Blog – Page 176 of 179 – The Postman's Knock

Wedding Save the Date Bookmarks

January 19, 2013 by Lindsey Bugbee 3 Comments
Design· Merchandise

A few weeks ago, I was working with a good friend of mine to design save the dates. She wanted something fun, informative, and useful. As I was pondering what could fill all of that criteria, it came to her: “Let’s make a bookmark!”

I love the idea of wedding save the date bookmarks because they will be used for years to come. Usually (if you’re anything like me), regular save the dates go on the fridge, and a few months after the wedding, I realize the save the date is still on the fridge and I either recycle it or put it in storage. But there’s no need to put save the date bookmarks in storage because you can use them long after the big day has passed!
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Freebie – Valentine’s Day Cards/Gift Tags

January 18, 2013 by Lindsey Bugbee 1 Comment
Printable Goodies· Tutorials

I hear people say that Valentine’s Day is a holiday blown out of proportion by corporations to make you feel more compelled to buy their stuff. My boyfriend has been successfully thwarting these corporations throughout our years of togetherness by not getting me anything for Valentine’s Day. What a rebel, right? Yhup … really stickin’ it to the man.

Well, this year he — and the hundreds (I’m not going to be pessimistic and say “thousands”) — of other men like him have no excuse. These Valentine’s Day freebies are adorable and sophisticated. They’re not too cutesy, but they’re not Casanovia-level serious, either. Best of all, they are created from original watercolor artwork. Did I mention they’re free?
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Salted Ombre Watercolor Letters Tutorial

January 12, 2013 by Lindsey Bugbee 3 Comments
Tutorials· Wall Art

If you’re familiar with any of my work, you’ll know that I’m addicted to color. I also love art that looks spontaneous. These salted watercolor letters — perfect for adorning your home with you favorite short quotes — fill my color/spontaneity quota. When I make works like these, I am reminded of my college roommate, Sarah; she used to hang simple, inspirational quotes all over in her bedroom. I loved the feel of her room and the positive vibes coming from all the color and text on the walls.

The great thing about these salted watercolor letters is they are not too tough to make, and your material cost will be very low — perhaps $0 — provided you’ve got some watercolors on hand. So, without further ado, let’s get started:

First, you are going to make stencils for the letters you need. Since I am making “C’EST LA VIE”, I only need A,C,E,I,L,S,T,’. Your stencils don’t need to be anywhere near perfect — in fact, they shouldn’t be! Takes away from the spontaneity factor. Just freehand the letters onto cardstock or thick paper, like so:
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How to Create a Crayola Crayon Portrait

December 29, 2012 by Lindsey Bugbee 7 Comments
Tutorials· Wall Art

I had so much fun before the holidays creating Crayola crayon portraits for my friends and family, and they’re such an enjoyable project to make that I’d like to share how to create one. I think that with some patience it’s something that anyone could do, though they can be a little time-consuming (but nothing like oil/acrylic paint portraits)!

The first thing you need to do is dig up a good photo that you think would translate well into a piece of art using the medium. This means you need colors and contrast. I have chosen a Facebook photo of my friend Caitie with an armful of bottled water in a Philadelphia grocery store (she was stocking up before the big storm). I like the photo because it has plenty of contrast and interesting content.
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Making My Handwriting Into a Font

December 22, 2012 by Lindsey Bugbee 2 Comments
Everyday Skills

For a while now, my other half (an efficiency-obsessed engineering PhD student) has been scheming about ways to “mass produce” my talents. “I’ve got it!” he said one day, “We should make your handwriting into a font!”

I flinched and explained that a lot of the reason that people have me write out custom calligraphy is because people love having hand-written quotes, envelopes, etc. “Ah-ha, but how would they know?” he countered. Well … part of the charm of calligraphy is the fact that it isn’t consistent. I always look for consistency if I am unsure whether someone actually wrote something out or “cheated”. You can identify a letter, then look at the subsequent letters to see if they are a little bit different from the letter you picked out.

Despite the fact that I am always 100% for writing things out rather than typing them out, I must admit I was intrigued by a post on Craftgawker promising that I could make handwriting into a font for free without fancy software or headache. It’s called [MyScriptFont.com]. All you do is print out a template, fill it out, scan it back in, and upload it to the website. The site then converts your work into a vector font.

There’s the handwriting into a font that I created. Based on what I’d written on the template, I thought it was going to be truly amazing. A ground-breaking, game-changing font, if you will. But, that’s not what I ended up with. What I did get was a bunch of disjointed letters that end up coming together to look whimsical and unique. Will I use this font much? Well, probably not. However, what I do like about it is I never can find numbers that suit my taste. This font solves my problem in that I created my own. I also love the hand-written quality of the special characters.
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