Continuing the roundup

A recent contest theme was "libraries." I used some of the colors I had before for library-related designs. I did a play on houndstooth (a fabric maybe an old-fashioned librarian would wear?), and made it look like hands holding a book.



This got 84 votes and came in the middle of the pack. I liked these expressive books and this assortment of library accessories.

Another theme was ditsy sheep. (Ditsy meaning a small-scale scattered print that can work facing any direction.) Previous ditsy contests have been for crickets, sea creatures, and early on, just ditsy in general with no other theme.  I wanted to go ultra-cute, so I went with lambs specifically. That made me think of the old song that goes "Mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy," so lambs and ivy it is. Since the song is from the 40's, I picked a retro palette:

Color by COLOURlovers



This came just shy of the top half of entries. Some of my favorites were the sheep with flowers (maybe a liiiiitle large scale to be ditsy though...) and the pastel farm scene.

Leading up to the holidays, there was of course a Christmas-related contest. This year it was for ornaments. I went with clove oranges, and used the same colors as a previous Christmas-y design.



This one also came in right in the middle. I liked the black and gold, filigree paper, retro graphic, and stamped paper ornaments.

Another contest around that time of year was for (yet another) toile, with a "winter" theme. I made mugs of hot chocolate (with marshmallows of course), in icy blue and chocolate brown.



Each mug is decorated with a different wintry icon. In the contest, it just crept into the top half! I liked this frontier town entry, which reminded me a little of the illustrations for the Little House on the Prairie books.