February pattern challenge

 For the month of February I took part in the @melanie.johnsson pattern challenge on Instagram, which was a lot of fun! The theme was inspired by the seaside and I decided on a colour palette of soft blues, turquoises and corals. The first challenge was the word 'shells'. For this design I used a hand-drawn outline style with softly shaded colours in each shell.

This print would look great as a wallpaper in a beach house.

The word for the second challenge was 'picnic' so I chose to create a loose floral pattern which could be used on a picnic rug. 

I love the way that the print matches the tableware below.

The third prompt word was 'mermaid' so I chose to create a pretty mermaid scales pattern and incorporated both the coral colours and the turquoise colours into the design.

This would look fabulous as a wallpaper in a little girl's room.

The fourth prompt word was 'tides' and so I created this wave design in shades of blue and turquoise.

It would look great as wallpaper on a feature wall in a bathroom.

The fifth prompt word was 'crustaceans' so I chose to create a crab design, surrounded by coral.

Does this work as a bedroom wallpaper?! It might give you nightmares... but I love it!

The sixth prompt word was 'pool' so I channeled my inner Hockney and created this stylised water print.

It works well as a wallpaper print in this fresh white bedroom setting.

The seventh prompt word was 'wildflowers' so I decided to create this print of silhouette wild grasses in shades of soft blues and white.

I love how it looks as a wallpaper against this blue sofa.

The eighth prompt word for the challenge was 'kites' so I created these breezy kites on a cloud background.

This would look great on a feature wall in a child's bedroom.

The final prompt word for the pattern challenge was 'splash' and so I decided to create this paint splash print using the colours from the palette on a white background.

It would be the perfect print on a wallpaper in a child's bathroom!

All of these designs have been added to my Spoonflower shop which you can see here.

A weekend by the sea

Last weekend was a bank holiday in the UK and our family made the most of it by heading down to stay in a lovely house in Middleton-on-sea, just along the coast from Bognor Regis.

The house had lovely big grounds and a trampoline in the garden.

Every morning I went for a brisk walk along the seafront to blow the cobwebs away.

The morning light was beautiful.

We also spent some time sitting on the beach and playing in the sea.

The beach was only two minutes walk from the house and we practically had it all to ourselves.

Lila made a mermaid in the sand.

The pebbles on the beach were perfect for her scales and seaweed was used for hair.

We enjoyed slush puppies.....

.....that made our tongues go blue!

And we paid a visit to the arcade to play on the slot machines.

 Flo won a bouncy ball and Lila won a lolly, so well worth the £5 we spent!