The inspiration for this “just because” card comes from Carolyn Gavin‘s botanical sketches in Issue 11 of Flow Magazine. It’s hard not to love the juxtaposition of clean black and white components with watercolor! If you like the look of this project, give it a try! Even if you don’t consider yourself to be an artist, you can make it — I promise. Here’s how:
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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.
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After years of apartment living, Hernán and I bought a house here in Boulder three months ago. We were lucky enough to find a home that has a separate apartment in the basement. For us, that’s perfect because both of our families live out of state, and they enjoy coming for long visits! When family members aren’t visiting, we plan on renting the basement apartment out on Airbnb. Since the day we moved in, we’ve been working on remodeling the basement. As you can see from Hernán’s paint-stained shirt, it has been quite an undertaking!
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A couple of days ago, I celebrated my birthday. On the morning of that day, I woke up and realized: birthday expectations really change throughout the years. When you’re a little kid, your birthday is all about getting lots of gifts. As you get older, though, it’s less about gifts and more about relationships. While cards didn’t mean much to me as a little kid, now I really appreciate it if someone takes the time to send me a little greeting to say, “I remembered your special day!”
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When I first became interested in lettering, I noticed beautiful pieces of gold calligraphy on Pinterest. And, while I loved the effect, I simply couldn’t figure out how to achieve that myself! Then, one fateful day, I ordered a Finetec Golds palette. Creating calligraphy with it has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s worth riding out any frustration to figure it out! In today’s blog post, I’m going to teach you how to use the Finetec palette to create stunning gold calligraphy and lettering.
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I’m sure you’re wondering what on earth a “millennial birthday card” is! Well … it’s a card that reflects the millennial tendency to condense phrases into acronyms. This artistic, fun card says “Happy Birthday” with three letters — “HBD”. (Now that I think about it, it seems that “Happy Birthday” should be “HB”, but my fellow millennials always write “HBD”, so that’s what I’m going with!) If you like the concept, you can follow the instructions below to make your own “millennial” birthday card!
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Calligraphy is everywhere nowadays: social media, food labels, and events all indulge in beautiful dip pen lettering. It’s hard not to look at gorgeously-penned script and wonder: “Could I do that? Would I be good at it? Would I like it?” The free “Am I Into Calligraphy?” printable worksheet will help you to determine just that!
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Last month, I posted a tutorial over how to make a calligraphy medallion. I love the medallion in that tutorial, but I freely admit that it takes a bit of time and energy to make! Effectively, I wanted to post a simpler tutorial … one that requires less steps. You’ll really enjoy this medallion as a way to add embellishments to envelopes, gift tags, sketchbooks, or anywhere else you might use a dip pen!
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Today’s printable birthday card encompasses two fantastic things: adult coloring and intricate hand-lettering. If you’ve got 15-20 minutes this weekend, it’s a very worthy project to spend time making! After you create it, you can tuck the card away somewhere until someone’s birthday comes up.
When I was little, I had books that showed you how to use a series of shapes to draw an animal. It was amazing to see those shapes come together to make something realistic! I still love working step by step to create an awesome result, and that’s why there are so many art tutorials on the TPK blog! Today, I have compiled a list of my favorite art tutorials on this website. This list goes from oldest to newest — so don’t be surprised if you see something from yesteryear that you missed!
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