{Textile Republic}

Textile Republic is a unique interactive community. Founded by Kimberley and Brian Osborne in the spring of 2007 to promote the work of aspiring textile designers across the globe. Textile Republic not only presents a forum for designers to show off and display their talent, but also provides them with a real chance to earn money for their designs. Every 4 to 6 weeks Textile Republic will select the most creative and popular (based on user voting) patterns to be printed and will be used to create a line of fabrics, clothing, wallpaper, stationery, and other merchandise. Designers whose patterns are selected to be printed and sold by Textile Republic receive $1,000 cash for their design and a 5% royalty on profits. They are currently seeking design submissions for their upcoming competition entitled, "Preppy with a Twist" that ends December 1st, 2008. Here are a few samples of what designers have already submitted. I couldn't think of a better way to start off a new week than with some healthy design competition!

Photos & Designs by Textile Republic}

{New Day}

I woke up this morning wondering if last night was all just a dream. Happily it was not. I don't know about you but after last nights election outcome I have had a lightening of the spirit that has stuck with me all day. I realize that one person cannot change the outcome of the world. But I know it takes just one person to get things rolling in the right direction and a special person to awaken others to take action for the greater good. It is truly a new day.

{Jewelry Workshop}

Over the past few weeks I've been really into making and remaking jewelry tailored to fit me and my petite frame. It seems like everything these days just seems to be getting bigger and bigger in scale and size that most things in the store just drown me. So I've been taking jewelry apart with the help of my trusty tool kit from Michael's. My aunt came over the other day and saw what I was working on and asked me if I could lead a workshop on how to resize and restructure jewelry. I happily replied yes and am now in the process of organizing a girls get together to demonstrate some techniques. I am by no means an expert by any measure but through trial and error and lots of practice of the years have learned ways on how to make jewelry work in my favor. Here are some of the things that I have remade recently. Happy voting to you all today!

{Photos by EV}

{Spirit of the Season}

I happened to find these while poking around OK Great's blog. There's actually a site dedicated to creating these crafty politico pumpkins over at Yes We Carve.

{Design Freebies}

Head over to Mujka Design shop for free delightful design downloads like these contemporary & vintage swatches. Aren't they lovely? Design makes me uber excited!

{Book Wishlist}

I am overcome by all these great patterns & designs from the Simply Pattern book from Victionary. Its a great collection of patterns that are showcased on fabric, products, interiors and installations in this book. Which makes it a definite pick for my book wish list. Any recommendations for tasty eye candy design/type/illustration books like this one?

{Photos by Victionary.com}

{Online Publishing Options}

With so many free online publishing resources they present creative people the chance to showcase a body of work in a convienent and professional way. They certainly seem to be one of my driving forces to getting my commerical photo and design work shown to a wider audience.

Last year I used Blurb to create 7 x 7" softback books of my photo styling portfolio to send to styling agencies (this was when I was considering looking for representation in photo styling). I worked for weeks to create this book and mailed a few off to see what might happen. (p.s. there is no feeling like sending your work out into the world to see what opportunities might arise from it). After two interviews with agents I found that this was not the right time in my life to make this leap into the freelance world, perhaps someday. Netherless, I got to meet some great people in the commercial photo industry and was able to get a feel for the pros and cons about working with an agent. So to summarize, Blurb is a great free book software that offers you a chance to upload and format your professional looking books to keep or send out into the world.

I've been focusing my energies on doing this same type of thing again but this time with the help of ISSUU. ISSUU is a publishing media that gives its users the opportunity to publish professional looking online magazines minus the professional price tag. It seems to be the YouTube for print. Check it out for yourself. Browsing through the open library is like hanging out in the aisles of Barnes & Noble. I'm still working out some kinks but here are a few cover pages for my ISSUU mag that I have been working on. What do you think of the graphics? Should I keep them or dump them? I think the grease pencil markups add to the design of the pages and are meant to refer to the editing process that makes this whole thing (eventually) come together.