AND THE OFFICIAL COLOR OF 2013 IS...

The official color of 2013 was chosen by Pantone, the people who know color and have a huge influence on fashion and design, the world over. And the winner is... wait for it... EMERALD! More the reason to check out my Absinthe tote bag. I custom-mixed forest green and white ink to create a nice absinthe louche emerald color for this bag.

BEETLE BAG CREATION

 Here's a bit of background on my most recent beetle bag. I started with an antique (dated 1837) French natural history print illustrated by George Cuvier. This is one of my favorite prints so I was excited about recreating it as a tote bag design. I had to do a bit of cleanup on the artwork: make it a uniform color, increase contrast, remove tiny hairs on the beetle legs, etc. in order to get a good quality silkscreened image. This bag compliments my dragonfly bag quite nicely too. I have a serious addiction to old natural history prints, especially insects, so I plan on doing several other similar styles in the near future.

NEED THIS DEED!

I picked up this cool 103-year-old Manchester land deed at Portobello Market in London (undoubtedly one England's biggest antique market). This deed was a real deal for just a few pounds (around $4US) although sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion that it's void so I don't think I'll be relocating to England anytime soon. But I do plan to put this deed on one of my upcoming bags.

SNAKE BONES BAG ON THE HORIZON

I've had this beautiful antique Oken circa-1840ish natural history print sitting around for a long time. This is one of the images that inspired me to start silkscreening on bags. But when it came time to start printing my first bags, this print vanished out of thin air. I looked everywhere but it was nowhere to be found so I pretty much had given up hope of working with this image for a print design. But just now, after cleaning out some boxes, it resurfaced! I'm excited. In the next few months, I'm gonna start designing larger, grocery bags (probably 18" x 15") and this image will look quite nice on one of them. I'll post an entry about it as soon as I have a finished product.

DEMON FLYTRAP DESIGNS IS ALIVE!

Greetings from Demon Flytrap Designs. I'm Ron Sawyer, your humble host and the owner of this strange little silkscreened tote/shopper bag company. I've already got five designs printed and my Etsy store is up and running. On my blog, I'll be chronicling my design/printing experiences and misadventures. Since I've turned my apartment into a factory for this enterprise, it's safe to say, there will be misadventures aplenty.