Sorry for posting so late, but I was deep into pattern making this week. I signed up for a class (actually 3 classes) call That Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design taught by Rachel Taylor. You can find links to them on Creative Clearinghouse, along with lots of other classes. Here is the module I just finished- http://www.creativeclearinghouse.com/Online-Class-Reviews/content/256/class-info/Art-and-Business-Surface-Pattern-Design-Module-2 . I say finished sort of tongue in cheek because there is so much to this class, that I really need to spend some time reading through the material, and doing the exercises and listening to the audio files, and well, as usual I didn’t have the time to do it properly. However, I read through enough of the class, that I decided I wanted to try my hand at patterns- and truth be told, I had already done some before the class. I did learn a new way of making patterns in PhotoShop during one of the lessons, so I was thinking of trying to enter the contests that Rachel was proposing at the end of the module.
But, with just a few days to pull it together I seriously had my doubts that I could do it. So what did I do? I scheduled a get together with my friends to stamp, and paint and have some fun. Yeah, like that was gonna help me get my project finished 
But wait, it really did! While we were playing around, my friends started looking through my stash of stencils, and prints from the Gelli Arts Printing Plate, and the bits of scraps that I had made and tossed in piles. And slowly a pattern emerged (ok- sorry for the awful pun). I already had lots of patterns!! Between the stamps and the stencils that I designed, I had quite a few patterns to start with that were tucked away on my computer! So, after they left I was so jazzed that I got straight to work, and I think I may actually make the deadline! Even if I don’t get in, I have a pile of new patterns to work with for making digital background pages!
I love my friends
Here is one of the stencils that we were using with the Gelli Arts Printing Plate. See how cool it looks after several sessions!
Here is the same pattern with a different color scheme…
