So here we are, back in lockdown.  I honestly didn't think that we'd be here at this point.   As I work from home and don't really go out much, for the most part living in lockdown hasn't really affected my day-to-day life and I actually really enjoyed it last year.

One thing that does seem to be a symptom of having everyone around all the time though is that my creative mojo seems to have up and left me!  I just don't have the drive to design or make or create anything.  The same happened last year.  I'm pretty sure that part of it is a time issue; homeschooling the kids does take a chunk out of my day, but thankfully they're smart kids and don't need too much intervention so it's not completely immersive.  Maybe part of it is my introverted nature - I do like to spend time on my own and with everyone around I don't get the chance to just sit with myself and recharge as much as I normally would.  

So I'm getting through the days, but I don't feel like I'm making much progress.  In the past when I've felt lost and directionless making a good plan and daily schedule has really helped to get me back on track.  You can't exactly schedule creativity, but it seems like a good place to start.  

Redbubble now do jigsaw puzzles!  They've been live for a couple of months and I'm slowly but surely enabling jigsaws for as many of my designs as possible.  As many of them are repeating surface patterns, they make really difficult puzzles!  You can see a few below with many more available in my shop.  So if you enjoy a challenge head over to the shop and take a look.  The jigsaws are available with 30, 110, 252, 500 and 1000 pieces (252 piece puzzles shown). 

I've opened a store with Woven Monkey!  They are a UK-based supplier of print-on-demand fabric.  You can upload your own designs or buy from independent designers like me.  They have 20 different fabric options - from a range of different cottons to velvet and scuba stretch (lycra).

I didn't realise how many designs I actually had in my portfolio so it will take a while to upload them all, but head over to the store to see what's available.

As I mentioned in an earlier post I opened a shop with Woven Monkey and so I am slowly uploading my existing designs to the platform.  It's an interesting process because it has made me revisit some designs that I'd sort of forgotten about.  Geo Wheels is one of the first surface pattern designs that I created, originally with white, aqua/mint and red backgrounds.  I couldn't resist playing around with more colours and loved the results with lilac, mustard and teal backgrounds so these are now available at Woven Monkey and also in my Redbubble shop.

Face masks are now live on Redbubble.  There are three size options: kids, small and standard.  Here are just a few of the available designs.  Head over to my store and take a look at all the options.

One of the Spoonflower Design Challenges last year was "Pop Art Citrus".  I created a repeat pattern that I called "Orange Blossom Pop" featuring groups of oranges with orange blossoms and leaves on a polka dot background.  The original background was a shade of royal blue.  I didn't really love it so I went back and made some adjustments and, as always, tried a few different colourways.  One of those was the green background shown above.  I really liked the bold motif so I took away the other elements to create a piece of wall art.  Get the art print in my Redbubble shop and see the design on lots of other products here.