Faux Calligraphy

Since I’ve committed this year to only sending out cards that I hand-make, I felt that it was time to tackle some calligraphy. While my handwriting isn’t lamentable, it also isn’t anything to write home about, so developing a fancy version of writing for fancy occasions has always been a creative goal. This development of hand-eye coordination will also improve my watercolor skills (this girl’s still struggling with shaky hands!).

I went to an event recently that featured Lindsey Bugbee, founder of The Postman’s Knock, and I was so impressed with her skill and knowledge that I decided to purchase one of her calligraphy worksheet sets. I chose the Beth Style and have been practicing for about a week now. Per her recommendation, I’ve started out doing “faux” calligraphy, which means using a normal pen rather than a fancy dip pen (though I intend to move on to the dip pen once I’ve got the basics down).  Lindsey mentioned that you can also use a dip pen using watercolors as your ink, so that will be another technique to play with in the future!

Here’s what I was able to write after a week of intermittent practice, with stars and metallic paint to hide the errors in a glimmery haze:

 

As a final note: I just wanted to mention again, that many of our posts here on this blog heavily feature people and products that we find worthwhile. We do NOT receive any money for this featuring, we just love to share the resources that have helped us on our creative journeys. If we ever do benefit from name-dropping, we will of course disclose that fact.