It’s time for another Inspired by!

My sweet and dear friend Riikka and I challenge each other each month to create something with a theme or thing in mind. We reveal the result and a bit of the thinking process to you and each other on the tenth of the month.

This time the theme was something that fascinates me on so many levels. I don’t read a ton of blog posts any more, but I do subscribe to a small selection of blogs via Bloglovin’ so I can catch up on them every once in a while. One of the blogs is Patternbank.

On their about page they claim to be the go-to location for the Print, Pattern & Graphics Industry. Now, you know that I’m not a print, pattern of graphics maker, but… I do have a huge preference for patterns and to me their whole website is extremely visually inspiring.

One of the features that I especially love is Trend Reports. Yesterday the Spring/Summer 2017 Print & Pattern Trend Report went up, but we decided on the theme for this Inspired by a long time ago, so we chose to be inspired by the Autumn/Winter 2016/17 Print Trend Report Part 2.

To narrow things down a bit further, I chose the AW16/17 Mood – INLAYS.

Yes, you read that correctly: if Patternbank is right, we will see a lot of inlay inspired patterns NEXT Autumn! And that makes me very excited, because I love the inlaid look.

I’ve actually created one particular scrapbook page for Scrap365 magazine that was all about inlaid paper. It’s one of my all time favourites:

I created it with my Silhouette SD and I made my own pattern by combining two images I bought in the Silhouette Design Store. I haven’t used my Silhouette in a long, long time, so I thought it would be fun to dust it off for the occasion.

I’ve also been working on an exciting new project in the last couple of weeks. It involves a geometric pattern and I was highly inspired to create my own take on it:

I scanned the sketch and adjusted it in Adobe Illustrator. I loved the result, but I needed to be able to cut the image with the Silhouette, so I also did a second version with really thick lines.

And then I opened the thick-lined image in the Silhouette Studio software, traced it and cut it out of wood patterned scrapbook paper:

I coloured some of the light coloured ‘triangles’ with Letraset Promarkers to look like stained wood. I adhered the dark wood paper outline to a sheet of white cardstock and then I puzzled out this pattern:

I was really happy with the result!

But then I thought I would use all the leftover pieces to create another collage… that in the end I think I like even better:

This was such an awesome experience! It didn’t involve any research, nor a lot of pondering. I just dove right in and spent an afternoon fiddling around with Illustrator, the Silhouette software, paper patterns and markers!

My initial plan was to use the collages as a scrapbook background, but I really like them as they are, so I’m going to keep them this way.

The cool thing is that if I ever change my mind… I can just use my Silhouette to cut the same pattern again!

In fact: if you like the pattern, you can cut it too! Sign up for my newsletter and then shoot me an e-mail that you are interested in the Silhouette file and I will send it to you!

Now… without further ado… Please visit Riikka to find out what she created with the inlay trend forecast in mind!

Enjoy your day!