notation so I'll remember an idea. And then it usually turns out completely different, anyhow. I take my hat off to all you meticulous sketchers out there. I swear, if anyone saw my chicken scratchings, they would never know I used to make naturalistic pastel drawings and watercolors. How did I ever have the patience? Now I'm all about simplicity.
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Make notes to self

Thank you, Patricia Zapata, for these lovely to-do list sheets. Since these are my favorite colors, I'm just going to go ahead and pretend you made them for me. Even though you didn't. Downloadable right here by clicking the last link.
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Wonderland

I stumbled upon a Korean artist named Yeondoo Jung (via Craftzine) who has turned a collection of children's drawings into whimsical photos. I think they're amazing and crazy and delightful. See them here. Also go see the Bewitched series and make sure to read the captions.

(Images from Yeondoo Jung.)
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Free desktop wallpaper

More desktop wallpaper from Eleanor Grosch!
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In progress

In case anybody was wondering if I'm ever going to create more fabric, the answer is yes. Designing has been going on behind the scenes! Will these prints above ever see the light of day? Who knows. Just wanted to give you a peek at things in the works.
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Someone should buy this

If you're a fan of orange, you'll love this. Get it on etsy right here.
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My mind hurts

I made something else from that Japanese origami book. I photocopied some pages and a friend translated the instructions for me. (Thank you, Jamie.) I thought this would be a quick, fun little project: make a book cover with a nifty pocket in the back. It turned out to be quite hard. I had to think a whole bunch and spent a lot of time staring in bewilderment. But I got it!

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No, I like your work, honest!

I know I posted about FOUND magazine's Find of the Day before, but this one made me smile.
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In the top 50

How About Orange has made the list of the 50 most popular Blogger-powered blogs, based on Google, Technorati, Alexa and other technical rankings and statistics I don't understand. Thank you, all of you nice readers!
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Play the Color Sense Game

Take a little quiz here to discover your "color personality." You'll "discover your color preferences based on your five senses, your interests, and your style." Your results are translated into a paint color palette to help you decorate. For inspiration, you can also see rooms done in those colors.

It turns out I value warmth, friendship, freshness and balance. My primary and secondary results? Shocking:

Oh my gosh, the quiz has been reading my blog! (Do you think it just goes by which paint cans you pick in the screen shown above and ignores the rest? Let me know.)
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