As I mentioned in last week’s tutorial over how to make a wifi password sign, Hernán and I recently remodeled the apartment in our basement. We purchased our house in April, and at that time, the basement felt a bit sparse and too modern for a house built in the 1950’s.
Continue Reading about DIY Chalkboard Art Tutorial
There’s so much to love about fabric invitations: they’re novel, interactive, and incredibly cost-effective if you DIY them! In today’s blog post, I want to walk you through a batch of fabric invitations that I recently designed as a gift for a friend’s wedding. It is my hope that seeing the process will inspire you to design and compile your own fabric/paper pieces for your next event!
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I first started toying with the idea of starting a creative business in 2012, but one huge obstacle stood in my way: I didn’t have the first clue about digitizing artwork and calligraphy. I knew there was no way I could sell my designs if I didn’t know how to use the computer, so I crossed my fingers, bought Photoshop, and agreed to design a BabyQ invitation pro-bono for a friend.
Continue Reading about The Digitizing Artwork and Calligraphy eCourse Has Arrived!
When I want to make an impactful piece of mail art, I add a design motif. In my opinion, the best sort of design motifs are subtle but lovely, and often soothingly repetitive. The “Roses and Swirls” motif that I am going to show you how to make today is one of my favorite designs, and surprisingly simple to make when you deconstruct the process! In the steps that follow, I am going to focus on the Roses and Swirls design motif in a mail art context. You should remember, though, that there’s no reason to relegate this motif to mail art: you can add it to anything — bookmarks, gift tags, notebooks, etc. — and you’ll be rewarded with a “wow!” factor!
Continue Reading about Design Motif Tutorials Part I: Roses and Swirls
The Breezy Hand-Lettering Tutorial is one of my favorites here on the TPK blog. I love it because of the colorful drop shadow, which creates the illusion of 3D letters! That said, after my friend Anne tried out the Breezy tutorial, she emailed me in distress: “I loved the white calligraphy with the colored pencil drop shadow … and I know you said in the video it really didn’t matter where you put the drop shadow, but mine LOOK LIKE CRAP!!! I start out thinking I know where they should go and then end up basically outlining the entire letter. Can you do a worksheet with all the alphabet and then draw in where the drop shadow should go?”
Continue Reading about How to Write Calligraphic 3D Letters + Printable “Cheat Sheets”
I’ll be the first to admit that figuring out calligraphy and lettering layout can sometimes be more difficult than writing the actual words you want to lay out! That’s because there are so many choices as far as how to present your information: do you justify to the left, do you center, do you add illustrated elements to highlight certain information? What do you want your viewer’s eye to focus on first, and how do you achieve that focus?
Continue Reading about Calligraphy and Lettering Layout Tips