Calligraphy Practice

Since I've been really into hand lettering lately, I decided that I should learn calligraphy. Like, legit, dipping a pen in ink, Harry Potter-style writing (Hi, I'm a nerd). I also figured its one of those things that is kind of hard to teach yourself so I should sign up for a class.

This is practice of the basic strokes. I love how it ended up looking kind of like a messy pattern.

As opposed to an in-person class, I signed up for  Melissa Esplin's I Still Love Calligraphy class to help me focus with specific assignments. So far I really like it and the Copperplate style is definitely up my alley.

My first attempt at doing the alphabet free handed (as opposed to tracing). Little wonky.

One of the hardest things for me is relearning how to hold the pen. Somehow, as a misguided/rebellious third grader, I developed a really bizarre way of holding pens where my thumb hangs over the top of the pen and wiggles as I'm writing. It's pretty weird, but it works for me. I think its one reason I can write in really tiny handwriting and make detailed doodles. But it just won't work with a calligraphy pen because I would bend the nib and the ink wouldn't come out.

Getting better!

Hopefully I'll stick with this but I need projects to work on! So start sending your requests for pretty notecards, envelopes, place cards and quotes so I have projects to keep me going! Though, no promises that it won't be a little imperfect. ;o) If you don't mind, send 'em my way! Seriously, the more practice the better!

Still some work to do but still improving :o)

Deep Dive

So a few days ago I posted some new patterns I worked on recently. I wanted to focus on one of them to share some of the sketches. I've talked before about how I get a little obsessed with various shapes so that's pretty much the case here.

So the pattern above is digitally done, but I kept playing with the shape and decided to do a hand-drawn version. The size is 14"x11" and I used my favorite Sharpie pens.

Here's a close up. Ooo, Sharpie pen.

And here's a sketch that I did as I was playing around with the idea.

You can tell that I'm learning calligraphy because I've been practicing all over the place. And here's the pencil sketches when I was first trying to figure out the right shape.

The end!

Vacation Inspiration

Woo! I'm back with some new patterns! Kevin and I recently travelled to Costa Rica for a nice vacation. It was so beautiful! The plants and animals were my favorite thing about it. 

I set a goal a whiiile back to make more patterns and attempt to create a collection of patterns that sort of fit together. So I finally get to check that off the list with the first one.  I think they would make some fun, summery fabrics. 

Maybe I'll get really motivated and post them to Spoonflower! We bought ourselves a new camera for the trip (so many sloth photos, awww). But here is a totally random selection of photos we took that I used for inspiration:

Out of Context: Little of This, Little of That

I've been compiling new "Out of Context" doodles for the past few weeks waiting for a theme... since I keep promising you guys themes (sorry, I can be such a liar when it comes to blogging). But no such luck. So here's a smattering of various random things people have said, illustrated and (as always) taken completely out of context.

True. Story. But let us not discount those who order sheet cakes because cake is one of the most delightful things.

Don't judge. How many bars of soap have you eaten recently?

Speaking of things you shouldn't be eating. This quote came from my high school notebooks. Ah, teenagers.

Insta-Quotes

Happy St. Patrick's Day! On Friday our kitchen island was feature on the DC Goodwill blog. Debating whether I need to start a "featured on" section somewhere so people know how cool we are. Which is a good segue to this lovely, self-deprecating quote...

I've been continuing to practice my hand lettering. I've been sharing them on Instagram as I finish (ah, instant gratification) so sorry if these of repeats for folks.  Also, inspired by my high school doodles, I went out and bought a graph paper notebook which really helped me with spacing. Kind of nice not to have to re-do the whole thing five times. 

I hope this is self-explanatory.

Version one.

Version two after I got extra bored and added some extra doodle. Which makes everything better! Yay. Anyways, I'm alone for the weekend as Kevin is at Spring Training in Florida so I'll try to get back on my game blogging wise but if you need more frequent updates (Mom & Dad), then you can follow me on Instagram. (I'll teach you how to download it.)

Highschool Doodles & The (Claymation) Crucible

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented here and on Facebook/Twitter/G+ about our kitchen island. As I said, Kevin deserves a lot of the credit and we're just super excited to have more counterspace. Thanks for the love! Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming... sometime around 9th or 10th grade I started doodling madly in my classes instead of taking notes.

Like many a teenager, I dragged around countless composition notebooks and scribbled down my angst-y teenage thoughts. Gems I assure you. However on a recent trip home to Florida I riffled through to grab a few snapshots of blog-worthy doodles like the above.

Above are about half of the notebooks.

This makes me want to run out and buy graph paper. Not just good for plotting points!

Here's a happy looking crab. To be fair I think this actually was for my Marine Biology class. Oh yeah! Florida education!

An early one, full of angst-y symbolism.

In case you can't read this it says, "I saw Goody Gumby with the devil." Brought to you by Arthur Miller's The (Claymation) Crucible. That's probably not a thing but I wish it was. It would be almost as amazing at The Crucible: A One Woman Show in One Act. Yep, highschool was pretty silly.

Graph paper! Ok, so that's most of what I found but pretty much all I captured as I was rushing to bed before my 7 am flight the next day. In my next post (or a future post... I make no promises), I'll do a mash up of my Out of Context series with random thoughts I wrote down in one of the notebooks circa 2002. If you thought I said random things now, you didn't know me when I was 17.

I Was An Island

I read A LOT of home design and DIY blogs. A LOT. So even though it isn't really my usual focus, I couldn't help but share this project we just completed for our kitchen.

We took a $30 Goodwill dresser and turned it into a kitchen island. All it took was paint, an on-sale piece of Ikea butcher block and various hooks, etc. Oh yeah, and a lot of elbow grease. We picked this dresser because it was $30, in good condition, had solid wood construction (dovetail joints woo!),  and it was counter top height.

We relied heavily on these furniture refinishing instructions via Young House Love. We started by sanding off multiple layers of green, white and (in some places) red paint. In our family, I'm the Queen of Tedious Projects such as sanding (also pulling weeds).

Here's me after several hours. Don't worry, this is posed, because most of the time I was wearing a big ugly respirator... but I don't want pictures of that on the internet.

Then Kevin removed the drawers and took out the middle wood piece thing (technical term) to make a big open space to store small appliances.

Next we cleaned it up primed and painted. We chose Behr's Yellow Brick Road. We loved the cheery color and it really brings out the warm tones of the butcher block. The counter top is Ikea's Numerar butcher block in Oak. For some reason the size we needed was marked down from $89 to $49. No idea why but we were pinching ourselves!

The butcher block was a little too big, so Kevin bravely sliced off about two inches from the long size. He expertly sanded it and you would never know! It's attached to the top of the dresser with L-brackets that came with the counter. Here's a picture of me looking cold getting ready for the big cut:

We also purchased hooks for one side and a hanging bucket for the other side for our herbs and spices which had hitherto been living in a cardboard box in the dining room (not AT ALL convenient).

We put a clear plastic non-slip mat in the bottom of the big storage area to protect it. I sewed a curtain so I don't have to look at the appliances underneath. The fabric is Chipper Storm Twill I bought online from Warehouse Fabrics. We used grommets and little hooks to hang it.

In the end, we are absolutely giddy about it! The extra storage and food prep space was sorely needed. I'd put a picture of our whole kitchen in here... but it's noooot quite ready for a close-up!

I'd also like to mention that we were inspired by this beautiful dresser/island I found on Pinterest via Apartment Therapy. The lovely baked goods pictured are Chocolate Chip Brioche Pretzels from the AMAZING Smitten Kitchen cookbook.