Surf Art in the City

Crate and Barrell'd

We love surf art, and it is even better when we can stroll in a public park and see a surf inspired fountain that the city has installed to make the world a more beautiful place. This particular water fall display features a woman hanging ten on a long board. Although I can't tell if the water is supposed to represent the young lady emerging from a spitting barrel or not. If so, I like the piece even more.

Public Nose Riding

This piece of surf art is featured in the coastal community of Dana Point, right in the center of town. The fountain sits right in the middle of this little park, and has an entire pool around the base of the waterfall where you can sit, and reminiscence about your last surf trip. You can see the detail the artist put into this fun fountain, and the hand tiling couldn't have been easy.

Stair Surfing the Night Away

Life in the Flat Lane
We know how it is, the surf is flat, there is nothing showing on the swell charts, so you decide to hold a "small" get together at your house. So here you are hosting a party, and your guests are starting to look a little bored. You need to do something quick to entertain them, but don't have anything planned.

I highly suggest plowing one of your good friends with a few cold ones, maybe a shot or two to loosen the young daredevil, feed them lies about how big of a viral internet superstar they are going to be, and set him loose on your staircase.

The Viking Helmet is Key to a Successful Stair Surf

Steps to Success
Break off the fins of an old surfboard, spread a fresh layer of wax on your stair stick, stand on top of your surfboard at the top of the stairs, taunt the audience for a few cheers, get them fired up, and then simply lean forward and hold on tight until the crash landing. As you can see from the above photo, a good costume is key for adding suspense and thrill for your lubricated audience.

Please send us any attempts at stair surfing, we will happily post them there.

A Zombie Shark is Terrorizing Southern California

San Clemente, California - A zombie shark is on the loose in the waters off of Southern California, terrorizing beach goers, and surfers alike. Please stay out of the water until the Coast Guard can capture this deadly fish, or quite possibly group of deadly fish.

Zombie Shark spotted off the coast of California

 How did this Happen?
Although the San Onofre Nuclear power plant was decommissioned last summer, and put out of use, it appears the so called "steam leak", had leaked more than just hot air into California's ocean waters. While denying any responsibility, Edison International has confirmed that a large quantity of radio active waste did get exposed to the local fish and sea life. This exposure to unknown nuclear chemicals has created a new breed of toxic fish to come to life. Once ingested by larger prey, the results have been disastrous.

Surfer Zombie seen in Dana Point, California

Zombie Sharks
Deadly sharks infected with this new virus are preying on anything in the ocean, including local surfers who frequent the tasty waves of the world famous Trestles surf break. Once bitten by these hybrid zombie sharks, you may feel bouts of dizzying nausea while the zombie micro-organisms invade your body. Once the illness has taken control throughout your blood stream, your heart and other major organs will cease to work in a humanly fashion. Surfers will go into a catatonic zombie like state, and you will desperately crave fish tacos, and fresh blood to replenish your diminished vital fluids supply.

Here Lies Dean Miller, His Last Wave was a Killer

What to Do
Please do not feed or approach any of these deadly sharks, or walking zombie surfers, one bite from their infected saliva will contaminate your bloodstream. If you see or encounter any of these swimming dead sea creatures, please contact your local authorities for further instruction.

Happy Halloween!

Surfer Girl Artwork

Dean Miller released some new artwork made to coordinate with our Surfer Girl bedding set. This set of three images imitates the color schemes used in our reversible hot pink and blue surfboard themed comforter. These original images are printed on a high quality poster board, and each poster board is 11" x 14". They look great framed, and were designed to be hung together in a row of three to maximize all the colors utilized in our comforter set.

Surfer Girl Custom Artwork

The simple artwork adds a fun, bright look to any bedroom, and the middle frame with the surfboards will be custom printed for you so you can add any name you want under the surfboards. The other two prints feature a hand drawing of Hawaii's state flower, an elegant Hibiscus outline in white set on a bright green background. The third and final print has a simple palm tree over a solid blue background with the word Relax under the palm tree.

Every poster board is put into production the same day you place your order, and will be ready to ship in only a couple of business days. You can find more information about our Surfer Girl Posters at our online store.

Hawaiian Pantone Color Guide

They finally created a Pantone color guide that we can use here at Dean Miller Hawaiian Bedding!

Hawaiian Pantone Book

This custom color guide will let customers, and our designers pick and choose the best color options available for their choice of aloha fabric. Every colour under the sun is available in our own Hawaiian Pantone Color guide for summer 2014.

Girl's Dress Out of Hawaiian Fabric - How to Make

She's Crafty

Aloha shirts are great, and helped us start our Hawaiian bedding business years ago, but there is no need to stop there when it comes to inspiring your imagination of all the things you could make with Hawaiian fabric. One of our customers sent in a few pictures of a beautiful dress she had made for her grand-daughter. I love the way it's not just a traditional mu-mu style dress, but brought in some coordinating solid colors to tone down the surfing design, which will make this a great dress that can be worn almost anywhere.

Girl's Dress Made with Hawaiian Fabric

Looks like she followed a pretty simple dress pattern, and might even have used an old blouse of some sort, and sewed it to the skirt on the bottom. This would not only be a quick and simple way of creating a fun, and colorful original Hawaiian themed dress, but is a great way to breathe new life into old clothes. You could definitely add a little bling to this outfit by pairing the dress with an ocean themed necklace, or a subtle seashell brooch, and your little girl will be dressed up for a fun night on the town.

If you would like to try your hand at creating your own dress, shirt, or anything else you can think of, you can always purchase Hawaiian fabric from our online store under our Fabric section. We sell our fabric by the yard at a very reasonable price, and are always happy to answer any questions about fabric widths, content, repeats, or anything else you might need to know. And please send us a photo of your creations.

Teardrop Trailer Re-Done in a Surfing Theme

Go See What's Around the Bend
Adventure calls us all to the open road, and wide ranges in search of finding some empty point breaks along our treasured coast. Some of the best and most elusive surf can be found in remote areas of the world not yet suited for fancy resorts, and infinity pools. If you are going to be hunting desolate surf breaks I suggest a good vehicle, and bringing along your own sleeping accommodations.

Tear Drop Trailer

Don't Cry, Dry Your Eye
You don't need to sleep on the ground in a tent all the time, you can simply attach your own tear drop trailer and hit the road in style. Tear drop trailers (or tear drop campers) are small, streamlined travel trailers in the shape of a tear drop that can sleep two people in full comfort. They aren't as bulky or gas consuming as an RV, and can be easily towed behind almost any regular sized passenger car.  These are great lightweight units for camping, and weekend warriors. They are so popular that even Home Depot sells their own version of a teardrop trailer.

Surfboard Comforter and Custom Curtains

Perfect Wife, Perfect Life
One of our customers had his tear drop trailer outfitted in a surf theme, and used our Surf Tapa comforter set for the bedding, and had some custom curtains sewn with our surfboard fabric to bring that beach decorator touch to the great outdoors. He even fastened a Gone Surfing sign inside the trailer, (which we are assuming can be easily hung outside the trailer to let his wife know he has snuck away again for a dawn patrol session, and hopefully he will have a hearty breakfast waiting for him upon his return.)

Gone Surfing Wood Sign

The trailer looks great with the chrome on the back, and seems to have been a labor of love. I hope the owners will enjoy the summer sun, and get out and explore!

Vintage Hawaiian Fabric Couch

Re-Cover A Couch With Hawaiian Fabric

Our Hawaiian fabric is not only great for your bedroom, but our bark kahala fabrics are also perfect for re-doing an old couch. We found this awesome four band Hawaiian couch on Craigslist, and decided it definitely needed a make over. The old owner was moving, and couldn't take it with her, so we picked it up for quite a steal. It does need a little oil and a gentle cleaning, but we also like the old vintage look it has.

Four Band Rattan Couch Upholstered with Vintage Bark Cloth Hawaiian Fabric

The fabric we chose was one of our black birds of paradise patterns since we knew our office couch would get a bit of traffic, and will hide stains well. We didn't want to have the cushions entirely covered in the fabric without a bit of piping to break up the design. We found a solid green linen fabric that matched the tropical leaves in this particular design pretty closely, and rolled it up to sew the piping around the edges of each pillow. I also thought a solid black, purple, or orange would make these couch cushions pop as well. Basically any color used in the fabric would work in my opinion.

Center piece of couch with Toss Pillow

I also like this particular Hawaiian fabric design because it comes in three different colorways, so it was easy to sew up a couple of coordinating throw pillows to toss on our new couch. We used the red colorway for the toss pillows, but I think some solid color coordinating dec pillows would be great, or we also liked the contrast of using one of our Banana Leaf blue throw pillows on our side chair. 

Feel free to browse our selection of vintage Hawaiian fabrics online, or feel free to stop by our office, and check out our fabrics in person. You are more than welcome to take home a swatch, and get a free lei!