Weekend Adventures!

1.  The chorus from "Back To You" by The Riverdales.  It was stuck in my head at the time // 2. A thank you to Mark, who taught an awesome Ride class at the office // 3. A message to the old man about dinner // 4. Something I need to do... // 5-7. I assembled a little care package for my brother in Canada! // 8.  My favorite quote from "Moulin Rouge!" trying a technique where I watered down the ink a little  // 9. This little milagro came out from another design but I'll write more about that later...

I got LOTS of calligraphy practicing done this weekend! Can you tell? :)  I even did some watercolor experimentation, too!  It was a really fun and very creative weekend for sure!  I sent out Marisa's Summer Swap package and a little care package from my brother!  I hope they like them!!

I took the old man, my dad and his lady to Indie Craft Experience, where I got the cutest shirt made right in front of me!!  It was great!



Thanks to Chris Neuenschwander for having such cute designs and making it a really fun process to watch!  I haven't done block printing in FOREVER, so it was a thrill to watch my t-shirt be made using that process!  The only downside: it has to cutely hang to dry completely for a few days!  I don't want to wait that long to wear it!  It's so cute!!!  I get it, though...I know...I'm really impatient...BUT I'm pretty sure it will be ready for me to wear on the Fourth!

Do you guys have plans for the holiday?

Have a great week!

My Very First Oblique Pen!

1. My shiny new supplies! // 2.  Ready to go!  // 3. Oh my glob - I'm totally writing all fancy and stuff! // 4. This "Hello Lauren" was one of the first few things I wrote once I got all settled in with my ink and stuff // 5. This "Hello Mom" was in the second set of writing I did // 6. I've been saving quotes around various social media so I can write them out with my new toys.  I saw this one on Instagram yesterday morning and decided to make a little pick-me-up card for my old man

I just had to share!  My supplies came in from Paper and Ink Arts and I think I'm officially even more in love with calligraphy!  I loved the feel of dipping the pen tip into the ink and how just a little bit of pressure changed everything.  Granted, I definitely need more practice before I get really serious but I'm  enjoying the process so far.  These posts have become my new best friend.

Starting with TPK's Faux Calligraphy really helped me understand script, downstrokes and slants.  It even helped me realize my "personality" through the way my hand moved while creating letters.  I mean, check these out!  These are two of my most favorite envelopes I've ever done with faux calligraphy and watercolors.



These are both going out very soon and I can't wait for the recipients to get them!!  I'm hoping the response will be good! :)  BTW - I used a mechanical pencil to sketch out the words first and then I went over them with my most favorite pen: the Sharpie Fine Point Pen.

Since my hard drives at work are almost at capacity, I can't really work on anything too strenuous today so I'm watching a lot of progress bars and wishing I could be letting the ink flow!  I printed out more Flourish Formal Worksheets for more practicing over the weekend.  I can't wait!

Happy Friday!

A Little Envelope Love

For my extremely delayed Holiday cards this year, I took some inspo from The Postman's Knock blog and followed the very helpful instructions on How To Create Envelope Calligraphy.

Boy, do my hands hurt!  There was definitely A LOT of erasing, a lot of tracing and a lot of love that flowed out of my Pilot G-2 07.  It was worth all the hard work, though, because my envelopes look bangin'!

The font I used as the base was Some Weatz (available for download at Da Font).  I made a few changes, of course!  I didn't want it to look exactly like the original font!  If I did, it would've been way easier to print out pretty labels but NO - I want a personal touch.

Poor Louisville.  It was my first attempt at fancy lettering and it really took a beating!  I need to erase my guidelines (obvs) but man, I'm wondering if I should redo it...I know the recipient(s) will enjoy the contents more than the actual envelope but still - presentation is everything!



My dear Brooklyn-ites were next.  I picked up a slightly more used version of the same pen than I did for Louisville.  What a difference, surprisingly!  Louisville was done with a brand new, out of the box Pilot pen and I hadn't realized I had picked up my older Pilot pen from a different are of my desk.  I found that if you use a more "seasoned" pen, you get smoother lines than a brand new one.  Ya live, ya learn, I guess.



My Jersey folks were next.  I made some special embellishments to their names but I shared the zip code because I LOVE the way the 7's turned out!  So classy!



I saved the best of the full addresses for last: my lovely Los Angelean.  There's clearly a lot of cleaning up to do but I just really like how this L turned out versus the Louisville one.  Sorry, Louisville!  I also really like writing those A's.  They're just as pretty at the 7's!



For the personal cards, I experimented with this one for my friend Heather and her husband, Preston.  By experiment, I mean that I freehanded most of it - like the little swooshes at the R and N and the H was an embellished version of the quick faux-calligraphy H's I like to do (which you can kinda see quickly at the start of this video).  I think I did all right!



I did print out a sheet full of names for everyone in our gift exchange so that I can make some kind of fancy personalized envelopes.  Hopefully between writing these and my Katniss wrap - which is coming along nicely, my hands won't be too tired to continue writing!  I didn't meet my writing goal for November so I'm hoping I get there by some time in January.

What are your holiday plans?