Mushroom Surface Pattern Design

Surface pattern design with whimsical mushrooms, turtles, leaves, flowers, and snails.  | mamasbrush

Mushrooms, turtles, and snails combine with leaves, berries and flowers to highlight some of the flora and fauna of the forest floor. This weeks Spoonflower Design Challenge is “Forest Biome” and I had fun bringing a touch of whimsy to my design.

Whimsical mushroom with a face.  | mamasbrush

It all started with the mushrooms. Once I had 4-5 drawn out and colored, I decided that a couple of them needed faces. I’m pleased to introduce you to Lady Mushroom (see my first animation of her over on Instagram).

The leaves were next. I wanted a variety. Those little heart branches were last and they are my favorite!

Then I needed berries… but I wanted a variety of berries for interest.

I added the turtles in honor of my 8 year old son. He loves turtles. I’m not big on realistic turtle drawing, though. My turtles often have those super unrealistically high shells. He has vaulted ceilings. 🙂

Cute snail illustration, whimsical snail with brown shell and a smile. | mamasbrush

I thought I was done, and I was really happy with the design, when my husband decided I needed to add snails. He does that sort of thing all the time.

“But I don’t want to add snails! Snails sound hard!”

Nonetheless, I added snails. And I love them. He was right. It definitely needed snails. And one of them definitely needed a face, however unscientific it may be. 🙂

Surface pattern design with whimsical mushrooms, turtles, leaves, flowers, and snails.  | mamasbrush

Spoonflower is showcasing these in their contest as wallpaper, but how would you use it? Fabric? Wallpaper? Would you turn it into a little girls dress? Or dress the walls of the kids playroom? Let me know in the comments!

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Surface pattern design with whimsical mushrooms, turtles, leaves, flowers, and snails.  | mamasbrush

Extra Special Baby Shower Gift

Custom Baby Stats Print | mamasbrush #easybabygift #beginningwatercolor #babyshowergift #sunflowerdecor #babystats #yellow

I’ve mentioned before here and here that I believe every baby needs a party! When a family already has children, instead of a full blown party, we set up a gift table at church and invite the church family to bring gifts to celebrate with and bless the family over a few Sundays.

This past July a sweet little baby was born, so with sunflowers as my theme, I sent out invitations and set up the table. This time I decided to try one of my inspiration pins. A cute little idea I’d seen over at one of my favorite illustrator’s. I think it turned out sweet.

Custom Baby Stats Print | mamasbrush #easybabygift #beginningwatercolor #babyshowergift #sunflowerdecor #babystats #yellow

I started by sketching everything out, added watercolor and finished it with my black art pens. Then I added the date and time, weight and length of the baby. 🙂 It makes me smile. We have a new member of our family, so I’m going to try this next one with my digital tablet soon!

If you like my sunflower baby stat print, would you mind pinning the image below or sharing it with other social media? I really appreciate your support!

Custom Baby Stats Print | mamasbrush #easybabygift #beginningwatercolor #babyshowergift #sunflowerdecor #babystats #yellow

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Farm Girl Diaper Cake – Every Baby Needs a Party

Okay, you’ve heard me say it before: I’m a firm believer that every baby needs a party, and this little farm girl is no exception. Three older brothers already inhabiting the family’s homestead (plus rabbits and chickens), we really had to do something in pink!

Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party

Our church budgets for throwing a baby shower for all the first born babies, and I am the one so blessed as to be in charge of most of those. I understand that there isn’t room in the budget for every baby to have a full blown party, and it isn’t in our budget either. And I understand that not everyone thinks that second and third (and forth and fifth, etc) babies need a party. But I disagree!

When I say that every baby needs a party, I do not mean that we need to break the budget each time a baby is born or throw some elaborate gathering. What I do mean is that we should celebrate each new baby as the gift from God that they are! (I feel the same way about every adoption too by the way!) Every baby is special to the family receiving him or her, and it’s my joy to make a point to celebrate with that family… and to make sure they know about it!

Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party

A number of years ago, after years of wishing something could be done for all these *not first born* babies, I had a couple ideas. First of all, what if we just set up a table and invite the church family to bring gifts for the new baby. So that’s what I do anytime a new baby is born in our church. It’s not hard, and most of the time the decorations are super simple. This time it was a table cloth, a diaper cake (made at home), and a banner. It will be up for a few Sundays to give time for people to bring in their gifts.

{Planning to share my second “idea” about how to celebrate new babies in an upcoming post… subscribe in the sidebar so you don’t miss it!}

Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party
Usually I put the new family picture where the family drawing is, but I replaced it to give the family their privacy! 🙂 [Artwork is NOT mine]

A week or so before it is up, I send out an email “invitation” to the whole church that is made in the same theme as the table. We call it a sprinkling. Most people bring diapers and wipes, but there are a few people who bring other gifts, gift cards, or a personal quilt. Gifts don’t even have to be wrapped… it’s optional.

Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party

I found the inspiration for this diaper cake on Pinterest (of course). Then I increased the size of the clipart I used in the invitation and printed it off. Some extra details from the dollar store, fabric store and around the house took it over the top. It turned out really cute (I think!)

Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party

Does your church do anything when babies are born??? It’s really easy to start this ministry… and it’s one that blesses families time and again!!

Keep a look out for the other thing I do for families to celebrate the birth of their new babies! (You can subscribe in the sidebar so you don’t miss a post!)

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Farm Girl Diaper Cake - Every Baby Needs a Party

Gathering here.

Recommended Reading:

Gender Neutral Baby Shower – Hot Air Balloons
Every Baby Needs a Party
Woodland Animal Nursery Art (and a quilt)

Dog Stuff Pattern for Fabric, Scrapbook Paper, Wallpaper, etc.

Dog Stuff Pattern for Fabric, Scrapbook Paper, etc.

I created this dog print with my sister in mind. I thought it may be cute to make a bag or a doggie bandana or a whatever. I’ll be honest, a dog person I am not, but I know that people love their dogs and I now have a new love for dog stuff. It was super fun to doodle these little dog things!

I didn’t just decide one day to doodle dog toys, food and beds. Spoonflower is at it again, pushing me out of my comfort zone and into the unknown. This time the theme is Dog Days (may as well add “of summer”, right? Maybe I should have gone a different direction with this theme?)

Dog Stuff Pattern for Fabric, Scrapbook Paper, etc.

Dog days? As a non-dog-person, I’ve never really spent a lot of time illustrating dogs. I thought about it for about a half second before disregarding the whole idea. Living things are hard, People! But their stuff… now that’s another animal all together. (See what I did there?)

So here it is, my entry for the Dog Days Design Challenge over at Spoonflower. It’s open for voting between July 18-23, 2019. Click over and check out the compitition. Oh, and vote for mine too if you like it. 🙂

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Dog Stuff Pattern for Fabric, Scrapbook Paper, etc.

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Hot Air Balloon Theme for Gender Neutral Baby Shower, Birthday Party or Event

Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

A gender neutral baby shower, birthday party, or event just lends itself to an adventuresome and colorful hot air balloon theme. I started with my own design for gender neutral nursery wallpaper, and this is exactly what we did for an expecting mama in our church a couple weeks ago.

Food Table Decor | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

I know this post has been a long time coming. Not only did I promise it was coming, but I also promised detailed prep posts. Well, that didn’t happen. Between kid sickness and normal spring busy-ness, I should have been more realistic. I was just glad to pull off the party at all. 🙂

Cake, Cloud Cookies, and Rainbow Fruit | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

One of the friends of the mama to be has a sister who makes cakes. When she volunteered her, my first thought was that I wanted to do the cake. Then I realized that if she made the cake, I wouldn’t have to and time was at a premium. I accepted and I’m so glad I did. Isn’t it beautiful. I tried to get a website for you all, but she only makes them for family and friends. If that changes some day, I’ll try to get you a link! The cupcakes are gluten free and that basket was completely chocolate! Yummm!

Cloud Meringue Cookies | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

The dish next to the cake is my take on meringue clouds. (Find the tutorial here.)

Centerpieces | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

I adapted this tutorial and borrowed heavily from several other pics on my Hot Air Balloon Party Board to create these cute centerpieces. I had my 7 year old and one of her friends spread the left over triangles around the tables for extra color.

I created these tags using my own artwork. Find my inspiration for them here.

Gift Table Under the Clouds | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

Pops of color around the room came in the form of these pendent banners and adorable paper hot air balloons. For the balloons I used these instructions from Karen Kavett and this template. At the end of the party, I cut them down and sent them home with each of the ladies who came. I suggested that they put them somewhere they would see them and remember to pray for the family and new baby. They also liked the idea to hand them from the Christmas tree to remember the event for years to come.

Party Decor | Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

The whole event really turned out beautifully. My sweet husband helped me to blow up and hang all these balloon clouds. I used this tutorial to string them together and it was pretty easy, but this one with glue would have been even easier.

What was your favorite part of this event? Please let me know in the comments! And as always, please…

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Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush
Hot Air Balloon Theme Baby Shower | Party or Event | mamasbrush

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Baby Shower Invitation – Gender Neutral Hot Air Balloon Theme

A new baby is expected this summer in our church… the first for this family. And when there is a first baby, that means a full on baby shower (as apposed to sprinklings). For this gender neutral baby shower we are celebrating with a hot air balloon theme.

Hot Air Balloon Baby Shower Invitation

After my 10 day (unplanned) blogging break, I’m back and heading into a busy week of party prep. With no time to paint this past week, there’s not much to post around here, but, if I can swing it, I’m hoping to keep you up to date on the baby shower prep this week.

For church showers, I generally design invitations digitally and the church secretary sends it as a jpg embedded into the email to the whole church. The *cuteness* factor of a *real* invitation with the simplicity (and frugality) of email.

Mom and Dad are waiting to find out whether they are having a boy or a girl so I took my inspiration from my gender neutral wallpaper design last fall — Born for Adventure! It’s been fun to use something I designed for something real again!

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Old MacDonald’s Farm Birthday Theme

Just after Thanksgiving, one of my little guys turned 5. He wanted a tractor birthday… but not a construction tractor, a farm tractor. And if he had anything to say about it, there should be a barn and a pig. Well… I had to see what I could do.

I try to do a little painting to go along with the theme of each birthday. The kids love them and have come to expect them.

I think this was my first pig. And barn and tractor and hay pile actually. I was pretty happy with them. I love that art can be art even when it’s not perfect. But I’m pretty sure my son thought it was perfect.

Hint: if you are just starting out, make stuff for your kids. They will think you are great even if you don’t! 🙂

For example… the cake. While structurally sound, it’s not the most attractive cake I’ve attempted. But, except that it was supposed to have a man on it (who went missing at the last minute) and that the cow was “supposed” to be in front of the barn (my bad), he thought it was great!

Breakfast and dinner went much better. Missing from this post is the pic of “pigs in mud” (baked beans and dogs) that we had for dinner. A nice and simple meal.

And there you have it… our Old MacDonald Birthday.

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Born for Adventure — Hot Air Balloons on Wallpaper

Hot Air Balloon Wallpaper

I submitted my hot air balloon design in the Spoonflower Gender Neutral Design Challenge.  The pic above is from Spoonflower’s website and shows it as wallpaper.

Born for Adventure Hot Air Balloons_small
This is the actual design I submitted.

Head over to vote for me if you like my design! 🙂 (Updated: Voting Closed)

Woodland Animal Nursery Art in Watercolor (and a quilt)

Watercolor Woodland Animal Nursery Art with Word Art Scripture

My sister-in-law is expecting her first baby in July and they are going with a woodland animal theme in the nursery.

And then we got the invitation for her baby shower… in California.  Yeah.  We didn’t go.  Not that I have anything against California.  I’m a California girl deep deep down.  I lived there my whole life until I got married and moved east.  But it’s far.  And far is expensive.

But we sent a gift.

Woodland Animal Baby QuiltMy oldest daughter is 10 and she got a sewing machine for her birthday last year.  I try to find real life practical ways she can practice straight lines, so I came up with a simple quilt pattern that would hide the imperfections.  I did all the cutting, her 6 year old sister helped me match the blocks, and she sewed them all together.  The whole top came together in a couple hours.  I did the rest… layering and quilting and binding.

But I wanted to paint something too.  So I started with that cute animal print in the quilt.

Watercolor Woodland Animal Nursery Art with Word Art Scripture - Ephesians 4:32

They aren’t the same… I added some of my own style into each illustration.  But I did start with the fabric print.

Raccoon - Watercolor Woodland Animal Nursery Art with Word Art Scripture - Matthew 7:8

Then I added the word.  And fit them together on the cards.

Then I picked a verse for each of them that I thought matched the character/behavior of each animal pretty well.  It was a fun part of the project.

Here they are up close so you can see the verses better:

img_3706img_3707Fox - Watercolor Woodland Animal Nursery Art with Word Art Scripture - Proverbs 1:7Squirrel - Watercolor Woodland Animal Nursery Art with Word Art Scripture - Ecclesiastes 9:10

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Twins Nursery Art

Twins were born a couple weeks ago to a lady in our church.  My plate has been stacked a bit full, so today I finally got the sprinkling table up for our church family to bring gifts.  Usually we would throw a whole party for new mamas, but it just didn’t workout for the family this time, so we opted for this instead.

I so enjoyed the nursery art I painted for the last one, that I just knew I wanted to do another.  This time we are celebrating twin boys born to first time parents.  I asked a couple months ago and found out they decorated the nursery in an ocean theme.  This is what I came up with for both the sprinkling and for the nursery art.

Ocean Theme Twins Nursery Art

Welcome, Noah and Andrew, to our church family!  We look forward to seeing you grow up and being a part of your lives!

 

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