Well hello summer // Pineapples and Ice Cream Cones // This year's hot selling fabric // Summer 2015

Preparations are in order! Just two more months and we can give a warm welcome to summer 2015 and customers are already creating entire new collections of cute summer fashion for themselves and their little ones. Our head is already celebrating summer but first a little feature about this year's hot selling Little Smilemakers Designs. And so many adorable items to choose from!

This year we have some oldies that have been hitting the charts like mad. Most popular designs for this years summer have been made a while ago, some designs are made years ago. We always try to make sure to be ahead and on trend. This year all fabric hot sellers are from our Little Smilemakers golden collection. Two most popular themes: Pineapples and ice cream cones. It doesn't get more summer than that!

Brazilian influences are introduced a few years ago, not only in home decor, they now also make their way into fashion more and more. Last year tropical florals were hot sellers. Green lush and tropical flowers. Now the botanical garden and cactus theme is one of our best selling designs on fabric for this year but tropical fruit is selling like mad too this year, maybe the fruits will top the cacti heaven? We'll see. But we sure love to see all these cute items you make with our designs.



The pineapple. We have seen fluorescent and ceramic pineapples pop up in home decor magazines for the last three years and finally one of our favorite designs is picked up. This hand drawn doodle pineapple, featured here, was drawn three years ago and part of a summer garden surface pattern collection then. Two years ago the design was put on the market as fabric and this year all mom's seem to wanna have this print for their little one's shorts, leggings, head bands and tops. Since it has been our spring hot seller we have decided to add five more color schemes to the summer collection, introducing gender neutral and boy versions. So take a look!

Have you seen the Twisted Knot shorts with pineapples and water melons? They are adorable. But our most popular design this spring is the colorful ice cream cone. We have created a few different versions to choose from. Have you seen the geometric cones? You can also mix and match these ice cream illustrations with other summer prints in the same color palette. Take a look in the shop and choose your favorite print for this summer and show us your creations!

Leggings with pineapples and ice cream that are featured here can be found in the Yay for Handmade shop. The Water Melon & Pineapple shorts are made by The Twisted Knot and can also be found online.

Photography via Fotolia

Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // April 2015

It is so exciting to see a finished project after working hard on a new collection or a series of illustrations for our clients. But with finished fabric designs it is even a bigger surprise to see what customers create. To see how final products evolve when people put their own creative energy in there is amazing. Look at our new April selection here. This is our top five for this month.



We have already seen a lot of awesome sewing projects made by Little Smilemakers fabric customers. This month we made a little selection out of the dozen photographs that were sent to us or that we were tagged in. Cute home decor items. Personalized bedding, scarfs and head bands. So much to choose from!

If you browse around on etsy for some kids fashion you are very likely to stumble upon some Little Smilemakers. The penguins are made by Sharie who has a few more Little Smilemakers Studio designs in her Little Pitterpat etsy shop. Some of these soft sole baby shoes even have matching hats. Adorable! So take a look into her shop if you want to have a pair of these.

It is almost bikini time! Spring has kicked in and we are all looking forward to the summer season. The cactus print has been one of our best-selling designs this year. Looking for a quirky swimsuit? Check the Batoko shop.

And what about these hot pink pineapple head bands. Want to match your outfit with your little one? These head bands are available for both babies and their mommies and are made by Krystle Dawn. Her collection is fresh, colorful and fun. Visit her adorable shop and look what other cute designs she has to offer.

We are already working on a third batch of designs for My Little Hands Australia but we were big fans of this stylish bedroom with the beautiful white Kartell bedside table and adorable bunny that was styled by L'Amour Kids. And yes, we still love our minty clouds blanket. Looking sharp!



Our favorite this month must be this mustard colored deer dress made by Eva Dinis. We came across this finished sewing project when she tagged us on Instagram. Look at this gorgeous woman modeling our deer print. Of course we love the typical Lisbon tiles in the back. Bright, sunny and colorful. She did an great job! Hope to see more Little Smilemakers creations made by this talented girl.

All featured designs are also available via Spoonflower. Some are scaled and slightly different in detailing. Looking for one of the featured designs? Here are the links:

Cute penguin owl illustration pattern
Cactus cacti garden botanical green pattern
Hot summer pineapple pink trend
Geometric pastel sleepy blue sky cloud pattern
Cute uni kids reindeer antlers deer

Arrow and Indians Cactus theme // Most popular boys fabric // Spring 2015

For a while we have been focusing on more gender neutral and boy designs. There is a fun trend going on in the sewing mommy world. We are so happy to see so many adorable large scales patterns on onesies and baby leggings. It is a trend that has started a year ago and we get so many requests for fun boys patterns that is was about time to post a little something about our most popular prints and designs for boys here in the Little Smilemakers blog.

Half of our work is trend watching and researching designs all over the world. One of our biggest inspirations is are tropical economies. Like Brazil and India. Countries that get influenced by there blooming economies. Prints are amazingly lush, colorful and green. And even though green has been one of the most difficult colors to sell in fabric, home decor and print, we see those exotic colors and natural themes finally influencing European countries too.

But there is another trend going on which has been something to work with. There is much more demand for gender neutral themes. Costumers are still very conscious about making and creating new but efficient products. Like onesies and baby leggings for both boys and girls. We will still add new gender neutral designs to our collection. But with summer ahead prepare for more popping colors too.

Usually we are ahead of the trend and it is always fun to see a theme finally take off after years of maturing. That is what happened with this year's fabric hot sellers too.
All through the winter we have sold an amazing amount of geometric and woodland themes. All indian summer themes were very popular. Customers in Australia were all falling for our summer pineapple designs. But our most popular print for boys this year is definitely the woodland animals and cactus theme. It is a design that was made a few years ago and matured over time with new details and color scheme's. We are happy to see this print take off. The designs featured here can all be ordered via Spoonflower. Check out all boy themes in our Little Smilemakers fabric shop.