Good Food

Quite some time ago, I'm not sure exactly, I painted a sign for the kitchen. I wanted something retro looking and with bright colors. I had the sign part in my head for a long time and thought I'd cut it out of wood with a scroll saw. Problem was, I didn't have one at the time. So I settled for painting it on a canvas. The background needed something so I came up with a repeating hamburger and fries pattern. It was tedious painting all those little burgers but what the heck. Everyone who saw the sign loved it.

(I apologize for these photos - I still haven't managed to find my camera and have to rely on my not-so-awesome phone camera)



My long time Bestie, Elena, is the queen of soup and I'd often think of making her a similar sign but with soup. The thought of painting a bunch of little soup bowls was daunting, to say the least. Another dear friend, Suzanne, wanted a sign also. She chose tacos for her sign. I drew out both designs, creating each little element in Adobe Illustrator. Elena's design has soup bowls, crackers, and spoons. Suzanne's has tacos, pinatas, and chili peppers. Then I tried to psych myself into actually painting them.

Meantime, Spoonflower was running a BOGO on cotton fat quarters. I printed off some of my Halloween fabrics and on a whim, had the hamburger & fries pattern printed up too. I figured I'd make some pot holders to go with the sign. Pretty cool, huh?



And then it hit me. Why paint all those little soup bowls & crackers and taco & pinatas when I can just print them on canvas? Yes! I set to work converting my design into something actually printable and the universe must have been on my side for once. Just as I finished, Spoonflower put their canvas on sale. This was huge since in the past, things never worked out like this for me. I laid out the designs so that I could get both designs, with extra for tea towels and pot holders, on one yard of canvas.

Suzanne's birthday was coming up and I wanted to give her the sign as a birthday present. I was cutting it close with the printing, shipping, and creating the goodies. I didn't have any 16"x 20" canvases to stretch the new canvas on. Bam, I open an email from Michael's to discover all canvases were on sale. One day only sale, of course! We rushed over to get some after work. I quickly sewed the pot holders and tea towels. Then it was off to stretch the canvases. They looked absolutely perfect, until I tried to seal them. I won't even get in to what a nightmare that was! Got it fixed, that's all that matters! I forgot to take a photo of Suzanne's set before I gave them to her. Someone took a photo of her holding them, so that's what I have!



I remembered to take some photos of Elena's set before I mailed them out to her. Not as nice as I would like the photos to be, but you work with what you have!

She hasn't received them yet (since I mailed them yesterday!) and I can hardly wait to hear what she thinks about them. I remarked to my Darling Henry that I was thinking of putting them on my Etsy site as a customization with a few stock options, like Nana, Mom, or Grandma. He said, "NO! I'll never see you again!"  I think they might be a good seller so I'm going to do it. I'll just limit the background foods I'm willing to draw.

What do you think? Yea or Nay?