How My Best Selling Halloween Collection was Born

Some of my most successful patterns seem to have one oddly specific thing in common: I made them while I was on vacation, awake before everyone else.

This past July, I was visiting one of my favorite places, the Universal parks in Orlando. As usual, I was up way too early. Everyone else in the condo was still asleep, including one teenager stretched out on the couch, which meant turning on the lights wasn't really an option.

So it was just me in the dark with my coffee and my iPad.

I started drawing what would become my Jack o' Lantern Checkerboard pattern mostly as a way to keep myself occupied until everyone woke up and we could head to the parks. It wasn't part of some carefully planned collection. I was just drawing.

By the end of my vacation, I had an entire Halloween collection.

The same little routine repeated itself throughout the trip: wake up too early, make coffee, draw quietly in the dark, and wait for everyone else to wake up so we could go to the parks.

Those early morning sketches eventually became my Vintage Halloween Pumpkin Parlor collection, filled with jack o' lanterns, black cats, candles, bats, moths, stars, florals, plaids and stripes. I wanted it to feel nostalgic and a little mysterious, like decorations pulled from an old box in the attic rather than something overly bright or cartoonish.

I uploaded the collection to my Spoonflower shop, where the designs are available on fabric, wallpaper and home decor. And somehow, the Jack o' Lantern Checkerboard I started simply because I had nothing else to do at six in the morning became the top-selling design in my shop seemingly overnight. The rest of those early-morning vacation designs weren't far behind.

The funny thing is, this isn't the first time that's happened.

Last November, while visiting New York City, I found myself in almost exactly the same situation: awake hours before my husband, drawing while I waited for the day to begin. The drawing I created during that trip became the beginning of my Coastal Cottage collection. That collection started selling almost immediately and, to this day, is still one of my top-selling collections on Spoonflower.

Apparently my creative process thrives on vacation, coffee and my complete inability to sleep in.

There may actually be something to it. When I'm away from my normal routine, I'm not sitting down thinking about what I should design or what might sell. I'm usually drawing because I have a quiet hour to myself and an idea sounds fun. The pressure is gone, and I think that shows in the finished work.

Vintage Halloween definitely feels like one of those collections.

What began as one sleepy vacation-morning pattern turned into a collection I genuinely loved making, and seeing other people respond to it has made the whole story even more fun.

So perhaps the lesson here is obvious. I should probably take more vacations.

The Vintage Halloween Pumpkin Parlor collection is available in my Spoonflower shop on fabric, wallpaper and home decor.

If you're a brand, manufacturer or art director planning for next Halloween and are interested in licensing a design from this collection, I'd love to hear from you. You can contact me through my website to discuss licensing or custom design opportunities.

There are so many fun designs in this collection, these are just a few of them. To see the rest, visit my Spoonflower shop.
Some of these designs are also available on Raspberry Creek Fabrics.