The Dutch Kiwi

Retro Nouveau Design Challenge I am getting in early for the next design challenge on Spoonflower. The Retro Nouveau Design Challenge  is one I was very excited about. I thought I had never drawn an Art Nouveau inspired design. But, once I looked for inspiration I found that there are many similarities to one of my favourite styles, Art Deco. Art Nouveau Retro Floral Warm Earth Tones Large  This is the original colour way that I drew. I liked the warm earth tones and this seemed to tie in well to the Nouveau themes I had seen. After many edits, extra layers to add a little more detail and take some away again, it is finished. I began to play with the background colour to see how it would look on a darker background. Art Nouveau Retro Floral Dark Earth Tones Large And that is how I ended up with this darker earth tone version. I love the extra more obvious detail in the first design but the elements pop so much more on the darker background. I have been running a poll on Instag...

Designs Sold on Spoonflower in October 2025 In October I made 8 sales, just one down from September. Things are looking a bit more stable again. I have decided to up my game in regard to social media and interacting online. Hopefully we will see the results here over the next few months! I wrote a post about it,  Does Following Designers or Favouriting Designs on Spoonflower help? In New Zealand we are only a few short weeks away from the summer holidays so I will have a lot more time to create and interact soon. Here are designs that sold in October 2025:   Croissant Soft Textured Blue Small I have recoloured this design adding three more colours, I wrote a post about it,  Delicious Croissants with Soft Texture - New Colours!  This was because I noticed them featuring regularly in the monthly sales posts. This month is no exception and 3 of the 8 sales this month were for the croissant design. Croissant Soft Textured Blue Medium  (x2) Textured Waves in Aqua Tea...

I have been noticing some repeat sales by posting the monthly sales posts. You can check out Designs Sold - September 2025 here . So as I mentioned in that post I think it might be time to revisit this design and add some new colours! This is the original  Serene Soft Green Cream Wave Swirl Design  This design placed 27th in December 2023, and has consistently featured in sales. Mostly swatches but a few larger orders too. I thought maybe people need other colour options to suit their needs. So I have made eight different colour ways. I have left the scale the same as I like a nice large scale for wallpaper. I am always happy to re-size a design and make it smaller if needed! Serene Soft Wave Swirl Design- New Colours Here are the eight new colour options! I hope there is one that is just right for you. If not, feel free to contact me with your wishes and I will create it for you! Serene Soft Dusty Blue Wave Swirl Design Serene Soft Navy Blue Wave Swirl Design Serene Soft Sag...

Does it make any difference to your Spoonflower sales if you are more active by following designers and liking designs? I am not sure. Does a design having more hearts help in search results? Wallpaper in Retro Textured Scallop Waves Teal Mauve M I have no idea to be honest, but I think it is time to up my game and see! Time to make a social media and interaction plan. Obviously, I will still only follow designers whose work I admire and only heart designs that I actually like. I don't think I can bring myself to randomly like whatever for the sake of sales. It has to mean something right? I will probably need to set a reminder and make sure to do it everyday! Fabric in Boho Floral Woodland Ditsy Dusty Dark Blue I guess I need to check my current followers and favourites to have a starting point. I think I will start with Spoonflower and Instagram. On the off chance I still have some motivation and time left I will add on the Facebook page.  I will still take part in all spoonflowe...

Croissant Soft Textured Blue Medium Wallpaper These delectable croissants with their subtle warm texture, one of my best results in a design challenge on Spoonflower. They placed 29th in April 2024. I have notice over the last few months that they are consistently featuring in my 'designs sold' monthly posts. I looked up the search term 'croissant' by best selling and they were the first result! Croissant Soft Textured Blue Medium The croissant design is available in three sizes, small, medium and large. Since they were selling well and showing up in the search results, I decided it was time to add some more colours. You can see the whole collection called Delicious Croissants by clicking this link , or each photo will take you to that particular design. Croissant Soft Textured Sage Green Large Spoonflower has a more recent feature where they group the same designs of different colours together automatically. That way if you were looking at the large size in one colour ...

Still a few sales coming through. Not enough to be totally excited but still hopeful. I think it might be time to put more effort into promoting and marketing, rather than only creating and relying on organic traffic. That might be a plan for next month to see how much difference it makes! You can check out the Sales Graph if you are interested! I made a total of 9 sales in September 2025. Serene Soft Green Cream Wave Swirl Design A regular feature in this little line up of sales is the Serene Soft Green Wave Swirl Design. I am beginning to think I might need to revisit this design and make a few more colours and sizes! Croissant Soft Textured Medium   x 2  Another regular feature is the lovely croissants. They are already available in three sizes so I don't think I need to add more. A lovely soft flowing design for both fabric and wallpaper. It would be just perfect in a dining room or kitchen. (S) Soft Green Blue Grey Textured Ogee  The symmetry and softness of th...

I have a few cute little Halloween prints available on spoonflower now. Since the spooky season is getting near I though I would share them with you! I have created a Halloween collection that contains them all. Or you can check them out below. If the design is too large or you would like a different colour, please just ask! You can find my contact details on the  contact page . Modern Retro Circles Halloween Large I love the simplicity of these little circle spiders. A lovely retro vibe that would bring some colour and cute warmth while still being perfect for Halloween! This is the most recent design of this list and was designed for a design challenge. In fact, now that I think about it, almost all of these will have been designed for various design challenges. Ghostly Garden Floral Halloween in Orange  Ghostly Garden Floral Halloween in purple Ghostly Garden Floral Halloween in Black  Ghostly Garden Floral Halloween in White  I love the flowing nature and soft t...

I finally noticed that since July this year Spoonflower has been withholding 30% of my earnings. As New Zealand is part of a tax treaty with the United States of America, and I had never had income withheld before, I had no idea why this started. This is what it looks like if you are wanting to check yours. After emailing Spoonflower I learnt that... "Our system has updated to reflect the correct treaty status present on your income tax form. You are seeing these withholdings because the Tax Treaty Benefits portion of your income tax form is incomplete or you are not within a tax treaty country." So my next problem was getting back in to the Avalara software to submit a new W-8BEN form. You will be given login codes but just remember that if you have logged in before you will have been prompted to change your password. So, the password code may not work and you will have to remember the password you chose. That took me a little longer than I'd like to admit to realize! Bu...

I am excited to announce that my Autumn Pheasant Scene made the top 100 in the Spoonflower Autumn Hunt Club design challenge. It came in 73rd with 110 votes and 179 favourites.  I loved drawing this design. I am a sucker for bold graphic style designs with bit of texture to add depth. It's always tough trying to decide when enough is enough. I can get caught in a trap of adding more and more details or elements, only to remove them later. Often I find less is definitely more! Autumn colours are not my usual choice but I really enjoyed working with them. That is why I love design challenges! Always pushing me outside my comfort zone and forcing me to try new things. I hope you like it too!