Hey Reader!
It’s been super cold where I live - like, unseasonably, bitterly cold. Snow turned to ice and it didn’t melt right away like it usually does. And by usually I mean, every few years when we actually get a measurable amount of snow that sticks. Anyway, I sent my boys into the garage where we store a few bins of “just in case it snows” supplies.
If any of you have teens, you know where this is going.
Three seconds later, they’re back. They couldn’t find it. Of course.
I’m not exasperated at all or busy working. I had absolutely nothing better to do than head to the garage to find something that any literate person with two eyeballs could find.
Only - I couldn’t find it either.
After the three of us combed the garage shelves, one of my boys pulled out an unlabeled box. Or at least it looked unlabeled. It had been stored backward - label facing the wall. We had a tense laugh. They got to work de-icing the skating rink so we could use it as a driveway again.
I went back inside and got back to updating my tags on Spoonflower. And it dawned on me that the bin in the garage and my Spoonflower tags were connected.
I’ll get to more of that in a second, but before I forget, here are three artists on Instagram who stopped my scroll this week:
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Mili & Wise
• Fruit Salad Reimagined: This juicy gang of grinning pineapples, strawberries, and blueberries is a whole mood. The textured brushwork adds a playful painterly vibe that’s hard to resist.
• Rainbow Brights: The palette is giving summer in a bowl—sunny yellows, tangy pinks, and pops of teal that practically scream “fun!”
• Great for Kidswear & Stationery: This would shine on lunchboxes, leggings, or back-to-school supplies. Think matching pajama sets, or even birthday party invites.
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Lauren Faye Peachay
• Peachy Cottagecore Bloom: This softly sprawling floral feels like a garden stroll in golden hour. With loose movement and delicate peachy hues, it’s soothing and elegant all at once.
• Understated but Impactful: The color story is warm but quiet, making it easy to style across seasons. Bonus: the hand-drawn lines keep it from feeling too prim.
• Great for Home Decor & Paper Goods: Ideal for wallpaper, planners, or fabric yardage destined for tea towels or tote bags, or a perfectly serene bedding set.
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Seiko Sisco
• Retro Mod Gridplay: Seiko’s scattered mini squares give serious mod-candy vibes — like a confetti party at a retro diner. The spacing is just irregular enough to feel organic, but the overall effect is bold and graphic.
• Cotton Candy Pop: The soft pink and lavender color combo on electric blue hits that sweet spot between playful and polished. It reads Valentine’s Day or branding-forward, depending on the context.
• Great for Accessories & Packaging: Think hair clips, planner covers, phone cases, or beauty packaging. This pattern’s got the pop and punch to stand out at a glance — especially at small scale.
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So more about the backwards bin and Spoonflower tags. Here's something that keeps coming up in my coaching calls: talented artists with beautiful patterns who can't figure out why nobody's finding their work.
They're uploading to Spoonflower, tagging things, doing "all the right stuff," but discovery is really poor for them.
The backwards bin made me realize that the problem could be tags. Not literally backwards tags or missing tags (but for the love if you’re not tagging your stuff on Spoonflower you need to get on that right now). I’m talking more about the wording on the tags.
So today I'm sharing two systems that'll transform how you organize your work — one for helping customers find you, and one for helping you find your own files (because let's be honest, that's a whole separate struggle).
Tip 1: The Warehouse Labeling System (Making Your Art Findable)
You can easily imagine a garage or home storage room, walls lined with bins. Maybe you have those solid black plastic ones with bright yellow lids from Costco. Maybe they’re the cloudy, sort of opaque ones from Target or Walmart. Bottom line, you can’t tell what’s in them unless you tag them. And you don’t want to just have a bunch of boxes labeled “Winter” or “Summer.” How many boxes do you want to open before you find the ice melt? (Like one - tops. Trust me on this.)
So now that you’ve got that image in your mind, let’s go exponentially bigger. Picture a massive warehouse. Shelving from floor to ceiling. Boxes and boxes line the shelves. That’s just a hint - A HINT - of the sort of inventory happening on Spoonflower.
Okay. What happens after you upload your pattern to Spoonflower? It's now in a box in that massive warehouse alongside millions of other designs. When a customer walks in looking for something specific, a warehouse employee (the search algorithm) needs to find your pattern and bring it to them.
But here's the thing: the employee can only find what's properly labeled.
How many boxes do you think Spoonflower has that are labeled Wallpaper or Floral Pattern. What are the odds that employee is going to walk straight to your pattern if there are a million other boxes tagged with the same words?
But if your box is tagged 1970s Retro, Blush Pink, Floral Watercolor, Children’s Dresses, Boho?
That employee knows exactly where to take a customer who asks for 70’s-inspired soft pink florals for kids' clothing.
Why Specificity Wins (Especially Now)
With AI-powered search becoming the norm, the algorithm is getting smarter at matching specific queries to specific results. Vague labels get buried. Specific labels get surfaced.
The days of gaming the system and stuffing broad, popular keywords into tags are over. Now, the more precisely you describe your work, the more likely you are to reach buyers who want it.
"But Mandy, won't being super specific limit how many people see my work?"
I get the fear.
But remember that backwards bin in my garage? I wasn’t looking for just any bin. I wanted a specific one. And I would have been so grateful had my boys been able to just go in and grab it like I asked. Buyers on Spoonflower don’t want to spend hours and hours scrolling generic patterns until they find what they’re looking for. Give them what they want so they can order your wallpaper or fabric. So you can get paid.
Pro Tip: Spoonflower gives you 13 tags. Use 👏 All 👏 Of 👏 Them.
Bottom line: would you rather play the odds at showing up for 10,000 people who kind of think they might want to see what sort of floral wallpaper Spoonflower has… or 50 people searching for "vintage botanical nursery wallpaper" who are ready to buy it?
Those 50 people aren't browsing. They are buyers. They're hunting. And when the algorithm delivers your pattern directly to them? That's when sales happen.
Specificity isn't limiting your reach. It's targeting your reach.
The Specific Label Blueprint
Every time you tag a pattern, run it through this three-part formula: Era/Decade + Style Markers + Use Case
Tag your boxes like you want them found. Because the algorithm? It's actually looking now.
Tip 2: The Artist's SKU System (Making Your Files Findable to YOU)
Okay, we've talked about helping customers find your art.
Now let's talk about helping you find your art. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from one of my subscribers, Jenna Lyn Hinds. (I really do read every email you send.) Jenna Lyn wrote to tell me about how she uses SKUs to organize her pattern files and it was such a great idea that I had to share it.
SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit. It's how retail stores track inventory. I know. SKUs sound all complicated and numbery, but stick with me.
The great thing about SKUs is that a lot of us have kind of insane inventory needs. Not product inventory necessarily, but collections made up of patterns that are scaled to different sizes and available in different colorways on different platforms. How many folders and subfolders do you end up with for a single collection? (Makes me tired just thinking about it.)
By using a simple SKU system, you’re going to be able to find EXACTLY what you’re looking for much faster.
When you're not wasting mental energy trying to remember what you named that file or which folder you saved it in, you actually have MORE brain space for the creative work.
A SKU system handles the boring stuff so you can focus on making art.
The Golden Rule: Simple or You Won't Use It
I'm going to be really direct here.
The best organizational system is the one you'll actually use.
If it's complicated, you'll abandon it by week two. If it requires too many decisions, you'll skip it "just this once" (and then forever).
Whatever you decide, remember this system is for YOU. Not for clients. Not for Spoonflower. Not for anyone else. Just you.
So it needs to be dead simple.
The Lazy Designer's SKU Formula
There are different ways to create your own SKUs.
You can keep it super basic and use the year and pattern number.
💡For example for the year 2026:
Pattern 1 = 2601
Pattern 2 = 2602
You can do something SLIGHTLY more detailed. (Key word being slightly. Remember keep it dead simple.)
[Year]-[Collection]-[Pattern#]-[size]-[Colorway]
Example: 25PEON01SA
- 25 = 2025 (year created)
- PEON = Peony collection (you pick 2-4 letters)
- 01 = First pattern in the collection
- S =small forthe size/ scale (M, L, XL for larger scales)
- A = Original colorway (B, C, D for alternates)
Navy colorway of the same pattern? 25PEON01SB
A coordinate pattern in only one size? 25PEON02A
Resist the urge to add more than this.
Every category you add is another decision you have to make when you're tired at 11pm and just want to save the file and go to bed. And every decision is an opportunity to skip the system entirely.
Start with the bare minimum.
Year, collection, pattern number, colorway. If after 3 months you genuinely need more, you can add it then.
When a client emails asking for "that blue botanical from last spring," you're not digging through seventeen folders named "Florals Final Final." You search 24BOT and BOOM! thumbnails of the collection are right there.
Your future self — the one frantically searching for a specific colorway before a pitch deadline — will be so grateful you started this now.
Simple systems get used. Complicated systems get abandoned.
Love it or hate it, you can’t argue that AI has made some super tedious work faster and easier.
Tag generation, I’m looking at you.
Here’s a short and sweet prompt I use. You can use it with any model (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc.) and even if it doesn’t get things perfect, it will help spark your own ideas. Just copy and paste into the AI of your choice:
I have a [describe pattern style] pattern design featuring [main elements] in [color palette]. It would work well for [intended use]. Generate 15 specific [your sales platform - Spoonflower, for example] tags that would help customers discover this design. Include era-specific terms, style descriptors, and use-case keywords. Avoid generic terms like 'art' or 'colorful.
Remember, always verify. Make sure tags match your actual design. Trust me on this. (Don’t ask me how I know. 😉)
Here Is The Key Takeaway
Clarity wins every time.
Whether we’re talking about tagging patterns or creating SKUs, the more you keep things clear and consistent, the easier it is to find what you’re looking for.
If you’ve already got a solid organization system in place, keep it.
If you don’t have a system, just start with the basics. The key isn’t finding the perfect system. The key is starting and not stopping.
Phew! That was a lot of information crammed into a newsletter. Do me a quick favor if you got this far and answer the question below. I'm trying new things out all the time and I like to know how they're hitting.
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Thanks so much! And don't forget! Action beats perfection every time.
Until next week, stay warm and keep drawing.
