I decided to use the same website for my Christmas gifts as I did for my purple geode dress – Spoonflower, but making my own designs to be printed on the fabric.

I used GIMP, a photo editing software, to trace some of my own pictures and clip art to make the designs. I used a picture of a clematis flower on my porch to do some tests.

And I did a little abstract design of the graptosedum california sunset succulent I had over the summer, too.

I decided to spend the majority of my time on the designs instead of the construction, so I made some simple zipper bags out of the fabric I printed. I have a drawing pen with a tablet that connects to my computer, so I don’t have to draw with the mouse. I start out by tracing a thin outline of the shape, then a thicker and smoother outline. Then I color in the subject and do a background, usually very blurry so that there aren’t any apparent lines when it repeats. GIMP has a feature to offset the design so it will tile, so I use that and make sure that there aren’t any weird empty spaces that would be obvious in the fabric.

I did a design of bats for one of my friends, and lined the bag with a Dungeons and Dragons inspired fabric that someone else designed.

My other friend has a ton of cat themed stuff, but she also owns some geckos! So I wanted to do a bag with some geckos on it. I used a clipart picture of a gecko and made the markings match her specific gecko 🙂 I blurred out some wood clipart for the background. I used some old cactus fabric for the inside, since we’re both plant parents 🙂

One of my friends lives in a different state and I wanted to make her something Colorado themed, so I made some mountains on the Colorado flag and added a bike.

For my secret santa gift in my friend group, I used a picture of my friend’s dog to make two different prints for the exterior and interior of the bag.

Projects completed December 2020.