Good use of Bandanas: Furoshiki Gift Wrapping

I recently saw a Youtube video from HGTV about Furoshiki Gift Wrapping, which is the Japanese way of wrapping things with fabric instead of paper. It is great because if you are doing this to wrap a present it adds a unique touch, it gives the person you are gifting a bonus little present, plus it is reusable, making it a great way to be eco friendly this christmas.

Bandanas or smaller sized scarves are the perfect size to do this with! It is recommended that you use a 20" x 20" square if you are going to be wrapping a relatively smaller gift, but you could even use a scarf if you want to wrap something even bigger ( plus a nice artsy scarf would make a really great bonus gift!)

Here is the HGTV video, showing two unique ways to wrap a gift Furoshiki style:

Zazzle carries a perfect sized bandana for this project, at 19.5" x 19.5", and there are tons of designs to choose from - I have put some of my favourite designs on these as well! Not only can you choose from a bunch of great designs, they are also customizable, allowing you to add a monogram, name, phrase or even just change the background colour of your bandana. They are made from 100% polyester & are very soft & light. People who have purchased them on Zazzle have given them an average review of 4.8/ 5 stars, they love these bandanas and the print quality is vibrant and beautiful. After using them as a replacement for wrapping paper, the recipient of this unique present can use these as a creative headband, mini scarf, dog neck tie for their pet, or to wrap their own lunches Japanese style!

Here are some of my favourite bandanas from my shop!

Soft Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern Bandana by TanyaDraws
Check out Optical illusion Bandana online at zazzle

This is a lovely pattern for any textile - it repeats seamlessly and can be resized to  completely change the look of the pattern. The lavender undertones in this bandana makes this a great choice if you are furoshiki wrapping a lavender or purple themed gift, or gifting this to someone who loves the colour purple. :)

Whimsical Tropical Watercolor Pineapple Pattern Bandana by TanyaDraws
See head kerchiefs online at Zazzle

My watercolour tropical pineapple design is one of the most popular ones in my shop! You can change the background colour to be whatever you want, and even add a name or initial in the corner. This trendy & chic design would make a lovely headband, or a great furoshiki wrapping for a tropical themed gift!

Joyous Green & Purple Jagged Geometric Pattern Bandana by TanyaDraws
Find another do-rag at zazzle.com

This is a super bright & retro pattern that reminds me somehow of video games! The layers of colours in this look really great in bandana form and would give any present wrapped furoshiki style an angular look.

European Robin Elegant Watercolour Pattern Bandana by TanyaDraws
Browse more head kerchiefs at Zazzle

My most recent design is this European Robin design! These robins are very different from the ones we usually see in America, and are so beautiful. I was happy to make them the subject of my pattern! Originally painted in watercolours and then transferred to a digital format to turn into a pattern, these robins are very cute, chic and vintage inspired. Change the background colour of this bandana to personalize it! 

Ornate Hand Drawn Black & White Owl Pattern Bandana by TanyaDraws
Find another kerchief at zazzle.com

This owl drop pattern bandana is contrasty & bold, and is finished off with a circular black and white monogram in the bottom corner! This pattern is perfect for the animal lover, and has a great hand drawn look to it. Personalize the monogram with an initial for whoever you are gifting this to! 

Amount of times I almost wrote banana instead of bandana: 5

Milestone : 100 sales on Zazzle + Zrank thoughts

100th sale!!!

This is an exciting time for my Zazzle shop! Last Monday, on the 7th of December, my Zazzle shop reached 100 sales! I am SO excited. Back when I started my shop last December, I didn't imagine I could have sold this much in a year. My shop grew much faster than I thought it was, and I have my customers and all the referrers on Zazzle to thank for that! I am so glad you enjoy my artwork, & I am excited to continue adding new and exciting designs to my shop in the new year.

This was the 100th item : A cat to be kitten me right meow mug, that went to someone in Canada! That was really exciting because I hardly ever get sales from my home country. 

I hope they enjoy this mug for Christmas!

Cat to be Kitten Me Right Meow Ringer Coffee Mug by TanyaDraws
Browse other Cat to be kitten me Mugs

Zrank

Other than that, I have been working on some new designs, and sprucing up some old ones that are in my Zazzle shop. If you are an artist at Zazzle, you are probably now aware of the "Zrank" changes that were made to the marketplace. Very soon, your Zrank will have a direct effect on where your items show up in the marketplace on Zazzle. Zazzle has stated that on top of deleting old designs to raise your Zrank score, your titles, descriptions and tags must be unique to possibly boost that as well... which is a slightly ridiculous thing for a print on demand who encourages us to add our designs on hundreds of items to demand... but anyways.

I decided to do a little bit of an experiment to see if I can raise my Zrank by changing, adding & removing words in each of my titles, making every single title unique. I have gone through almost all of the 2600 product titles in my shop over the past few weeks, and I have seen no change so far in my Zrank. It has been stuck at 4 since Zrank started! Perhaps unique titles don't play that much of a factor in Zrank scores. While I was going through my titles, however, I did realize that many of them weren't using the full character count, so adding more descriptive words to my titles isn't the worst thing I could be doing, so I am going to continue on, even though it seems like only changing titles will not score me a higher Zrank. I am determined to find a way to increase Zrank without deleting items however, so after I finish up creating unique titles for every item, I will work on descriptions and tags next. I will keep this blog updated if I do see my rank change, maybe finding something that has a positive impact on my score will help others also increase their score without deleting many items from their shop.

Is there anyone else thinking of creating unique titles to possibly help their Zrank? Creating unique titles is difficult. Since I didn't use the full word count in most of my titles, all I had to do was add descriptive words somewhere in each of my titles. Here are some things I brainstormed to create unique titles:

- British spelling vs American spelling of things: Where I could, I would alternate the spelling of Watercolour to watercolour, colours to colors (also used variants of colour, like colourful, coloured, colours, colourized) , symbolised vs symbolized etc. Different spellings of words actually count as separate words in the marketplace, so using both spellings throughout your titles, descriptions & tags might actually get your work seen by more customers from different countries. Here is a list of a bunch of american vs british spellings of things!

- Descriptive words: You might consider adding words to describe the feel or type of artwork you made to the title. I brainstormed over 150 words to go through and place in each of my designs titles. These 150 words can make 5 pages of identical titled items unique. What I did first was find some generic words that I often use to describe my artwork: cute, beautiful, painted, trendy, unique, vintage, etc. Then I went to the thesaurus and found words that could be used in place of these words. I ended up with things like adorable, charming, cutesy, decorative, fabulous, gorgeous, etc. Some of these words might not be words that people type in often, but if you aren't using the full word count on your title anyways it does not make a difference. I found this adjectives list at Moms who think an especially helpful resource when I ran out of words to describe my art.

-Alternate the British spelling & American spelling & pair with descriptive words: From my understanding, Cute Watercolour Bird Pattern and Cute Watercolor Bird Pattern should be unique titles, because of how different spellings don't come up as the same word in the marketplace. Doing this allows you to use the same descriptive word twice on titles where you can have an american and british spelling.

- In some cases where I had over 5 pages of items with the same title, I had to get really creative and started using numbers, in the different ways I could say them.  An example is my turtle design where it is only one turtle on a product, I started using titles like "Uno Green Watercolour Ink Drawn Turtle" "Single Green Watercolour Ink Drawn Turtle" "One Green Watercolor Ink Drawn Turtle" or "A Green Watercolour Ink Drawn Turtle", making them all unique.

Again, I have no clue if this is actually going to help Zrank or not, I am only trying it because Zazzle seems to want us to have unique titles, and I don't think deleting artwork is a good idea. :)

That is all for now, I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season so far!!

Products sold in November

Hey guys, here is a collection of items that sold in my redbubble & zazzle shops this past month! Thank you for buying, & thanks referrers for referring!
Redbubble Sold items: Click here to see my redbubble journal & sold items!

Zazzle Sold items:

Sold in November 2015
by Tanya

This was my biggest seller of the month, when someone bought 23 of these adorable watercolour painted turtle keychains, all customized!

Green Watercolour Ink Drawn Turtle Basic Round Button Keychain by TanyaDraws
Create a unique personalized key ring from zazzle.com.

My Hiatus is over!

Hello everyone! A while ago my life got way busier and I had to drop the blog for a while and stick to very minimal shop updates. Since then, I have had to get used to a very different sort of schedule, but I finally think I have found a balance and am finding that I do actually have spare time at the end of the week, so I am going to use this time to continue updating my shops & this blog :) I plan on starting my monthly stats again for the new year.

Here is what has changed since my last monthly sales update:

Nuvango shops are gone. I liked having Nuvango as my third shop, my first and second shops being Zazzle & Redbubble. In the past few months I have been looking in to different print on demand services.

I tried out CafePress briefly, because upon signup it said you could set your commissions. I uploaded a design and let it sit. When I got bored one day and remembered my CafePress shop, I logged in to see I actually made three sales! But to my dismay, I made equal royalties on the cups and t-shirt that I sold that I do selling stickers on redbubble! It turns out you can't actually set commissions yourself, you have to fill a certain amount of requirements on CafePress before they will consider that... and one of these requirements might be a paid shop, I didn't look too much into it, and also the marketplace and you directing people to your shop give you different royalties.. and there is a hidden royalty ranking system.... Needless to say, I promptly closed my shop there! I didn't appreciate the ultra confusing hidden royalty rate, especially when it says you can set your own prices, and I certainly don't appreciate CafePress getting 95% of the cut for my artwork. So that POD was a no.

I signed up for Zippi a while ago and it seems nice, redbubble style & 20% commissions just like Nuvango, but I haven't seen much activity from Zippi & their marketplace is hard to search, so I think I will be setting that one aside too.

I thought about ArtOfWhere, but they don't have the most active print on demand marketplace... although their beautiful product lines & vast selection make them amazing for drop shipping. That is something I might consider in the future, but for now print on demand suits my needs and I want to focus on that.

Which brought me to DesignByHumans. I looked into DesignByHumans months ago, and submitted my work to be accepted into their marketplace. They accepted me, and let me create an account. And then I didn't have much time, so I let it sit. I checked it out earlier in November again, and after testing the waters with a few new designs, I have decided this is a nice place to set up shop! Royalties are pre set, you don't get to set your own, but the royalty rate is fair. I have already made royalties in my first month of being there, and their product line of wearable items and phone cases is nice. I also like the fact that you can choose colours that work well with your design for the customer to choose from, allowing for some customization. I hope to do a full review of DesignByHumans once I am 100% familiar with it, but I think it is a good one for my 3rd shop!! Find me here: TANYADRAWS ON DESIGNBYHUMANS

Last but not least, I'd like to thank the customers who have purchased things from my shop at RedBubble & Zazzle in these past months, and also the affiliates who have been promoting my shop! I haven't been around much to update, but I appreciate the support and I look forward to being able to add new product lines in the new year for you!! I hope your December is off to a fantastic start !! :)

Here is a collection of funny and punny gift ideas from my Zazzle shop! Enjoy!

Funny & Punny
by Tanya

Sloth Crazy! Baby Sloth Gifts

Hello everyone! I am on vacation this week, so I thought it is a good time to update my shop and this blog with some of my new items!

MY NEW ITEMS HAVE LOTS OF SLOTHS ON THEM! 

And before I show my new products to you, I feel the need to prove how great sloths are, through this video of Kristen Bell having a sloth meltdown on Ellen. If you haven't watched it, please do! It will give you a laugh and brighten your day. Kristen Bell is the best!

If you were crying along with her out of happiness of sloths, you might need some of these sloth themed gifts. :) Some of them are personalized with saying such as "I Love Sloths", and "Lets Hang Out"... because a good baby sloth design needs a good pun to go along with it, of course!! As usual, you can personalize any of these baby sloth designed gifts with different colours, initials & funny sloth sayings of your own!

Lazy & Sleepy Cute Sloth Couple Gift Coffee Mug Set
by TanyaDraws

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Flowy Muscle Tank Top by TanyaDraws
Make your own t-shirt design at zazzle.com

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Mirror For Makeup by TanyaDraws
Browse Compact Mirrors online at zazzle.com

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Basic Round Button Keychain by TanyaDraws
Browse for another photo keychain at Zazzle

Cute Baby Sloths Hanging on Treebranch Pattern Shower Curtain by TanyaDraws
Look at Baby sloth Shower Curtains online at Zazzle.com

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Printed Shoes by TanyaDraws
View more Baby sloth Low Tops at zazzle.com

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Tie by TanyaDraws
Find other Baby sloth Ties at zazzle.com

Watercolour Cute Baby Sloths on Tree Pattern Wrapping Paper by TanyaDraws
Shop for Baby sloth Wrapping Paper online at Zazzle.com

POD Hiatus

Hello everyone,

As you may have noticed by now it is almost halfway through October and I have not added a monthly stats newsletter! I felt like I should write this post to let you know why I have stopped updating my blog lately. The reason for this is that I recently got a new job in addition to my current job. Between the two jobs I am working 40-50 hours 6-7 days each week, and then throw in the fact that I still have 5 kittens to take care of...I just don't have the time to write blog posts, promote products on social media & add new things to my shops.  I am really excited for the new job, because it is in the design field so I am working on projects that I would have been doing as a hobby for this blog & my print on demand stores.

This is a temporary transitional period in my life, and while it will be difficult balancing two jobs, it will definitely pay off in the long run! Once I get a good work/life balance going, I will be able to continue with print on demand & blog posts. Until then, I will not be updating this blog as frequently as my print on demand shops reach a standstill as well. It was challenging getting momentum going when I started this POD journey & letting my shops sit will surely slow it down, but having this blog to  look back on will definitely help me get quickly back on track when I start it up again!

As a little mini update in place of my monthly stats newsletter, I will tell you that I sold 12 things over the month of September 2015,  7 of those being from RedBubble! Redbubble finally surpassed my Zazzle shop in the amount of sales, something I have never seen before in the 9 months of my print on demand shops. September was a slow month for me, and October is looking slow as well. Like I said, it is to be expected with the lack of activity on my part!

I will miss providing updates, but look forward to the time when I can pick up this hobby again. :)

Until next time,

Tanya

Halloween Party Set
by Tanya

Nuvango is closing Artist Shops

Nuvango sent out a mass email to designers & artists on September 25th, 2015 stating that they will be closing their artist shops. They will be keeping a select few artists or designs to feature on a new type of rotating collection, going from a marketplace to an eCommerce style shop mid October.

I am quite a fan of Nuvango & their products, and was happy to set up shop there so that I could both sell my designs to others and purchase things with my own designs on them. You might recall the 3DS skin I purchased earlier in the year (which is still looking nice, btw!), it was awesome to be able to customize my 3DS with my own design, and felt amazing to be able to buy something purely made in Toronto, so close to my hometown! What hasn't been clear in the email is whether people can still create their own custom products to order through Nuvango, and if the old collection will be available for customization, or just the new, rotating collection.

What I am also wondering is if the artists who stay will still be able to upload new and exciting artwork, or if what is currently on Nuvango will be their collection.

In light of this news, I will no longer be including Nuvango on my monthly stats list or on print on demand comparisons... as it is no longer a POD! With the limit on 30 designs per artists plus the limited selection of products, I found myself maxed out with what I could do with my shop two months ago. Although I wasn't very active in it, I did manage to make sales every month, as my design was part of Nuvango's main gallery.

 If you currently have a Nuvango shop, you have the option of waiting it out to see if your designs are still included when the changes go live, or deleting your gallery & account in advanced.
If you have any questions about this new change to the Nuvango online store, you can contact Nuvango through email or phone Here.

Did you have a Nuvango shop? Is this change terrible news to you, or did Nuvango never work out for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this recent change in the comments.

Halloween, hearts & Sloths Fabrics!

Hello everyone, it is week two of my fabulous new computer and I am still getting used to having a computer that isn't 7 years old - gotta say, things are going pretty smoothly! I've been catching up on so much of my freelance work, I edited all of my holiday photographs that I had been putting off for ages, and I made some new patterns quite effortlessly! The only hiccup I have encountered so far is a random crash with Adobe CS5 programs, which is sad because I randomly lose my work. There is a compatibility issue currently with Adobe CS5 & the Yosemite 10.10.5 update, and it is one of those things that an average computer user such as I cannot fix, so until apple comes out with the next OS update I am using adobe CC the trial version.

Other than new computer and new software, there is the new changes on Zazzle - Zrank for designers. Zrank on top of the 6 month marketplace visibility rule has made me rethink how I upload my designs. I used to do it all in one big batch of one design, and then when I made a new design I would upload that one after. The problem with this is that I am releasing all products with a certain design at one point in time, and it might not be easily visible in the marketplace a week later. Since I have so many designs building up, I figured I would try a sort of rotation to upload products.
For example, on Day 1 I upload pattern A, B, and C to 5 products each, and each day after I upload those three products until I have them uploaded on all the products. That way all three patterns have a chance at being seen as a new product in Zazzle's marketplace for as many days as I am uploading them, rather than the binge upload of one design I used to do. Not only that, but after I am uploading the products each day it gives me a chance to view them all (for Zazzle's 6 month view rule) and share things of different patterns and designs to social media each day. Can this be a solution for designs falling through the cracks? Only time will tell! ;)

And in practicing my new way of uploading designs, I have created fabrics in four different patterns recently! The halloween / fall pumpkin pattern is just on time for any halloween creations. The rose gold metallic hearts pattern was an experiment on my new computer to find out how fast I can make a pattern - I was so impressed with how it turned out that I had to add it right away! It is available with stripes in the background or plain background. Lastly, the watercolour sloths pattern fabric, with adorable sloths hanging out on a tree branch - which would be the perfect fabric for a crafty sloth lovers homemade bag, dress, or pillow! Seriously, can't anyone else see Kristen Bell rocking a sloth pattern dress? XD

Halloween Fall Watercolour Pumpkin Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
More Halloween pumpkin pattern Fabrics

Rose Gold Champagne Metallic Hearts Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
Browse more Rose gold hearts Fabrics at Zazzle

Rose Gold Metallic Hearts & White Stripes Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
Shop for more Zazzle Fabric

Baby Sloths hanging on Tree Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
See here for Fabric

Zazzle Custom Product Feature: Air Fresheners

Zazzle is constantly adding new and exciting products to their lineup of personalized gifts. This year we have seen especially creative ones, one of my favourites being air fresheners! Its such a random thing, but such a good idea - people use air fresheners in their cars, rooms, gym bags & lockers, so why not be able to customize them with a name, initial or expression too?

Here is a little background on the product. They are made by Zazzle Maker Instafreshener, a company created by a husband and wife team, who merged their problem solving & creativity together to come up with these fabulous, custom printed, long lasting air fresheners. Since they joined Zazzle, they have sold quite an amount of air fresheners, and there are 70 reviews on them, averaging 4.5/5 stars! People love them. To see more about them, visit their website here! 

The air fresheners aren't only customizable in design, you can also change the shape and scent. The five scents you can choose from are: 

New Car - Kick it up a notch and enjoy the refreshing smells of a new car. Let's go on a road trip!

Cucumber & Fresh Mint - A light, refreshing blend of cool cucumber and fresh spearmint. Cool as a cucumber.

Fast Lane "Black Ice" - Get your motor running and be ready for a blast of refreshing cool smells. Invigorating and exhilarating at the same time.

Emerald Sea - This fruity floral blend is a mix of lemon and lime with layers of mango, peach and peony. Sweet and delious with no extra calories.

Island Breeze - Lily of the Valley, Water Lotus, Rosewater, Star Jasmine, Violet, Musk, and Sea Moss. The island life is nice and breezy.

You can make your air freshener square, heart shaped, portrait and landscape rectangle, and printing is double sided.

Here are some of my premade designs, that feature a name & initial! They are customizable on both sides of the air freshener, and make great gifts for someones first car, party gift bags, stocking stuffers at christmas time, gift packages & employee presents... the possibilities are endless. 

Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern by TanyaDraws
Check out Optical illusion Air Fresheners online at zazzle

Illustrated Flower & Laurel Wreath by TanyaDraws
View another Air Freshener

April Birth Flower - Watercolour Daisy Pattern by TanyaDraws
See here for Air Fresheners

Reverse Ladybugs & Leaves on Brown Paper Pattern by TanyaDraws
View other White ladybug Air Fresheners at Zazzle.com

August 2015 stats from Zazzle, Redbubble and Nuvango

Hey guys, it is time again for my monthly roundup of stats. I am getting to it a bit late this time, I had a lovely long weekend road trip with my boyfriend and his family and I also got some other things done... such as the purchase of my brand new LAPTOP!! Thats right, a new laptop! I can now do things that other people can do, such as save illustrator files without worrying they will crash, actually resize patterns without waiting hours for the change to take place, and be able to actually open some of the large scale working file illustrations I drew! LOL, seriously, you have no idea how happy these little changes make me. I am going to be a designing machine now that I have my new laptop.

While August was a busy time for me, it was a pretty slow time for the POD world I have set up shop in. And it is looking even worse from what I have seen so far in September, too. The lack of sales could be because of it being August and holiday season, or it could be because I have not been posting many things on this blog or on social media. My social media presence has dipped dramatically as I try to focus on other things, such as simply creating new designs, my own freelance work, and updating my website & portfolio. I am finding it increasingly hard to do social media promoting at the same rate as I used to, especially in August as I was playing catch up adding designs to my Zazzle shop after the whole W-8 BEN fiasco, and now they have revamped our shop fronts & profiles and added a new thing called "Zrank" so I am trying to figure out that too, but I think that last one will be a lost cause. Anyways, here is the roundup from the month of August!

Nuvango Shop

As usual, not much to say about my Nuvango shop! I can't really promote it much because you can only add a max of 30 items, there are no new products to share my designs on and there isn't much social interaction between artists on the actual website besides liking other artist pages and liking art. My stats are pretty much the same as usual.

Sales: 1
Advertising/Sharing: None
Followers: 45 (the same!)
Most liked Design: Still Tri-Colour Geometric Pattern (50 likes!)

My sold item this month:

I sold the same item this month as I did last month, too! I might be in the market
for one of these myself now. ;) 

Redbubble Shop

My redbubble shop has slowed down dramatically! It was going pretty smooth after the hype of my cat to be kitten me right meow pillow, but I haven't added many designs or done much promoting this month.

Sales: 2

Advertising/Sharing: None

Most Viewed Design: Glitter Tropical / Retro Pineapples: 2973 Views

My sold items on RedBubble this month:

Another pineapple sticker! :) 

I sold my first travel mug! Its actually super cute, I am glad someone
is enjoying it. :)

Zazzle Shop

Lastly, my Zazzle shop! Zrank, new profile change & trying to catch up from the W-8 BEN payment fiasco break has made it hard to get back into the swing of things. Despite the lack of activity on my part, I still did manage to make sales although it was less than the previous months.

Sales: 8
Advertising/Sharing: None, but my pineapple flask has been featured on the homepage a lot this month!!
Most Viewed Design: Tropical Summertime Pineapple Fabric (485 Views now!)

My sold items:

Hand Drawn Black and white Owl Passport Holder by TanyaDraws
Browse more Owl Passport Holders at Zazzle

Cute Rottweiler Puppy & Bones Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
View more Fabric

Cat to be Kitten Me Right Meow Ringer Coffee Mug by TanyaDraws
Customize your mug at Zazzle.

Sold two cat to be kitten me mugs!

Polkadot Pastel Sheep Stationery by TanyaDraws
Design personal stationery with zazzle

sold 30 of these stationery sheets!

Cute Red Fox and Hearts Basic Round Button Keychain by TanyaDraws
Look at more Red fox Keychains at zazzle

Tropical Watercolor Pineapple Pattern Flask by TanyaDraws
Check out Retro Flask online at zazzle

Wet Arctic Wolf in Spring Photo Car Bumper Sticker by CanadianNature
View other Arctic wolf Bumper Stickers

And I sold my first design from my photography shop that I set up last month, an arctic wolf bumper sticker! :)

Thank you to all who purchased stuff from my shop this month, I hope you are enjoying your artistic gifts! 

Designers, how were your sales this August, was it a slow month too? I hope September is better for everyone! 

Tanya

Purple Home Decor Collection

Hello everyone~! It is nearly the end of August, this summer really flew by so fast! Part of it for me was a lot of fun, and part of it was work. A bit of the fun part is the new cat we are fostering a pregnant cat we found in our backyard. She is super sweet and she is so close to having kittens, which will be an extra bundle of fun. :) The other good part about having the cat here is that I have been spending a lot of time in my room with her, working on my Zazzle, Redbubble & Zippi shops and making new designs. I am already planning out halloween and christmas designs, because I missed those seasons last year! I am excited to add them. I have also been working on the new Zazzle shopfront, and catching up on some stuff I missed during my hiatus.

One of the things I have updated is the addition of collections in my Zazzle shop. Today I am going to share one of my favourite collections, my Purple Home Decor collection! I have created a collection of all the items in my shop that match with a purple home colour theme. These items are things that are for kitchens, living room, bedrooms & family rooms. I have also made themes for blue & green, pink & red, yellows,  brown & orange, rainbow & multi coloured and white & black.
The purple collection features items from my newest Zazzle design - the star maze pattern!
Here is the new collection, as well as some of the new home decor items from my lavender star maze pattern.

Purple Home Decor
by Tanya

Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern Throw Pillow by TanyaDraws
Browse other throw pillow designs on Zazzle.

Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern Nite Light by TanyaDraws
Check out Optical illusion Night Light online at zazzle

Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern Stone Beverage Coaster by TanyaDraws
Shop for another Zazzle Stone Coaster

Perhaps these purple items will help provide inspiration for your next purple themed home decor project! :) Hope you have a great weekend. 

Back to School: Custom Lunch boxes for kids

Can you believe August is already halfway through? School will be starting soon in September, and back to school shoppers are hitting the stores to prepare their kids with awesome school supplies. Back when I was a kid we had these boring fabric lunch bags that weren't very spill proof, so if your juice box got punctured in your bag somehow or your plastic baggie wasn't closed well enough, food and juice was spilt all over your lunchbox - making everything sticky and sometimes leaking on to books & homework! Eww! So when I saw that I can design super sleek lunch boxes on Zazzle, I got really excited. The lunch boxes on Zazzle are really neat and 100% customizable, created by Yubo in San Ramon, California. Here is what it looks like:

Look at how cute they are! This one is featuring my new purple geometric pattern,
as well as a personalized monogram with a name. If your name is going to have to be on your lunch box,
it might as well be pretty! ;)

Lavender Geometric Star Maze Pattern Yubo Lunchbox by TanyaDraws
Find other lunch boxes

Not only are these incredibly cute, they are 100% dishwasher safe (easy to clean, so you will never have yucky, sticky, crumb filled lunch bags again!) and also BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead-free & eco-friendly. These come with containers to hold your food and different containers can be purchased that fit perfectly within this lunch box. The default one at Zazzle comes with a sandwich container and two small containers, but you can choose to add on a pack of two small containers or a pack of two medium containers. It also comes with a perfect fit ice pack, to keep your food cold throughout the day. On top of all that, you can adjust the handle to be vertical or horizontal! What I like best however, is that you can change out the faceplate of these lunch boxes. This is such a good idea for kids especially, who get tired of the same old lunch box theme and want something new from time to time. It is much better than buying a new lunchbox every season! Extra faceplate inserts can also be purchased through Zazzle. Here is a look at what the lunch box looks like disassembled:

Everything fits so well inside that little box! Speaking of size, dimensions are:
 9.8" x 6.9" (3.5" deep)

Purple Watercolour Flower Tile Pattern Yubo Lunch Box by TanyaDraws
Browse more Purple flowers Yubo Lunchbox

The front and back face plates of the lunch box are fully printed with designs and can be easily swapped out. When you are creating your Yubo lunch box through Zazzle, you can personalize the designs yourself by adding additional pictures & graphics and also by choosing the colour of the outer casing! You can choose from blue, green orange, pink, purple, and grey, so there are plenty of colours to match your design. If you want to find out more about Yubo and their lunch boxes, visit the FAQ page on their website by clicking here!

Cute Chicks & Flowers Pattern Yubo Lunchbox by TanyaDraws
Browse additional lunch boxes at Zazzle

April Birth Flower - Watercolour Daisy Pattern Yubo Lunchbox by TanyaDraws
See lunch boxes online at zazzle.com

New Fabrics & Zazzle Shop Update!

I have started updating my Zazzle shop again, woohoo! My work is cut out for me this month. I missed at least 8 new products during my off time, and have made so many designs since then! I am going to share with you some of my new fabric designs, but first I want to talk about the new shop I set up! :) Here it is: 

My new shop is going to be dedicated to all the nature pictures I take in Canada. It will be landscapes, plants, animals & insects mainly. Sometimes I will include pictures of animals that aren't native to Canada, but that I took on my journeys around Canada. My last adventure was to New Brunswick, where it mostly rained but I got some lovely photos from the Zoo, the tourist sites we went to, and of course the gorgeous landscape. I am really excited to be able to do something with my nature photography, other than just staring at it! ;)
I will be working on getting my photos on this shop bit by bit, while also working on my TanyaDraws shop.

And I have been updating that shop, as well! I have about 50 new patterns to add to fabrics, so my fabric collection on tanyadraws shop will be ginormous when I am done. On top of that, I also have some new designs to add to all products, such as my lily of the valley pattern & my rainbow chevron hearts collection. I also never tried Zazzle collections, so I am going to be utilizing that tool very soon to see what the commotion is over that. I will be busy busy busy! Luckily though, I recently adopted a new cat from our backyard (she was a stray!) and we took her to the vet to find out she is pregnant and will be having kittens! So the upcoming days (maybe weeks) I am spending some time with her in my room, rather than out and about like I would be usually.... giving me some time to work on some stuff.

As for the fabrics, most of the patterns I have to upload this time are abstract, decorative patterns. These patterns are perfect for fabrics! You can customize the pattern to be larger or smaller print, depending on what effect you want to have. I also have a collection of patterned heart patterns coming up, where the background will be customizable. :) Here are some of the patterns I have added so far!!

Chevron rainbow hearts! I decided to take an existing pattern and add it to
a heart shape, making a unique heart pattern. I can see this one being popular
around valentines day, and I would love to one day see it on a dress!!
This pattern looks great on white, but try it on a blacks, purples & greys
for a completely new effect.

Cute Rainbow and Textured Chevron Hearts Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
Browse other Rainbow chevron hearts Fabrics

Salmon is always a lovely colour as an accent for home decor projects. This is
a pattern of 6 petalled salmon colour flowers surrounding circles. The background is
a muted cream colour, giving it a vintage feel.

Pretty Salmon Pink Flowers & Dots Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
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This pattern is really fun! It is inspired by 3D glasses and also has a
picnic inspired look. The colours really pop and the pattern of star
shapes and overlapping colours makes it endlessly interesting!

Retro 3D Colours Geometric Burst Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
See more Vintage pattern Fabrics at zazzle.com

Another variation of the 3D glasses inspired pattern! This one has rings
of overlapping colour, and a vintage cream colour can be seen in the background
more so than the first pattern. This is a fun pattern but is definitely more controlled!

Retro 3D Colours Geometric Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
View more Fabric at Zazzle

I made this pattern around Canada Day, and since I was unsure about uploading products
at the time, I didn't add it to my shop! So this is a little late.. but at least it will be on my shop
for next years Canada day! The watercolour leaves are a modern twist on the traditional
bright red maple leaf.

Canada Day Watercolour Maple Leaf Pattern Fabric by TanyaDraws
View other Canadian pattern Fabrics at Zazzle.com