12 months of Spoonflower Design Challenges
I decided that this year for the surface design side of my business that I’d respond to one design challenge each month provided by the fabric, wallpaper and home decor company, Spoonflower. Spoonflower’s Design Challenges are aimed at their community of artists to provide prompts for designs around trending themes in the home decor market. As well as helping you to build a portfolio of on-trend patterns, participating in the challenges helps artists to get their designs seen by Spoonflower's customers and you can even win prizes if your designs are voted into the top ten by other Spoonflower community members.
Spoonflower actually release a new challenge prompt every two weeks, but I decided that it would be more manageable if I stuck to completing one challenge each month throughout 2024. This also allowed me to pick prompts that felt more applicable to my style - although I did end up creating some designs in a slightly different style.
My favourite, best-sellers and highest-placed designs
The full round-up of my 2024 patterns is below, but I thought I’d do a quick summary of which designs placed best in the Spoonflower competitions, which have sold best in my Spoonflower shop, my favourite design from the year and my best-selling product.
Highest placing design
Coming in at 233rd out of 1,423 entries, my highest-placing design in this year’s Spoonflower competitions was my ‘Hello, baby!’ (October 2024) cheater quilt pattern.
Best seller on Spoonflower
My Woodland Whispers design (April 2024) has been my best-selling design from my Spoonflower shop of the twelve designs I’ve created for this year’s challanges.
Top product
I was really please with how my 2025 Tea Towel Calendar came that I added it to my stock of 100% organic cotton tea towels. These have been super popular with Christmas shoppers this November/December and I’ve sold-out!
My Favourite design
Actually, it is possible that the stats will change for all of the above designs as I’m writing this before voting for the December challenge of ‘Mocha Mousse statement wallpaper’ has begun. However, even if this design doesn’t place well, I have to say it has overtaken my tea towel calendar as my favourite design from this year - not least because it was pretty complex to put together to create the seamless repeat, but also because I just love Wrens!
2024 round-up
January - March
The first challenge I entered in 2024 was for the prompt of ‘Forest Biome’. Designers were invited to put on our binoculars and explore creative ways to depict the flora and fauna found in forests, underneath towering trees and in the underbrush of the forest floor. I was inspired by Britain's Ancient Woodlands to create a beautiful damask design 'Beneath the Ancient Trees Damask' incorporating key species indicators such as ferns (hard fern and hart's tongue), wildflowers (wood anenome and bluebells), insects (violet click beetle and white-lipped snail) and fungi (beechwood poisoner and inkcap). I submitted the ‘Woodland Palette’ colourway.
I chose the ‘Warm Minimalism’ brief for February, combining the straight lines and open spaces of minimalism with a muted, toned-down color palette of warm, earthy neutrals. I was inspired by Moroccan/Islamic designs and spices in the bazaars, etc - then I've added in some rose gold foil for the 'luxury' element.
In March, I went back to my comfort zone with a design for the prompt of 'A Trip to the Beach', which immediately made me turn to my collection of 'Tideline Treasures'. I hand-drew this collection of shells, pebbles, sea glass and more before painting with watercolour. I submitted the version on the periwinkle stripe background to the challenge.
April - June
I was tempted to try a more abstract design for the April prompt of ‘Toned and Textured wallpaper’, which asked for neutral colours, simple luxury and natural textures. My 'Woodland Whispers' design is an abstract pattern inspired by the textures of turned wood and tree bark in an earth-toned colour palette. Each of the circular elements was hand-painted in watercolour in tones of Burnt Sienna mixed with Ivory Black, before being digitised and created as this subtle repeat pattern.
The challenge prompt I chose for May was another coastal one - ‘Crustacean core’ - which asked for a design that featured crustaceans, such as lobsters, shrimp, crabs, etc. I went 'vintage nautical' with this design - 'Vintage Maritime Life - Lobster and Crab Fishing'. You'll find lobster, crab, fishing creels, a traditional crab-fishing boat, a lighthouse and the ubiquitous coastal herring gull all in a muted colour palette. All the motifs were drawn with dip pen and ink before being digitised.
Although we were in mid-summer, the prompt that I chose for June was ‘Cottagecore Halloween’. The prompt asked for a design that blended the cottagecore trend of romantic florals and rural life, with more traditional Halloween motifs. I used a couple of elements from previous pattern designs (two pumpkins and some potion bottles). As well as saving time (which was needed as I'd been away on holiday for a week) the other benefit of working like this is that now I have a linked Halloween collection for those that like their Samhain with a little less orange and black!
July - September
I really enjoyed the three challenge prompts I chose for July to September - they all used different approaches and techniques, but were satisfying patterns to design.
For July, I stayed simple with linework herbs and related culinary tools for my response to the prompt of ‘Yes, Chef!’
For August, we were into the Christmas design phase and I chose another hand-drawn set of motifs inspired by Scandinavian folk art for the ‘Non-Directional Ditsy Holiday’ prompt, although this time I coloured the elements digitally to create a more cohesive pattern design.
Then in September, I was excited to follow the brief for a 2025 Calendar Tea Towel - the subject of the designs was left up to the individual artist and as I was in the middle of developing a workshop to help people get outside and sketching nature, I decided to create a ‘Nature Spotter’s’ calendar.
October - December
In October, I opted for the ‘Welcome to the World’ prompt to create a comforting design that you’d want on a hand sewn blanket or other baby item made with love. I was running a bit short of time again, so I created some simple motifs, hand-drawn in coloured pencil on a textured paper, that I then arranged in to a cheater quilt pattern.
For November, I chose the prompt of ‘Western Americana’. The theme challenged designers to immerse themselves in the spirit of the Old West and celebrate the rich heritage and rugged landscapes in this adventurous frontier to create a crowd-pleasing design that looks like it would belong on home decor and apparel.
My 'Cactus and Canyons' pattern focuses on the flora, fauna and landscapes of the wild west, including hand-drawn illustrations of Monument Valley and Lone Pine (Alabama Hills, California), as well as a bison, rattlesnake and desert hawk amongst a range of cacti, from saguaro to prickly pear. I kept to a minimal, modern colour palette.
Last, but not least, for 2024 I chose the prompt of ‘Pantone® Color of the Year: Monochrome Wallpaper’. Every year, Spoonflower partners with Pantone to challenge artists to create a design using the colour of the year. For 2025, the colour is 'Mocha Mousse' and the challenge was to create a stunning statement wallpaper using this neutral hue. I hand-drew a series of wrens and branches using a 2B pencil on a slightly textured paper to get a soft feel to the linework, before scanning and then piecing everything together in a seamless repeat for my Wrens on Winter Branches pattern.
Shop now
All twelve of my Spoonflower design challenge entries are available to purchase now from my Spoonflower store on a wide range of eco-friendly fabrics, wallpapers and home decor items (such as cushions, bedding, curtains, tableware, etc).
I’ll be adding my Wrens on Winter Branches design to my collection of 100% organic cotton tea towels in the New Year - sign-up to my newsletter to be the first to here when these are available.