Wednesdays Words..

Don't let the rain change your mood :)

Keka Case

EXCITING NEWS! You can now buy my designs on cases from Keka Case! Available for iPhones, iPads, kindles & Galaxy S3/4. PLUS, free shipping and 25% off snap ons with code "SNAP25" Grab your unique gift today in time for christmas! 10 Different designs to choose from. http://www.kekacase.com/designer-cases/laura-potter.html

New Board

Check out my new board on Pinterest for wallpaper inspiration will be updating every week

Click image below

Wednesdays Words

For all those starting off in business that may be taking its time to be established..

Keep working hard + you will achieve your dream one day!

Business Boom Feature

Also while i was away my work got featured on business boom!!

Take a look .. Click on image below

Back To Reality

After being on my holiday for a week its now back to reality! :) I've had an amazing break and now feeling refreshed and raring to go again.

Whilst on my holiday i taken a few snaps for some design inspiration for my new textured geometric range. Heres a sneaky peek at some of my holiday snaps..

I Love the textures and colours in these snaps, cant wait to do some designing with them!

Wednesdays words of wisdom

The time has come again for some inspiring words to brighten up your Wednesday 

Inspire today & don't be inspired by others! Its your time to shine :) 

Inspiration from my afternoon walk with my little pooch !

On Friday afternoon i took my little pooch for a walk, i walked through  a field with grass of all different kinds of colours, green fresh grass mixed with brown and yellow dead grass. I took a snap and thought it would come in handy for some inspiration.

Here is the image i taken with a filter to make the colours more vibrate and i will use this as a start for designing today :) I'm thinking of designing some geometric wallpapers so see how i get on and will update you later :)

Wednesdays Words Of Wisdom

Love what you do & Be proud of it!!

Tiger Print Competition

Thinking about entering into this months Tigerprint competition? Take a look at my latest

board on pinterest to inspire you for colour themes, shapes & patterns

More to be added over the next two weeks :) Hope you like it & Good Luck

Click the image below for the direct link to my board

Today i am spending the day drawing & painting for a range or drawings to design a new              
      collection i am going to be working on. Whilst researching for lots of inspiration on     
                           Pinterest :) I LOVE Drawing days :) Here is a sneak peek .. 

What could it be..?

Design Juices

Also recently i was lucky enough to have my work featured on Design Juices, a great site that showcases creative designer/makers and much much more! Go take a look its great to see such a wide range of creativeness - so inspirational :)

Click on the image below to see my work featured :)

Working on some new designs

Recently i have been so busy trying to set up my business, writing a business plan, creating a website, uploading all my work to different websites to promote myself i have hardly had any time what so ever to do what i love, draw & design.

So i started to put together a few little designs for a woodland theme collection to bounce off my nature and insect theme. My collection will come along slowly as i am still creating my business but keep an eye out for it :)

Here is a sneaky peek of my screen :) Hope you like it..

I've Done It !!

Yesterday i found out i had achieved a 1st for my final degree!! I was so happy and proud that all my hard work had paid off and i achieved the best i could :) 

Also today i had a company contacting me about going to speak with them which was another boost and exciting news :) so hopefully something will come of that.

However, i am yet to start painting and drawing in my new sketchbook as i have had a little week off from thinking about my next steps and designing while i celebrate my results and relax for a while :) but i will soon get straight back into it and keep you updated

Expanding my collection

Whilst i am making some bags from previous designs it is important to keep my collection of drawings and ideas developing. I taken a few snap shots in the garden yesterday of some flowers that looked quite unusual to me to start drawings from in my new sketchbook :) Heres a few to look at...

Whats Next?..

I have been thinking what i can produce next to stay productive. I have been researching and looking at different products in the market to get some inspiration. I have decided that i am going to make a few clutch bags for New Designers in London and to add to my collection already. I have bought a pattern and clutch frames and am just waiting on them to arrive in the post and today i am going to send of a few designs to be digitally printed.

This is the style of bag i will be making with my designs. I also thought because i had a lot of leather fabric samples left over from my degree i thought i would make some bags some how from my leather samples to take to New Designers also if they work out successful!

I wont uploads my designs for my bags i will keep it a surprise for when they are made :) Hope they arrive very soon!

Finally Finished After Three Hardworking Years!!

This week i have finally come to the end of my degree! I have enjoyed every moment of it and am pleased with my final outcomes and skills i have learnt and produced along the way.

Here is a picture of my Final Show which is on for a week from the 17th May at University of Bolton.

I had a really nice space to fill with my work and it was great to learn how to put things and hang things which work together so all your show flows and relates.

I had great feedback from our preview night, it was so nice to listen and talk to people who compliment and love your work. Many people couldn't believe i had drawn my bugs which was a shock but nice compliment! Also many people said how they loved that you cant really see or tell what my pattern is until you really look closely at the detail and hidden bugs and insects which i was over the moon about as this was the look i wanted to achieve.

However i can't believe its all over! Now i have to think about what next?.. The past few days i have spent extremely bored and lost so i have purchased a new sketchbook to carry on :) I will be adding to my collection of The Beauty's in the Detail, drawing more detailed bugs and organic forms and also think about how i can move on and develop from it too. 

Also i will be exhibiting at New Designers in London on the 24th June - 29th June which will be very exciting and hopefully see if anything comes of that :)

Hope you like my show!

Getting There

This past week i have been finalising my dress and scarves. I now have all eight scarves hemmed and finished and am extremely pleased with them and how they work in their separate collections. I have tried to take some more professional photos to advertise my scarves and this is what i came up with..

I like how it shows the scarf hanging on the mannequin but the mannequin is just a line which i drew over in illustrator. I think it gives it a great effect and shows the scarves as i wanted them to look.

I have also spent the past few days finishing my dress and embroidering and beading into it. The embroidering gives it a more couture and quality finish look to it. I feel it gives it that added extra detail to make it that bit better which would suit the high end market which i was aiming for. I have also added my leather bugs to the top part of the garment, adding wire so the bugs are coming off the dress and look as if they are floating away which i love as it gives it another detail which gives it a unique and dramatic feel than just sticking with an ordinary dress.

Front of dress.

Back of dress

Experimenting of how i want it to look for my final show.

Close up ideas - experimenting

Beading my bugs. I only added beading to the huge bugs to make them stand out and give them that extra special something :)

Final ideas of where i will be placing my leather bugs

Front shoulder view

Another way & Idea

Final side view

I am really pleased with the final outcomes of my products and cant wait to see how they will look in my final show, tomorrow i will be painting my boards and preparing things ready to go up for my show so i will keep you updated :)

Busy Bee

Hello, sorry i have not blogged in a while i have been so busy preparing for my final products and show and getting them all printed through the mimaki printer. I also had a disaster with my fabric as they sent me the wrong fabric first time around and when i tried to order the right fabric they had sold out so i had to look elsewhere and wait even longer for my dress to be printed :(

Printing my scarves

One of my collections of scarves being printed onto Velvet - 210x42cm

  

Ready to steam

This is what colour the fabric goes after steaming - but don't worry it washes out :)

Another collection of scarves printed on Silk Twill 210x42cm

On my final scarves being printed because it was on the 8meter long lay we knew we couldn't print something so long without something going wrong - and here is what happened! the yellow head just completely blocked and stopped printing which was so obvious on my scarves so i had to re print three of my scarves.

Printing my dress was really hard as i made a 8meter lay with my final dress on and 3 scarves and a few images to bondiner on samples, however the document size just kept crashing the computer linked to the Mimaki so i had to create a new lay at 180dpi which made the file size a lot smaller.

Watching making sure nothing goes wrong.

We had to cut my 8 meter lay into two to put it onto backing cloths to steam. 

Pinning to backing cloth to steam

Today i have spent the day making the bottom half of my dress. I am so pleased with it so far as it hasn't shrunk, they are all the correct sizes which means i created them right in illustrator and all my bugs which go through a seam all match up so i am SO happy!

Back of Dress ( Not hemmed yet)

Front of dress

Heres a few images of 5 of my final scarves, i've only just received them back as i got someone else to hem them whilst i was making my dress just to save me time but i was that excited i took a few quick images to upload to my blog but i will take some better images in a few days :) I'm really pleased with them