Spoonflower & StoryPatches Design Challenge Adds New Dimension to Quilting

News provided by

Jul 15, 2016, 05:00 ET

DURHAM, N.C., July 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 30, Heleen van Buul was named the winner of Spoonflower's Design Challenge in collaboration with StoryPatches [http://www.storypatches.com/], a company that makes quilt labels that link to video, photos, and written notes. StoryPatches will use van Buul's winning design, "Bird family tree," to build a limited edition quilt label collection. Van Buul, known as Heleenvanbuul on Spoonflower [http://www.spoonflower.com/], also received $300 from StoryPatches and $300 from Spoonflower, and a licensing contract for the run of quilt labels.

Heleen van Buul, winner of Spoonflower's latest Design Challenge with partner StoryPatches.

StoryPatches creates interactive quilt labels that connect you to audio, photos, and video.

The month-long Design Challenge invited participants to create a design specifically for StoryPatches in the visual theme of "family tree." Van Buul's four coordinating designs [http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/5468150-bird-family-tree-coordinates-by-heleenvanbuul] featuring birds and birdhouses garnered the most votes from a pool of 159 unique entries.

"I look forward to the collection of quilt labels! Thank you for this opportunity," shared van Buul. "I had been a graphic designer for a while, with mostly doing corporate identities and advertisements. I frequently used patterns as part of my designs and loved making them. Then one day I stumbled upon Spoonflower and just loved the idea of making patterns for fabric. I started off designing a few geometric patterns for some pillow covers in my home. After that I discovered I love surface pattern design so much, I wanted to focus more on it."

Spoonflower's monthly Design Challenges are open to designers of all skill levels, offering an opportunity to submit an original design and compete for a chance at career-changing exposure.

The marriage of Spoonflower fabric and interactive StoryPatches quilt labels was a natural fit for this Family Tree-themed challenge. Spoonflower routinely partners with innovative brands like StoryPatches to bring their community of design lovers new opportunities to see their designs become new products. For Mike Newman, founder of StoryPatches, the Design Challenge offered an opportunity to connect with new designers for potential lines of quilt accessories and labels, and the whole interaction was "a ton of fun."

Since 2009, Spoonflower has hosted over 300 Design Challenges, each with an entirely unique and original theme. The challenges have not only inspired new designers to improve their skills and test their creativity, but have formed the backbone of the Spoonflower community itself.

About Heleen van Buul: Heleen van Buul is a Dutch graphic designer turned surface pattern designer living in The Hague. She started out as a freelance graphic designer after receiving degrees in graphic design and industrial design engineering. After the birth of her two children she became inspired to design for kids and started creating fabric prints and other graphics for the junior market. Visit her shop [http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/heleenvanbuul] to see her winning design "Bird family tree - coordinates."

About Spoonflower: Spoonflower lets users design, print and sell their own fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap. Founded in 2008, it was the world's first web-based service for custom fabric creation and has become the world's largest community of independent fabric designers. Today, the Spoonflower community has grown to over 3.5 million individuals who use their own designs and the Marketplace to make curtains, quilts, clothes, bags, furniture, dolls, pillows, framed artwork, costumes, banners and much, much more. With over 350,000 designs for fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap, and more added every day, the Spoonflower Marketplace is also the world's largest design collection of its kind. Making things with Spoonflower is the subject of a new title from Abrams Books, The Spoonflower Handbook: A DIY Guide to Designing Fabric, Wallpaper & Gift Wrap with 30+ Projects. For more information visit www.Spoonflower.com.

About StoryPatches: StoryPatches makes interactive labels that allow photos, video and audio to add another dimension of your story to your next handmade project. Visit StoryPatches online at http://www.storypatches.com/.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160714/389754

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150826/261111LOGO

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160714/389753LOGO

SOURCE Spoonflower