Episode 30 How Long Does It Take To Design A Fabric Collection?

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina answers a question that she gets a lot: “How long does it take to design a fabric collection?” Carina talks through the difference between fabric lines that take a long time and lines that come more quickly.

Her current fabric collection project, which is set to release in late 2022 or early 2023, is one that has taken a long time because she has specific things she wants the collection to do.  Carina’s process begins with setting aside blocks of time so that she can figure out the color scheme and what the theme for the collection will be. Carina typically starts with the master or the secondary design for the collection. Starting with the secondary gives her two things: first, she doesn’t have to make the secondary as colorful, which gives her more options down the road, and, second, the secondary design doesn’t have to be as detailed as the master. The master is always very detailed and very specific, so it can limit choices later in the design process. 

On her current line, Carina gave herself an overnight hotel stay so that she could filter out every other distraction. It took her about 14 hours of work to get the secondary and the master done. Then she set it aside for a week. After getting back to it, she *hated* the master. It was off in terms of look, feel, and overall vibe. For the next week, she worked on the fabric line. On Monday she made a very detailed, two-layer demasque. Then she spent a couple of days mapping out the rest of it and changing the colors. She actually did the master last at the end of the day. For Carina, this entire fabric line took about ten days. On her first fabric collection, this process took months.

Carina finds that it’s important not to get too attached to a certain design. Sometimes the client sees it and wants something different. Sometimes what you’ve designed doesn’t quite fit the current project and you have to modify it. Every design experience, even the rejected ones, are a learning experience. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 28 Why Writing Things Down is Important For Even Designers

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina runs through the reasons why *writing* is so important to developing ideas. For her, most great ideas start with paper and pen–this is one of the reasons that her membership group is called “Ink Club.”

Carina recalls that on Episode 21 of the Podcast, calligraphy expert Melissa Esplin taught us about bullet journals. Both Melissa and Carina use multiple journals. 

Carina walks us through the journals that she uses and how they help her. Carina keeps a “traditional journal,” like a diary to record thoughts and events. She also keeps a “business journal,” where rights down new ideas, notes on new podcast episodes, and other inspiration that comes to her. Carina also uses her business journal for one of her daily practices, writing down her ten biggest dreams as if they have already happened. Her business journal is the one she takes with her to conferences and business meetings. Carina keeps her journals and they become physical evidence of what she has accomplished. If you begin to journal then you will be amazed when you look back and see the results of all that you’ve accomplished. That physical evidence helps you to overcome imposter syndrome by giving you proof that you are amazing! Carina really digs in and takes a deep dive into the revelations, epiphanies, and plans that have come to her because she writes it down. “When we write it down it somehow always turns into a plan.”

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 27 Two Ways You Can Be Supported in What You Do

Posted on by Carina Gardner

Carina begins today’s episode of Make + Design by telling us about Ink Club, which launched originally on October 1, 2021. Ink Club is for every creative so that you, as a creative, can find community.

The announcement about Ink Club fits today’s podcast topic, which is all about community and, specifically, two ways that having a community can help you feel supported in what you’re doing. 

The first way to find support is to join a community like a club, a mastermind, or a membership group. Carina gives us a great example of a community that didn’t work and how starting a community that didn’t work taught her about the kinds of things that a community needs to offer in order to serve its members. To find a community, Carina recommends searching the web for your hobby/interest and the word “community.” Community can help you feel loved, trusted, and supported. 

The second way to find community in your life is to build it yourself. With apps like Facebook, Clubhouse, and Instagram Rooms, there are many great ways to build a community. 

Finding a great community can help you to level up by giving you a new set of “the five people you spend the most time with.” 

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Access to Carina’s Ink Club membership can be found at https://www.carinagardnercourses.com/inkclub.

Carina’s Instagram fabric feed can be found at @carinagardner. 
Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 26 Collage Quilting with Emily Taylor

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina is joined by business owner and expert collage quilter Emily Taylor. Emily designed many fabric collections for Riley Blake Designs and started a company called that allowed people to design their own quilting patterns online and gives some insight into how a business failure propelled her to strike out into the new territory of collage quilting.

Emily Taylor makes the most beautiful collage quilts. If you have never heard about collage quilting, Emily breaks down what she does and how you can learn how to collage quilt too! She launched her company, Collage Quilter, in 2018. She also teaches for quilt guilds and events around the country. Her background also includes many years as a mural painter.

You’ll want to check this one out on the YouTube channel because Emily walks us through what makes a quilt a collage quilt and shows us some of her beautiful, intricate quilt. Emily also shares a pre-printed foundation panel, which guides fabric selection and placement in the collage. Emily loves to use printed fabric because it makes every collage quilt unique. Emily also applies general principles of art to the production of collage quilts. Emily also shares strategies for buying the right kinds of fabric for producing collage quilts. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

About Today’s Guest

Emily Taylor is the founder and owner of Collage Quilter, a company dedicated to helping quilters learn how to create beautiful, unique collage quilts. Emily’s background includes working as a mural painter and as a fabric designer. 

Find Emily online at http://www.collagequilter.com or in Facebook groups called “Collage Quilter Academy” and “Collage Quilter.”

Emily Taylor’s first quilting workshop will take place in Midway, Utah in June 2022 and is already sold out. Nice work, Emily! 

Episode 25 All Things Silhouette with Terri Johnson

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina is joined by Terri Johnson, an event planner who runs one of the biggest Silhouette events, “All Things Silhouette.”  Terri tells us about how she got started as a crafter. It began when she was young in sewing classes but really kicked into high gear when she had children of her own and wanted to sew clothing for them. Her passion led to working as a seamstress at a sewing store. This led to her ownership of her own sewing store for many years. 

Several years ago, she discovered that Silhouette machines can be used to create fabric appliqués and her expertise in the Silhouette space took off from there. Based on the demos they were doing in her sewing shop, they began selling Silhouette machines like crazy to the point that Silhouette’s Vice President of Sales came to visit her to find out how her methods were so effective. Eventually her work with Silhouette education and retreats led her to close her sewing shop to focus full time on Silhouette. Terri walks us through what it was like to plan and host her first-even Silhouette conference and that it was a bit like Field of Dreams, “if you build it they will come.” Carina points out that Terri has been really great at seeing an opportunity that aligns with her passions and then turning that opportunity into something memorable for the wider community. For Terri, the key to the success of her events is the quality of the educators that they bring to the conference. 

Terri walks through some of the challenges that her conferences have faced during the pandemic and tells us the ways they have continued to be successful with a pivot to an online-only model. Many people actually prefer the virtual event! As Terri looks to the future, she is in the process of deciding whether to do live events again (it sounds like she’ll do one live event and one virtual event!).

Terri tells us about some of her courses and programs, including a curriculum that allows someone to become a certified Silhouette instructor. She also has a monthly club for Silhouette projects called the “All Things Silhouette Club.”

Terri can be found at http://www.terrijohnsoncreates.com. 


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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

About Today’s Guest

Terri Johnson is a seamstress, Silhouette expert, business owner, and cancer survivor. She is passionate about helping people unlock their creative potential with their Silhouette machines. You can find more information about Terri’s conferences, courses, and licensing products at her website, http://terrijohnsoncreates.com. 

Episode 23 The One Word That Will Transform Your Daily Life

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of the Make + Design Podcast, Carina tells us about the one little word that will change your life. The word is ACTION. Carina tells us how taking action helps her gain clarity, get unstuck, and build momentum when it comes to starting (or completing!) a project.


Carina also walks us through some of the ways that she takes action to propel her forward. The first way she likes to take action is step-by-step action, meaning that she visualizes each step along the way to complete a project. The second kind of action Carina takes is strategic action. Strategic action starts with visualizing the end goal and then being very mindful about prioritizing the tasks that will lead to it. 

As an example on how to take ACTION, Carina walks through the step-by-step process of becoming a designer. She gives three or four examples of what a good first step looks like and then talks through what would come next. The important thing is to TAKE ACTION and commit to that action. She also walks us through a non-design example: planning a typical summer day with kids in the house. 

Listen in to hear the biggest way that taking ACTION will transform your daily life. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 
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About Carina Gardner:
Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.
 
Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.
 
Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com
Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 22 A Little About Color

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make + Design, Carina talks to us about color. Carina tells us what her university courses on color were like and about how hands-on a color class is with mixing and analyzing different colors of paint.

H

Listen in to hear Carina’s thoughts on the 2021 Pantone Colors of the Year and how they relate to the Pandemic. Pantone’s description of the colors is a great case study on how to approach color and infuse your designs with meaning. Find the full description at www.pantone.com. 

After that introduction to the power of color, Carina breaks down the considerations she kept in mind when selecting colors for a summertime photoshoot. She compares how she might choose colors for a summertime project compared to an autumn project. She ends by giving advice on how to approach a project with limited color choices and how that affects the design work itself.

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 21 From Painting to Calligraphy with Melissa Esplin

Posted on by Carina Gardner

Carina is joined by artist and calligraphy expert Melissa Esplin on today’s episode of Make + Design. Melissa tells us about how she got into creative arts and how she tried to bridge the gap between fine art and graphic design as an undergrad and how that created tension between two halves of a department that simultaneously was jealous of and looked down on the other half of the department.

 Melissa shares the hilarious story of her Senior project for her Bachelors of Fine Arts in which they almost didn’t give her the “Fine” in the degree because her final project was done in Illustrator instead of a more traditional medium like oil paint. Carina shares a “what price art” moment from when she was pregnant for the first time and painted in a way that concerned her doctor. What could that possibly mean? LOL. 

Melissa walks through her post-college journey and how it led her to a love of calligraphy after she was inspired by a book she inherited that had belonged to her great-great grandfather. Melissa talks about how important it was for her as an artist to make ugly stuff in the beginning as she learned her craft and improved. She tells the journey of monetizing her art by taking a risk with starting her own calligraphy instruction site. Carina and Melissa dig into what it takes to run a successful online business and strategies for driving traffic to a website. They also talk about the importance of mental health and self care like exercise. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

About Today’s Guest

Melissa Esplin is a calligraphy expert and entrepreneur who has taught thousands of people to become calligraphy artists over the last decade. She holds a B.F.A. from Brigham Young University and is an avid cyclist. 

Find Melissa on her site at https://www.calligraphy.org/ and on Instagram at melissapher. 

Episode 18 Seven Creativity Starter Ideas

Posted on by Carina Gardner

Ever feel like you’re stuck in a rut creatively? On today’s Make and Design, Carina shares seven tips to help you get out of rut and boost your creativity. 

Tip #1: Go somewhere new. Find out how Carina uses trips and changes of scenery to recharge her creativity. 

Tip #2: Change your environment. Find out how this is different from the first tip. Hint: it has to do not with the micro level of where you are, like the room you’re in.

Tip #3: Take a break. Sometimes the best way to get clarity on how to finish a project is to take a break from it. The break might last an hour, a week, or even a year! 

Tip #4: Take a shower/bath/dip in the hot tub. Showers are an amazing way to create an environment where you can cultivate your best creative ideas!

Tip #5: Take a nap. Not a two-hour nap. A 15 to 20 minute nap to help our mind declutter and feel refreshed. 

Tip #6: Forced doodling. Listen in to find out what this is and how it gets the creativity flowing.

Tip #7: Go to a museum. Carina explains how the inspirational environment of a museum helps to unlock our own creativity. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp

Episode 16 How To Find Your Art Style with Jeanie Dickinson

Posted on by Carina Gardner

On today’s episode of Make and Design, Carina is joined by artist and designer Jeanie Dickinson, who is also a member of Carina’s Design Suite. Jeanie takes us on a deep dive into her creative process and what she did to develop her very own style, including the moment when she realized that she had her own style. She shares with us how important it was for her to find a mentor and how that impacted and accelerated the development of her style.

 Jeanie and Carina describe Jeanie’s style and Jeanie gives two great tips on how you can develop your own style. This one is worth checking out on the YouTube channel as well because Jeanie shows off some of her adorable, whimsical art. Find out how journaling has helped Jeanie practice more and refine her art style. Jeanie and carina also talk about how having a BIG WHY can keep you motivated as an artist. Jeanie finishes up by telling us about a couple of resources and classes that have helped her improve over the years. 

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Download Carina’s free guide: The 7 Tips Nobody Will Tell You About Becoming a Surface Pattern Designer here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY 

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About Carina Gardner:

Carina Gardner is a fabric designer, paper designer, and design educator who is passionate about helping other designers fulfill their creative dreams by teaching them her strategies for making money as a designer. She has a Ph.D. in Design and taught design at the University of Minnesota before starting Carina Gardner, Inc.

Carina Gardner, Inc design brand has been featured in dish ware, holiday decor, sewing patterns, and more. Her exclusive Design Suite Program helps creatives make money designing as they learn to design. Her programs include Illustrator and Photoshop training, surface pattern design, paper design, Silhouette & Cricut file design, and running a design business. She started the Make and Design Podcast so that she could share inspiration, stories, and experiences about design and life with crafters and designers.

Find out more at https://www.carinagardner.com

Check out her most popular program, Design Bootcamp, here: http://www.carinagardnercourses.com/designbootcamp