Pinboard: Valentine’s Day Cards
After all the years that my husband and I have been together, sometimes looking through the drugstore for a Valentine’s Day card can be a little problematic. For one, we don’t usually pick the mushy and poetic cards. We generally lean more towards to humorous/fun cards. Secondly, over the years, the selection starts looking the same and it’s hard to find something that the other person hasn’t seen before.
And that’s where independent artists come in. There are a lot of talented folks around the web making and selling awesome cards you don’t typically find at your local drugstore card aisle. I’ve been collecting some pretty awesome cards from online retailers and pinning them on my Pinterest board.
Follow Olivia (Random Olive)’s board greeting cards: valentine’s day on Pinterest.
Click through to see all the cards I’ve been and then follow this board to keep updated when I add more!
Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age – Book Review
Studying letterforms is one way to improve your lettering game. Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age
How this Book is Organized
The book is broken down into five styles: French, British, German, Italian, and American. Each section begins with a written description of the style and history. The description is followed by photos of historical examples with a reference page citing the sources.
Overall Impression
Lots of nice examples of scripts that you can be inspired by with your own lettering. And if you’re not a letterer, you can still enjoy the scripty eye candy.
Amazon links are affiliate.
Pen Collection: Orange
I have an obsession with office supplies and I’m a bit of a pen hoarder. One thing that I enjoy doing is swatching out my writing utensils to see how the colors compare between brands.
The Test: Each pen is used on white notebook paper and a yellow legal pad. You can click on the image below for a larger view.
The Pens: (links are affiliate) Paper Mate InkJoy 100
The Conclusion: Orange is another tough color to find in pens. The Papermate Inkjoys provided a darker ink color than the Papermate Profile on white paper, but all were disappointing on yellow paper. The two Papermate Flairs provided the darkest and boldest color.
One Little Word: Sparkle
This year, I decided to participate in Ali Edwards’ One Little Word workshop. I had seen this around the blogosphere for several years and this time, I decided to take the plunge and really commit to my word.
I’m going to be journaling my responses to the prompts in this little journal that I found in my stack of blank notebooks.
One of the main goals of having a word is to incorporate it into your life and to keep it visible throughout the year.
To support the effort of keeping my (and your) word visible, I created a brush lettered art piece to hang up. To see the words I have made available, check out my shop page here
Skillshare Course Review: Digitizing Calligraphy
I recently signed up for a free trial of Skillshare membership. If you’re not familiar, Skillshare is a website that hosts a plethora of online courses, mostly in the creative skills. The first course that I took was Digitizing Calligraphy: From Sketch to Vector with Molly Suber Thorpe.
I already have her book, Modern Calligraphy
Why was I interested in this class?
As I’ve been working on both my pointed pen calligraphy and brush lettering, I’ve also been working on techniques to digitize the projects.
What I got out of the class?
About half of the lessons are about layout design (pencil sketches and inking) leading up to the second half working in Adobe Photoshop first and then Adobe Illustrator. The layout and sketching part was interesting to see because it really showed that even an expert goes through half a dozen iterations before settling on a final design.
The Photoshop component was the part I was most interested in, with Molly showing how to create true black, transparent words, and then remove blemishes for the scan, and then adjust the writing itself by cleaning up edges. After Photoshop cleanup, she moves the drawing into Illustrator to vectorize it. I don’t have Illustrator, so I didn’t end up using this information.
Overall Impressions
Pretty useful stuff. I took notes to go back to while I’m working on my own projects. I might also have it replaying while I have Photoshop open, so I can follow along while I’m working.
The links provided for this Skillshare course are referral links. If you sign up for a Skillshare membership using these links, I will receive a free month of membership. This will allow me to view and review even more courses on the blog.
Amazon links are affiliate.
Pen Collection: Light Green
I have an obsession with office supplies and I’m a bit of a pen hoarder. One thing that I enjoy doing is swatching out my writing utensils to see how the colors compare between brands.
The Test: Each pen is used on white notebook paper and a yellow legal pad. You can click on the image below for a larger view.
The Pens: (links are affiliate) Paper Mate InkJoy 300 RT
The Conclusion: Light green is probably one of the toughest colors to find a good quality pen. The Papermate Inkjoy and the Bic Round Stic performed horribly on white paper (and predictably so on the yellow paper). The Bic Cristal Bold fared better on white paper, with a nice bright line. And the Papermate Flair was the clear winner.
Brush Scripted Monogram Products
Words and letters are important to us. They can help to define our identities.
These brush script monograms have been hand-painted and digitized to give you a handmade feel.
Choose from a palette of vibrant colors to add some brightness and fun to your everyday.
Digital JPEGs let you print out as many copies as you’d like, up to 8×10 sizing. You can print them yourself or use in digital scrapbooks or art journals. You get the entire alphabet in all the colors with the digital set!
(Click the image to purchase the digital set)
Physical products are available at my Society6 Shop.
Prints are great to hang in offices or your workspace to mark your territory and add a pop of color.
Mugs remind everyone not to touch your coffee or tea! Also great for holding your pens and pencils.
And personalize those cell phones with a colorful case.
Alphabet initials are a way for us to identify ourselves. How many of you sign off your emails with just your initial? Now you can add your initial everywhere else.
Embrace Your Love of Disney
I have a little obsession with Disney-themed art on my walls. When we first started putting frames together for the gallery wall in my entryway, we didn’t have enough pictures to fill all the frames. I had found some cool vintage Disney posters on the internet and printed them on a color printer just to fill the frames. [by the way, I don’t recommend doing this… it’s pretty much stealing from artists!]
Over the years though, we’ve slowly amassed legitimate sources of Disney art. Like the vintage-style posters from the grand opening of Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure. Some actual photographs taken at Disney parks. And some cute postcards purchased at the Wonderland Gallery.
I’m also the proud owner of the book, Poster Art of the Disney Parks
We had even incorporated the famous Carl&Ellie mailbox from Up into our wedding as a place for our guests to put their cards. Now, it sits in our entryway, signaling to all who enter that “here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.” (Comment below if you can identify the quote!).
photo by The Goodness
Travel Collections: Coffee Mugs
If I’m traveling to a city where there’s a Starbucks (which is pretty much everywhere in the United States), you can be sure that I’m going to stop in and purchase one of their “You Are Here” collection mugs.
I think they’re fun and colorful. I usually snag them and give them to my mother-in-law (whose cabinets are completely overrun with them now).
Sometimes, I’m able to catch some other mugs of different locations, which make me smile whenever I use them. I think the collection says a bit about my style and preferences.
This collection might get out of hand if you try it. Adjust for your storage space accordingly.
Any mugs hiding in your cabinets that are from a trip you’ve taken?
Show your Script: Handwriting Blog Tag
I pretty much always write everything out by hand before typing it. Depending on my mood, I’ll use a different handwriting style. My rushed and hurried regular writing can get pretty messy, depending on how quickly I’m writing. When I have a bit more time, I’ll print more neatly. I hardly ever use cursive, though it’s fun to see how it looks compared to the print.
I was totally inspired by April at Blackburg Belle because she recently started a blog tag experiment to help bloggers connect to each other. April’s original #20thingsblogtag can be found here.
How to play along:
- Handwrite the same sentence using all three techniques: 1. quickly scrawled, 2. neatly printed, and 3. flowing cursive.
- Upload your photo(s) onto your blog or Instagram and talk about what you like about your handwriting.
- Leave a comment on this post with a link to your blog or Instagram post.
- Use the hashtag #showyourscript
- Tag five of your friends.
(In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m pretty much tagging all of you!)
I can’t wait to see everyone’s handwriting styles!
