When I thought about Christmas and Winter I always remember happy moments from my childhood. One of those moments were watching Christmas movies. I grew up in Brazil, where Christmas happens during summer. I’ve never seen snow until I moved to Canada, so watching those kids playing in the ice and snow was fascinating for me!
One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was Home Alone. I love movies from the 80s and 90s and I thought that would be the perfect inspiration for my new winter collection.
Choosing the elements
I watched the movies again and did an analysis of some key elements, you can read about it below:
I wanted to design some people but I didn’t want to use the thieves or Kevin’s family. Instead, I focused on characters that barely have a screen time during the movie, like the ice skaters, choir singers and shoppers. I also got inspired by some of the house wallpapers, overall colour palette and ornaments.
- Characters: Ice Skaters, Shoppers, Choir Singers, Kevin and Santa Claus
- Elements: Wallpapers designs and Santa House
- Miscellaneous: Toys, Presents and Christmas ornaments
I designed the elements in my own style and then digitalized using Adobe Illustrator. My goal was not to recreate the movie most famous scenes, instead I tried to illustrate the fun atmosphere of Christmas and winter in the 80s and 90s. I really enjoyed dressing the characters in vintage clothes and vibrant colours.
Slide the picture below to see my original drawings and the digitalized version
Creating the Patterns
For this collection I decided to create 5 hero prints,5 secondary prints and 5 blenders.
Hero Prints: the statement ones! Patterns with characters, lots of elements and colours.
Secondary Prints: patterns with smaller elements and medium complexity
Blender Prints: abstract patterns with limited colours
I tried to create patterns that could be used not only for Christmas but also for the whole winter, so colours include not only the basics red, green and golden but also some whites and blues to add a bit of ice and snow to the mix.
Mock-ups
I always like to visualise how the patterns are going to work in products, here are some tests
Printing Fabrics and Licensing
This collection available for purchase in my Spoonflower shop – that means you can shop fabric by the yard and create your own projects.
I ordered a small quilt to make sure colours will look all right, that’s how it’s going to look like:
Producing Embroidered Products
As usual I’m offering some of the designs in an embroidered version. The winter tote bag is a must have, and the hoops are a great idea for decorating your house or for giving as gifts. Visit my Etsy Shop to see what is available.
What did you think about this project? Did you like it? Let me know in the comments!
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