This January I Rather Like..

Charming Colours

A lovely collection of images to illustrate a current colour story...





A motorbike from San Fran, a beautifully laid table featured on Flickr, a car from Italy and bridesmaid dresses from Etsy!

Fashion Favorites

Summer is on it's way and I'm dreaming of a new wardrobe..
So I thought I'd share my FAVORITE fashion companies with you.

Cotélac is a French brand. Beautiful shapes and fabrics. I have a lovely skirt I bought from one of their Paris stores, and I've had it for 4 years now! I still wear it regularly and get many a compliment.



Wunderkind is based in Germany. One day my wardrobe will stock a Wunderkind dress! Or two. Absolutely gorgeous prints and daring shapes. They are always right on trend.. but in their own unique way.



And to end on an local note-
A very recent find is the lovely Irish company Charlotte & Jane. Their playful dresses are inspired by the 1950s, a wonderful mix of quirky and classic. You choose the print and style and send them your measurements. Now I know where I'll be getting a new dress to celebrate the arrival of summer from! I just have to make the tricky decision of which one..

A rather lovely file

A lovely way of starting new work is to research online for specific images that evoke the style and mood you want to create in a design. You just have to remind yourself to stop! It's a great reference for when you are working away on your design and you begin to forget the feelings you wanted to evoke. This lovely jumble is some of my style/mood images for a print I'm working on..

All thanks to ffffound, etsy, notcot, style.com and my very own camera.

Apparel Resource

For printing onto garments American Apparel is the answer. Plenty of 100% cotton basics in lovely shapes; t-shirts, tank tops and even skirts, to satisfy all your garment printing wants! I just picked up a few t-shirts and tank tops for a new batch of screen printing:) Using stencils (see 'LiveLaughLove tea towel' post) and stamps (the creation of which I promise to cover in a future post) with fabric paint, you can just as easily create your own bespoke prints for garments. Remember to resist the lovely ribbed garments though- you need flat fabrics for printing.

American apparel garments are produced in LA, so no 'made very far away and unfairly labels' in sight. The higher the percentage of cotton, the longer the happy life ahead of the garment, so aim for 100% cotton, unless the garment is completely irresistible! Depending where in the world you are buying, online can be cheaper. I wouldn't shy away from checking out garments in a shop and then purchasing it online if the difference is considerable. Definitely the way to go if you are buying quite a few items, as the shipping charge will be less.

But be warned! Their modeling shots can be rather cheeky, and much too much so on some pages. You could be looking at dresses and suddenly it turns very risque. Just so you know! The garments are great but the site can be scary! The t shirts and tank tops are fairly safe.