Pinboard: Designer Fonts
I’m a font collector. Always have been. There’s probably even more fonts around these days than ever before. And typeface designers are really knocking it out of the park. While there are many free fonts available all over the internet, fonts that you purchase are usually much higher quality and come with commercial licenses that allow you to sell your final designs that utilize those fonts. If you’re a scrapbook product designer or if you are selling any stamps or designs on Etsy, it’s important to make sure it’s legal for you to be incorporating fonts that allow for that usage.
Fonts are also useful for those of you who are looking to improve your handlettering skills. I like to look at fonts for letter styles and designs and practice my moves.
I’ve curated a bunch of fonts on my Pinterest page. Check out my board below and follow to see what I pin in the future.
Follow Olivia (Random Olive)’s board design: lovely fonts on Pinterest.
Book Review: The Fringe Hours
Are you someone who has a hard time making time for yourself? Yea, me too. In the The Fringe Hours
How this Book is Organized
This book is organized into four main sections: 1. Explore, 2. Discover, 3. Maximize, 4. Live Well. The book starts with the emotional dilemmas women face when thinking about self-care: the guilt, the other responsibilities, the perceived selfishness. You’ve got to get on board with wanting to make time for yourself before you’ll buy into the strategies for reclaiming time.
The book then goes through specific strategies and examples for locating pockets of time in then utilizing them for activities that are meaningful.
Throughout the book, there are reflection questions and spaces to write your responses with regard to how you’re currently spending your time and how you’d like to be spending your time.
Overall Impression
I enjoyed that this book provided specific examples of actions I could take to fill my pockets of time with meaningful activities. I also appreciated the attitude that you don’t have to “do it all” and that it’s completely reasonable to ask for help on things that you’re not interested in or good at doing.
Useful For
This book is useful for any of you who suffer from guilt about taking time to take care of yourself. Also good for those of you struggling to squeeze out a few minutes of free time amidst a busy schedule.
Additional Resources
I’ve listened to Jessica speak on a few podcasts recently and found it useful to put a voice to the story.
Amazon links are affiliate.
Pen Collection: Black
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: Black. The most standard of them all. How is it possible that black inks are different colors from each other? Some are grayer than others and some are bluer than others. My favorites: Papermate Profile, Pilot g2 1.0, and Pilot Precise Grip Bold.
Presents for You: Brush Lettered Gordon Quote
I love quotes. And I love to letter them out. And I’m happy to be able to share with you!
Use for Project Life, scrapbook, art journals, or just print it out and hang on your walls. Just click the links below to download the version you desire.
Click on photos for JPG
8×10 inch Color PDF
8×10 inch Charcoal PDF
Transparent PNG
I’d love to see what you’re doing with my lettering and you can share your great ideas with others too! Tag me on instagram @randomolive and use the hashtag #randomoliveletters.
Personal use only. (Because these words are neither yours or mine to sell.)
Do you have a favorite quote you’d like to see lettered? Suggest it in the comments!
Shop Update: Printable Monogram Sets
Words and letters are important to us. They can help to define our identities. I love putting my initials on the spaces around me to mark my space.
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 with the digital set that you choose! Prints are great to hang in offices or your workspace to mark your territory and add a pop of color.
All the letters of the alphabet included, so you can do fun things like:
– Spell out words on the walls.
– Give a print to your friend.
– Hang one up in each of your kids’ rooms.
– Hang one up on each of the front of doors of your officemates.
– Make alphabet dividers for your files.
– Print on iron-on transfer paper to make T-shirts, pillows, or tote bags.
– Designate areas of a classroom.
– Personalize folders for students.
– Create personalized notecards and stationery for yourself or your friends.
– Print as a baby shower gift.
– Print to use as personalized wrapping paper on gifts.
– Use in Project Life scrapbooks or art journals.
Printable files save you money on shipping and the white backgrounds save your printer ink. I’d recommend printing on cardstock for the best effect.
(Click the images to get to the Etsy listing)
Digital Project Life Layouts: July 2014
Project Life is my preferred method of scrapbooking and I’m hoping to provide you with some useful tips for either documenting your own lives or putting together your own pages with minimal fuss.
Here’s what I’m going to emphasize with the layouts I share:
- The random stuff I like to capture and document for myself.
- The simple approach to Project Life that I take. There are a lot of photos and very little embellishment and journaling.
- The way I organize some spreads into themes or stories.
You can click on each image below for a slightly larger view.
Capture Idea: Still practicing that brush lettering and capturing it here.
Story Idea: This spread contains pictures from a single trip to an art museum and all the fun things I saw.
Simplicity Point: I filled one “pocket” with just scrapbook paper and didn’t embellish much at all.
Simplicity Point: All squares in this layout for ease of putting together.
Simplicity Point: Super simple list-style journaling across the pages.
Resources:
Photos edited with RadLab. (Affiliate Link)
Templates by Cathy Zielske: 01, 02, 05
Fonts: ABeeZee and Klinic Slab
Kit: Seafoam Edition
For more info on my general approach to Project Life, check out this blog post.
Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. She’s awesome. Go visit her website for more information or watch her 3-day course on CreativeLive.
Resource Round-Up: Gallery Walls
In-progress shot of my downstairs gallery wall from July 2012
Gallery walls are ubiquitous on Pinterest. Seriously, just search “gallery wall” and you’ll be inundated with resources to help you spruce up your space. But what are the best tutorials out there for actually getting to work and getting it done?
These are the resources that I used when I was putting together my own walls. I’ve got a wall-o-frames in both my upstairs hallway and my downstairs entry. So I have definitely put the advice to good use.
- The tutorial by Young House Love is hands down the most comprehensive tutorial on the web. I swear by nearly everything they say about home decor. While John and Sherry aren’t actively blogging anymore, we should totally take advantage of their archives while they last. Best tip: Start hanging from the center of the arrangement and work your way out, in case you need to adjust anything once the frames get on the wall. We used this tip for our walls, and they turned out great!
- Have you got an awkward corner to work with? A Beautiful Mess has you covered there. Includes a video to show the action!
- More ideas for frame fillers at Two Twenty One. Best tip: Make a wire loop for frames with unfortunately difficult nail hooks.
- Don’t want to mess with paper templates? Well, you could do what Katie Bower does.
Hope that helps weed through some of the unhelpful Pinterest search results! Happy gallery-walling!
Presents for You: Brush Lettered Frost Quote
I love quotes. And I love to letter them out. And I’m happy to be able to share with you!
Use for Project Life, scrapbook, art journals, or just print it out and hang on your walls. Just click the links below to download the version you desire.
Click on photos for JPG
8×10 inch Color PDF
8×10 inch Charcoal PDF
Transparent PNG
I’d love to see what you’re doing with my lettering and you can share your great ideas with others too! Tag me on instagram @randomolive and use the hashtag #randomoliveletters.
Personal use only. (Because these words are neither yours or mine to sell.)
Do you have a favorite quote you’d like to see lettered? Suggest it in the comments!
Skillshare Course Review: The Final Steps of Hand-Lettering
The follow up Skillshare class by Mary Kate McDevitt focuses on the Final Steps of Hand-Lettering (dealing with color and texture).
The course starts after you have a refined sketch of a lettering piece and starts with the inking of the drawing on a lightpad. This is a demonstration by Mary Kate as she talks through how she inks certain aspects of her drawing and whether she traces on different layers of paper.
Main Takeaways:
Digitizing:
Mary Kate goes through the digitizing process in Adobe Illustrator in detail. Lots of steps here!
Textures:
Mary Kate demonstrates how to create hand-drawn textures using a variety of tools (markers, stamps, brushes, etc) and then how to apply them to the lettering digitally. She also demonstrates how to use Photoshop brushes to refine those textures.
Overall Impressions:
The entire course is 3.5 hours. The material is at an advanced skill level for adding details to your sketch and there are lots of specific digital techniques here. If you’re just getting started with hand-lettering, this information may go beyond your zone of focus. This course would be great for people who are already skilled at lettering and wanting to customize the colors and textures using a combination of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
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.
Pen Collection: Red
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: Red is one of the three basic colors, so tons of varieties are available. I don’t often write things out with red… it’s my go to color for crossing things off my lists.
