Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // Top 5 December 2018

It is so exciting to see a finished project after working hard on a new collection of design 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.

If you browse around on Etsy or Instagram for some kids fashion or home decoration you are very likely to stumble upon some Little Smilemakers prints. Most creatives with small home based businesses sell their projects via internet and tag us via Instagram. So we see some amazing things pop up in our feed every month. We love how Little Smilemakers creations are the foundation for other creatives all around the world to work with. So here is our monthly blog post that features some creative results from the US, Australia and India. This month we selected a whole bunch of winter and seasonal inspired fabrics, turned into the most gorgeous items. Kids fashion, nursery accessories and home and interior decoration, so much to choose from! We have selected some cute tote bags, leggings and soft sole shoes. Take a look and see if there is something for your little one too. This is our December top 5 selection.

1 // Daily Objects
Next to phone accessories, laptop cases and notebooks, Daily Objects now also launched a new collection of tote bags and pouches in different sizes with beautiful high quality leather detailing. We love those new totes! They make a perfect gift for Christmas. In Holland they have banned plastic bags, a cool shopper is a must. They also added some cool home decor to their range of products. Our prints are now also available on pillows. Oh yes and of course Daily Objects offers world wide shipping on their products too. Click here for their collection.

2 // Le Petit Bouton
Lisa Gillies a young mum and the owner of Le Petit Bouton. Like many new mums, she was madly searching for items for her little girl that were unique, on trend, and made with beautiful fabric and she was getting frustrated at not being able to find exactly what she wanted. That is why she decided to start her fun shop, stocking gorgeous little girls hair clips, hair ties and headbands using beautiful designer fabrics and organic knits. Our little reindeer girls have also been added to her webshop for this holiday season. Her products are perfect for special occasions, party favors, birthdays, baby showers, new arrivals, school, stocking fillers...the list goes on! Baby skyler is modeling her fun products. Such a cute little girl! Take a look at her shop if you want to get your hands on one.

3 // Olive the Things
For our seasonal ‘Made with’ post we selected a cute reindeer sweater. One our our personal favorites for this jolly season. This Utah based shop offers a great selection of soft sweaters, hoodies, shorts and other cool kids items. of you are looking for some cozy pieces for your little one, this is the place. take a look at their Etsy shop and check all fun mix & match pieces.



4 // Hazel & Holly
We love these cute Origami Santa leggings. Perfect leggings for the holiday season right? And suitable for both boys and girls. This Washington based shop offers handmade kids clothes has a wonderful collection of seasonal fashion for kids. We have created some new Christmas themes that were selected for her new range. Leggings, skirts, beanies. Check them all in her Etsy shop.

5 // Little Pitterpat
Every month a new set of soft soles pops up in our feed. Little Pitterpat has been using our designs for over two years now and we keep loving the way our fabrics are turned into the most adorable baby and toddler shoes. These soft soles baby shoes are made by hand in Sharies studio in Montana. For this months 'Made with' post we selected their Grizzly Bear Ski Slope print. One of our fave designs suitable for both boys and girls and we know how handy those gender neutral items can be. Looking for a baby shower gift? These cute shoes make a great present. So take a look into her shop if you want to have a pair of these. She has over 500 different items, yes lot's of different prints as well, to choose from.

Announcement for our Shutterstock customers // Enhanced Commercial license only available directly

Almost 10 years ago I joined Shutterstock as a contributor. Starting out with a few abstract and urban photographs and textures but soon changed into uploading vectors: illustrations and pattern designs only. A lot has changed in print. Things have gotten more digital and the demand for designs for commercial purpose grew.

Our Shutterstock portfolio has been a great way to showcase our designs and we still upload some artwork every now and then. It has been a great way to built up a steady business, generate a base income and exposure.

The past year a lot of things have changed in the enhanced license agreement. Our designs are usually made from vector. So it is easy for customers to edit and change colors and adjust the prints to use them for their products. Which we love. But it also means it is easy to download the files without the right license and have a high quality file without paying the proper fee. Unfortunately that happened a lot.

Misuse of designs
As our business and also online vector portfolio has grown bigger we noticed an increase in misuse of our designs and since we have to protect our creations we decided that from April 1st we stop selling enhanced licenses over Shutterstock, at least for now. It does not mean our designs are no longer available, we just would like to do direct business when it comes to licensing our designs for commercial use, so we know every print we find out there is licensed in a legit way.

After some consideration we decided to opt out our enhanced license downloads via Shutterstock. But our entire portfolio is still available for commercial usage too. Just contact our studio directly and we will help you further.

Newbee in licensing?
If you are new in licensing designs we are also happy to give you more info about our standard and commercial licenses. We also have in-house expertise to guide your business through the process of production, can adjust colors, scales and detailing and of course with our 10 year experience we are on top of the trends. So don't hesitate and send us a message.

Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // March 2016

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.

If you browse around on Etsy for some kids fashion you are very likely to stumble upon some Little Smilemakers prints. Most creatives with small home based businesses sell their projects via internet and tag us via Instagram. So we see some amazing things in our feed every month. We love how Little Smilemakers creations are the foundation for other creatives all around the world to work with. So here is our monthly blog post that features some creative results from the USA, Holland and Poland. This is our new girly themed March selection. Take a look and see if there is something for your little one too.

Kalamati
This winter we finalized a new series of designs for Kalamati, a Polish home decor brand for kids. The new range has some cute Scandinavian style hot air balloons in soft pastel colors, bubbles in gender neutral color schemes and also this cute abstract woodland garden theme. We love Kalamati's bedding, blankets and home decor items. If you would like to order one of these cute blankets or any other Little Smilemakers prints check out the Kalamati shop!

Ansje Handmade
A few weeks ago Anouck was part of a photo series for new borns with down syndrome. For the photo shoot she made outfits for these adorable new borns, for that she used some of our new prints from the Hemmers/Itex collection we launched end of January. Anouck runs a webshop with handmade nursery gifts and fun whimsical fashion. She also sells original Little Smilemakers patchwork blankets, made with our Spoonflower sample leftovers. If you are curious about her work and want to check out her shop go to her website or follow here at Instagram @ansjehandmade

Pistol & Arrow
We just adore the ice cream leotard made by Brittany Kleiss who runs her small
Pistol & Arrow Etsy shop from Fair Oaks. The ice cream print has been around for a while but we found this adorable baby girl in her leo a few weeks ago. Since we have a little bit of a girly theme this month this webshop is def worth a visit. She has some adorable items for your little girl. So go take a look.

Top Knot Bands
Headbands, bowbands, turbands for babies, women's accessories, leggings. This shop is the perfect place to look for some cool nursery gifts. We loved our matching cupcake fabric shorts and headband. Such a cute combo for summer. They also have some cute Little Smilemakers Penguin leggings available in the shop. So browse around and enjoy their colorful collection.

Sewing Inspiration // Sprout patterns // Fashion and accessories

We have been selling fabric through our Spoonflower shop for over four years now. We have seen many awesome finished projects by our talented customers but we also got requests from people that really wanted to create something but didn't really know where to start. These fun Christmas stockings, kids clothes and cactus blouse were all made with Sprout Patterns.

This fall Sprout Patterns was launched a new service that offers curated indie sewing patterns that you combine with our Little Smilemakers Spoonflower designs to create customized projects. Each project is digitally printed by Spoonflower at their Durham, NC headquarters. Sprout Patterns takes out all the work of putting a sewing pattern onto fabric.

With Sprout you simply choose your sewing pattern from our curated collection of indie patterns, then fill the pattern with your fabric design of choice from Spoonflower’s marketplace. Select your size and fabric, we do all the rest! You will receive a package that includes a digitally printed custom sewing pattern— all you need to do is cut and sew! So no messy struggles with drawing your own pattern and try to find that little size stroke you can never really see through the transfer paper. If you don;t have a whole lot of time but love to make something original this is something for you.

And with the holidays coming up this might be a perfect present for one of sewing addict friends. Or throw a baby shower for a pregnant friend and spend your day sewing cute little baby rompers. Check out the website for all sewing and pattern inspiration. Log in with your Spoonflower account and pick your fabric. Also check out there Pinterest and Facebook page for daily inspiration. Have fun and happy holidays!

> Without art

by Maaike Boot