New Idea: Customise My Spring Floral Design...

Customisable spring floral wrapping paper.
Click or tap here to see it at Zazzle.

Hello there, and hope all is well with you.

This week, I'm both keeping a promise I made last week, and showing you something new.

To keep the promise first, the floral wrapping paper/giftwrap you see above with its uses from presents to crafts and more in the photo collage above, is the first design to have come from all that watercolour work-in-progress last week.

If you love the new design just the way it is, you can find it here, as normal.

This time though, *you* can change it...

The stand out thing  and new thing about the way I've designed this is that, if you want to, you can change it, right in the Zazzle editor.

So, if you'd rather have, for example,  a more dramatic background...

Here's how the design might look with a
 blue-mauve background added...

Or just a subtle pale grey one instead of white...

A potential pale grey background
has been added in this mock-up...

You can.

You can even alter the colour and effect of the pattern itself, turning it, for instance, into a greyscale, more  monochrome design, if you want...

Colour is completely taken away here
to show how the design might look in greyscale.

How is all this possible?

All the magic can happen so easily because of the Zazzle site's amazingly flexible new design editor. I'm happy to record a full tutorial on this if you'd like. For now though, please know that the basic steps are:

1. Visit the product page.

The editing button on the product page...

2. Click on the edit button (circled in green in the picture above).

3. For changing the background, you're working with the background layer...

A view of the editing screen showing
how to find the background layer.

4. And for changing the effects, you'll click the main image artboard, to bring up the effects menu (again, circled in green below). The effects tool then gives you all the ways in which you can change colour tones and effects.

Image showing the main artboard in the design 
screen, and the location of the effects button.

5. Save your changes and checkout as normal.

It's long been a dream of mine to give you more ways in which you can customise my designs and make them your own.  So this is, at last, at least a small way that I've been able to start achieving that. I hope you enjoy this, and that it's helpful.

Finally

Finally, a huge thank you for reading down this far, and to those who have re-subscribed after all the newsletter problems, a huge shoutout and thanks too. It means a lot.

As you can probably tell (eg a version of the original, more fun and upbeat logo and "look and feel" has been reinstated :-) ), changes are still afoot, and maybe for some time. 

But on the tech side (ie me and the Computer Man) are getting there. Thank you so much for bearing with it all.

Have a  wonderful week, whatever you're up to.

Thanks and love-more soon.

Clare

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Hyacinths and Vases in Watercolour-Work-In-Progress

Work-in-progress ink and watercolour hyacinth flowers and vases

Hello there.

Hope you're well in these crazy times. Am just dropping in to show you a colourful work-in-progress peek of the  images I've drawn and painted so far for a new collection. And yes, they're hand drawn and water-coloured. (For those who like to know, I used Sakura micron black pens, and a combination of Innktense and my new Viviva watercolours, on hot pressed watercolour paper).

I'd hoped to have the collection (and indeed, all the site changes) ready this week. But in the scale of things, these are such minor issues that I count myself totally lucky instead to be able to work on lovely things...and ask you to tune in next week, to see everything that they've become and are becoming...

In the meantime, thanks so much for being here, and enjoy the colours, the flowers, and another breath of spring.

More soon.

Love,

Clare

PS. If you are still receiving this blog on follow-it 1) Huge apologies, as I genuinely thought it had already been switched off (I have messaged follow-it in an attempt to sort this out), and 2) Please sign up instead to the new-look newsletter if you wish to keep receiving posts. Many thanks!

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A Free Spring Illustration to Enjoy and/or Download

Click, tap or right-click here
to download this image

Hello there, and I hope, as ever that life is treating you well.

Today's offering is an illustration of spring to download and use as you wish (my angel policy about such things is here).

The original size of this illustration was about a third of an A4 or US letter-sized page. So, after upload, it may be even a bit smaller than that. What I'm saying, therefore, is that whilst this should make a good graphic to share online, its printed size will probably only be useful for smaller cards or projects.

Having said that, it's yours to use in line with the angel policy and with my blessing, especially given that:

a) I really appreciate your still being here after and during all the site upheaval,

b) Most of us could do with a treat at the moment, and

c) It's Spriiiiiingggg. (Or at least, odd days are showing big signs of it her after a couple of months of seemingly continuous gloomy weather). 

And yes,  I know, only in the Northern Hemisphere. But (again referencing that couple of months of seemingly continuous leaden sky) please allow me this indulgence if you live south of the Equator. You are of course, completely welcome to use or download this anytime, such as September ;-) if you wish.

(And I really am *that* person who actually goes round the house shouting, "Spriiiinngggg!", (quite loudly) at times such as these).

Finally

Thanks again for bearing with me as the site changes. If you're reading this from the site and would like to sign up for the new newsletter notifications in your in-box, please visit this page and fill in the form, confirming by email afterwards.

Otherwise, have a good week, and thank you yet again, for being here.

More soon.

Update on 13th March 2026-The blog is on an unexpected hiatus this week. Nothing serious, just lots of stuff going on that was unforeseeable and needed attention. I'll be back soon-hopefully next week.

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