Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // Top 5 // May 2017

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 Canada, Germany, The Netherlands and the USA. This month we selected a whole bunch of fresh blue colored fabrics, turned into the most gorgeous items. Kids fashion, nursery accessories and have you seen those baby booties? There was so much to choose from! We have selected some cute baby shoes, leggings, blankets and a cool babynest. Take a look and see if there is something for your little one too. This is our top 5 May selection.

Hen House Apparel - Umbrella Leggings
Nicole is a mother of two boys living in sunny California who runs a small etsy shop with organic materials and unique prints. You can find a small selection of our designs in her shop, mermaids, guitars, polar bears and our cool umbrella rain design that is featured in this months post. With our umbrella print she has made some cute boys leggings and these are also available in her shop in different sizes. Take a look and enjoy her fun collection of leggings, shorts, head bands and more.

LoveBird BabyNests - Blue hedgehogs
LoveBird BabyNests was founded by Ashley, an adventure seeking, outdoor enthusiast, nutrition and fitness passionate, loving mother of 4 beautiful children. While she was pregnant she decided to take on a sewing project creating a little baby bed that turned out to be a cute little baby nest. After her son was born she it became clear she couldn’t live without it and started making custom BabyNests on request for friends and family. Her business grew and now Ashley has a wonderful little online shop. For her small collection of BabyNests she selected some of our favorite Little Smilemakers fabric. Our hedgehogs is one of this years hot selling fabric and available via Spoonflower. Not having any sewing talent? Don’t worry, you can order a custom BabyNest via her webshop.



Tiny Little Cactus - Blue Baby Booties
Krista visit our shop in The Hague to get her hands on some of our Memphis fabric. She became a fan of our designs and a week later she ordered a whole lot more of our fabric via Spoonflower. When we asked her to tag us in her social media posts, because we are curious what peeps make from our fabric, the most wonderful items popped up. We love anything cute and love this local webshop filled with crafty stuff and everything Kawaii. For this months “Made with” we selected her adorable little baby booties in our abstract pink dashes print. Soft sole shoes, perfect for your little ones tiny feet. Seriously, things don’t get much cuter than this! If you are looking for some baby shoes or if you are a big Kawaii fan like we are check our her website. Such a perfect new born or baby shower gift!

Cover Up Baby Studio - Dino Blankets
Did you know Spoonflower also has a very soft minky fabric which is perfect for nursery blankets?
Mary, who is grandma of two, runs a small Etsy business from her home in Michigan selling fresh and unique new born baby swaddle blankets. We love what she made with our blue dinosaur fabric and love her style which is fun and colorful. Take a look into her shop if you want to get your hands on one of these adorable items.

Glitzerpüppi - Blue Garden Fabric
For this German shop we made this cute blue garden fabric that popped up on our Instagram feed a couple of weeks ago. This print is also available via Spoonflower and we love this cute little new born set: a baby romer and a matching headband was made for this little one. Curious about their own fabric production and available fabric? Take a look into their shop and get your hand on some of our exclusive prints.

Made with Little Smilemakers Studio Fabric // Top 5 January 2017

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 Australia, Finland and The United States. This month we selected a whole bunch of fresh colorful 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 bedding, head bands, leggings and soft sole shoes. Take a look and see if there is something for your little one too. This is our January top 5 selection. 

1 // Oh Boeys
We were doing a little happy dance when we saw this perfect pair of cactus soft soles in our Instagram feed. We love this fabric and are so happy to see these turn our so cute! Oh Boeys is an Australian webshop selling bows, bibs, soft sole baby shoes and blankets for your little one. They have a colorful range of products and you can also customize your own pair of soft soles. Go take a look and see for yourself!

2 // Little So Beide 
We found these cute little Hemmers Itex lions in Sofia's Etsy store. She is a passionate Finnish maker and loves crocheting, knitting and sewing. Her style is fun and pure. With a wide range of products, bibs, baby mittens, leggings and more. We love the home made items she makes and her little girl modeling those fun pieces. If you are located in Finland or somewhere Scandinavia, check out those soft creations. Here is the link to her Etsy shop. Shop small and make someone do a little happy dance over in Finland!

3 // Tiny Tiger
This Australian shop specializes in bedding for both babies and kids. But they also have a fun range of accessories for your little one. We love to see color and their shop is a wonderful colorful collection of hand made items. For this month's "Made with" we selected our blue grizzly bears and our all time hot selling pastel ice cream fabric. Both turned into bedding. Curious about their collection? Visit their shop!



4 // 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 koala's have also been added to her webshop featuring in here Australia Day collection. Her products are perfect for special occasions, party favors, birthdays, baby showers, new arrivals, school...the list goes on! For this new collection A Little Love Photography has capture the wonderful Olivia wearing our favorite piece: the top knot. Isn't she adorable?shop if you want to get your hands on one.

5 // Itty Bitty Leggings
Monica is one of our frequent Spoonflower customers, she has a range of Little Smilemakers designs up in her shop every season. She makes wonderful leggings from her Salt Lake City home while she raises her two sons. This shop is perfect if you have some gentlemen to dress. Because she has a fun range of cool boys stuff in there. For this months post we selected out abstract strokes fabric. One of our most popular prints. Monochrome fabric is trending right now! She also has some gender neutrals and more girly items too. They're lovely. Go take a look!

Top 5 fabric trends // winter 16/17 // watch out for these cool themes and styles this winter

Every season we reveal our best selling designs and make a fun top 5 of current trends. In this part of the world we are preparing for the colder season and all winter themes are picked up. But down under things are getting warmer, so we always have to contrasting geographical areas fighting for the hot sellers title. So much fun to see those two world join in our shop sales. Here is our Top 5 in fabric trends for this year’s winter season. All fabrics are listed below.

Monochromes & Textures
More and more people begin to realize we need a serene and peaceful place to call home after being overly exposed to so many things each and every day this seems to be a ultimate lifestyle change all around the world. As a designer the prints I love most are the basic, plain, pure shapes. We have been making fabric and print designs for over 8 years now and we have seen the shift from crazy colorful-all-colors-of-the-rainbow-in-one to the pure Scandinavian inspired texture like designs. And we love it. In this time and age our fabric buyers are more conscious and fabric should fit into a multi purpose: gender neutral, age neutral, cross seasonal etc. We love this strong trend since we love working with a clean simple shape and turn it into a strong repeat for fashion and home decoration. Especially the monochromes have been very popular this season. In strong black and white, less saturated natural colors and soft pastels.

Kawaii faces
When we visit japan almost two years ago we were inspired to make a new series of Kawaii style designs. We all know Hello Kitty right? Kawaii means something adorable or cute in Japanese and while I was traveling through this amazing one-of-a-kind quirky country I notice nearly everything ‘graphic design’ related, business logo’s, packaging, public adds, infographics: everything was Kawaii. Cute tiny eyes and a smiley face. So we are so happy to see these eyelashes, tiny faces and smiles pop up in home decoration in this part of the world. Our most popular Kawaii inspired print must be our popsicles and ice-cream design. But we also created some winter themes for this colder season. We mixed it up with a little Scandinavian: less colors. Hopefully we can enjoy those smiley faces for another few years.



Bears & Sloths
We looooove all the typical fall and winter animals. Animals will always be one of the most hot-selling themes and every year there is another animal standing out and trending like no other. This winter it has been the grizzly & polar bear. Bears are popping up everywhere and unfortunately a lot of copies are also going around also. But we have a cool, very unique selection in our shop. When we are preparing for snow, down under they are sewing their new summer pieces. This summer we saw our Sloths picked up all around the world. Now 8 months after releasing the Pura Vida series in our exclusive design presentation every single print artist has their own sloth available. So the sloths probably won’t be here next year but we wanted to celebrate them a little anyway. Next to elephants my personal fav-of-all-time animal. How can you NOT love those quirky creatures?



Gender Neutral Kids Themes
The past few years there has been a worldwide discussion about gender. This topic made it a little difficult to sell my pink designs as ‘girls print’ and blue designs as ‘boy print. Sometimes we get the most nasty comments on designs in blue or pink. The thing is: if someone is looking for ‘baby boy fabric’ you kinda need to tag designs in a way everyone can find what they need. It does not mean we think blue should only fit boys. As a Dutch designer I can tell you I am quite happy about the gender discussion and when people get better informed they also make better choices so that is why we see an increase in sales in kids designs that are gender neutral. It is getting more and more important to NOT label and we are so happy to see how strongly this effects our sales. That is why we wanted to add it to our top 5 trends this winter. Buying gender neutral is not only a gender conscious decision, it also reduces the footprint for our kids fashion industry and home decoration companies. Why release two lines when you can cover all at once? I love it! We plan on making more and more neutral prints ourselves but keep adding a boy and girl tag every now and then.

Dreams
All night and sky related designs are crazy popular this year. It is so funny to see how all dream themes and sky related prints are trending. Our hot air balloon designs were all sold with an exclusive license this year, we did not manage to add new designs to our fabric shop but our oldies, clouds, moon & stars, they are all picked up and are popping up in small boutiques all around the world. So funny how quick a trend can set! We thought this dream topic was a good one to end this post with. If you are looking for some fresh themes go visit our Spoonflower shop and show us what you make!

Let's celebrate green / 5 reasons why we all adore this color of life and nature

Colors have a strong but also subconscious effect on our everyday lives. During my design studies, studying color was our most demanding and time consuming subject. As a visual artist I was taught how to influence and effect others with my use of the color spectrum and every few months we celebrate one of those colors here on the blog.

Green is the color of life, nature, renewal and energy. When I think about green I think off trees, walks in the forest, balance and harmony is associated with this color. But it also is symbol of growth, harmony, freshness, safety, ambition, fertility, and environment. Green is a color that has to be taken serious, it is mostly used for conscious and environmentally aware businesses but is also has a more negative side to it, green is associated with: greed, finances, banking and most importantly: jealousy. Well, for me the money stuff goed in the ‘negative’ pile. Maybe that is the reason why less commercial products are being sold in green. Black and white, pink and blue are far more popular and green was to be considered a ‘difficult’ color in sales. Thankfully all around the world people are getting more aware of their footprint and how their way of life affects mother nature. Green is no longer taboe but is quite a popular and well selling color.

1 // I love green personality
I personally adore green. All my life green has been my favorite color. I love a bright apple green but also love the pastel minty greens and all shades olive, grass and nature. I just painted my living room wall; another fresh green over the old olive color. If you are a green loving creature like me you might also like to be in touch with nature every once in a while. A walk in the forest keeps my head fresh and organized. You are probably a very compassionate person if you are a green-lover, you enjoy looking at yourself under a microscope and having an in dept relationship with yourself and others around you. Green gives you the energy to love, transform and open up to the world around you but also focus on inner health and being.

2 // Green & branding
Green always had a pretty dusty image. Just like nature. 20 years ago thinking about mother nature was only done by people who were wearing woolen socks and eating fresh veggies every day which was obviously not cool. My mom was one of those uncool people and we were very uncool kids. Our food was not wrapped in fancy packaging and not promoted and branded like candy, veggies were not cool. But, times have changed for the better. We are becoming more aware of our footprints and most of us now read ingredients when food is pre-packed. The green revival! People start caring. At last. Green used to be the color for serious law agencies and eco-products. Now the color has become a trend. Mint and olive are hot selling colors and pop up in new start-up logo’s for interior design, clothing. Green has become a lot more ‘every day’. And now actually sells.



3 // The color of love
Green is the color of the heart chakra. You might think of red when you think about the color of love but it is in fact green that influences acceptance and stimulates healing. Starting with self-acceptance you grow towards loving yourself and others. The deeper meaning of love. The heart chakra can be overly active or out of balance, this will affect relationships with friends and family. Surround yourself with green if you are having heart problems, lung problems or tention in muscles in your upper body. The heart is a place that has to be taken care of. Get yourself a dose of green every once in a while!

4 // Green ease
Studies have shown that people that were out in nature regularly are less stressed and are more in harmony with themselves and others. It made them more alive and grounded. Imagine getting out of that gym and doing some exercises outside, in a park. This environment is way more effective. Recently a study showed that kids with an ADHD ‘label’ benefit from a day in the park or playing in a forest. Not very surprisingly: when kids get in contact with nature they get more balanced. What a shock! (I am being sarcastic here…) We are so used to bringing our kids to school where they sit down in a classroom all day and well, of course they will have a break but those school playgrounds lack of green. Imagine those little ones focussing on the little leaves and moss, pine needles and twigs, climbing in trees and jumping over tiny streams of water. They will be so much more focussed after a nature break.

5 // Girls & boys
This year mint green has been our crazy hotselling color in prints that were licensed but also trending color on fabric and wallpaper. Mint green is a delecate gender neutral color and we love how this soft shade pops up in fashion and interiors all around the world. Green used to be one of the most difficult colors in sales but mint will be on trend staying strong for at least another few seasons.