Who Can Resist Green Unicorns??

When the president of our company saw the cover for this book for the first time, he said to me (in all seriousness), "So are green unicorns Heather Ross's thing?"

"Yup," I replied. And really, it's the truth. Though I could have said the same of ugly ducklings or frogs, VW buses or mermaids. 

You see, when you work with Heather Ross's prints, you forget which designs are supposed to be for the adults and which ones are for kids. The answer, in all cases, is both. Her aesthetic speaks to that part of me that will always marvel at Sanrio pencil boxes, with those puffy covers and secret compartments that pop out and the erasers that smell dangerously like candy.

When we originally started talking to Heather about writing Heather Ross Prints, one of the first things we decided was that we wanted it to feel like a giant coloring book--a big pad of paper that was full of potential, with pages you could rip out and stick on the fridge with magnets. This was one of the reasons, in fact, that we decided to print the last 32 pages of the book with full color illustrations and perforate them...so you can rip out the pages and do with them as you please. Make an origami rose, write a note with a Sharpie, wrap a very special gift, fold a very special paper airplane, or, literally, stick the piece of paper on the fridge with magnets. The choice is utterly up to you.

It was in this childlike spirit of excitement that, when the printed book arrived on my desk, I picked it up and (I kid you not) gave the cover a little kiss. It was just so cute! Green unicorns, guys! And orange wildflowers on page one. And newspaper boats, and a DVD in the back that contains all of this art. ALL of it.

You may be wondering, what the hell IS this book? And for you, I will explain.

Heather Ross is an illustrator and fabric designer and the author of the wonderful book Weekend Sewing. For this book, she decided to share 50 of her most popular illustrations and fabric designs in both jpeg and PDF format so that YOU, my friends, can upload the artwork to a place like Spoonflower and print out as many yards of this fabric as you like. Or you can make your own stationery or paper crafts with her designs. Or you can wallpaper with unicorns or decoupage with little cowgirls. And she also gives you twenty awesome step-by-step projects that walk you through how to take that DVD and turn the artwork into impossibly cute and special creations.

(She also wrote a whole chapter showing you how you can create your own really cute designs in Photoshop, but I don't even need to tell you that because I know I already have you excited with the unicorns.)

It's a really special book. And it will be available on September 1.

Also, I'm in it! (Apron model EXTRAORDINAIRE!)