More Calligraphy Posts

I find myself picking up my Noodler's pen or going back to dip pen when I have a chunk of free time.

 

Found this washi tape of nibs on the internet, hence, perfection. :)

 

I am beginning to love this song of Pink's. I especially like the line "We're not broken, just bent."

 

Written during a bad time in the office.

 

Written while my laptop froze. Hubby's song for me daw, hmp.

 

This is the gold Speedball calligraphy ink that I picked up in Scribe last week-end. It's a little tricky thinning it out and getting the gold to show up on white paper. But I like it. :)

Blue (Da ba dee da ba di)

 Today we were in Eastwood, a place we rarely go to, so I made sure to check out the calligraphy stuff in Scribe. There are quite a few bottles of ink and nibs since I last went there (a long time ago). I resisted my hoarder tendencies and bought two bottles of Speedball calligraphy ink - blue and gold.

Played with the blue tonight:

I've always used the Brause nib but now I've discovered that the Hunt 101 creates finer upstrokes. I read that Speedball calligraphy ink should be thinned out with water - I put too much so it turned watercolory. Still love it though.

Sad thing only is while I was cleaning the nib, I stabbed my thumb with it. Ouch.

Noodler's Pen

Just realized that I haven't blogged about my Noodler's pen. It has a flexible nib with its own ink barrel so I don't have to tote around a bottle of ink with me everytime. It's perfect for me to practice with while waiting for hubby in Trinoma.

This morning, the CA received a bomb threat then my Noodler's pen exploded ink all over me. (hum X-Files theme)

Rubber-cut Stamp Workshop

Early last May, I dragged my youngest sister to accompany me to one of Alessa Lanot's (www.lifeafterbreakfast.com) Rubber-cut Stamp Crafternoons. I attended Fozzy's calligraphy worshop by my lonesome and it was, well, lonely haha. I'm not good at making friends instantly, and most of the participants also brought along friends and family.

Alessa was with Mansy of www.heyhessy.com (washi tape galore!) We were provided with rubber blocks, carving tools and tracing paper (and a yummy merienda of Pipino's cold buckwheat soba noodles and lumpia). We were instructed to draw our design on the tracing paper and then rub them on the rubber afterwards, thereby producing the reverse of the design. Then, we had to stamp our own fabric tote bag and a scarf.

Shelves and Shadowboxes

Ze hubby has been on a real nesting kick recently, what with putting up picture frames and buying shelves. He's painting our shoe cabinet right now and wants to learn carpentry. Soooo I can't help but be swept away with his fervor that I decided to do a project that I wanted to do a couple of years ago haha.

I read about shadowboxes in YoungHouseLove and I knew I wanted to do that with our ring bowl. I searched high and low for shadowboxes and salespeople seem to not have heard of one everrr. Fortunately, I saw these deep picture frames in SM North and I realized, hey, they could be shadowboxes or maybe they really are shadowboxes.

So I first cleaned our ring bowl from Paloma's Nest. This is one of my favorite details from the wedding. We almost did not have one because they don't ship to the Philippines anymore. Fortunately, my friend in the US asked me what we wanted and I immediately forwarded her the link to the website. I threaded two camera charms that I found in Etsy. The nest-like stuff came with the bowl and I just spread it behind. I didn't glue anything because it was already a snug fit with the nest. I'm actually worried it might break because it was a bit snug, so I'm crossing my fingers with this one. I hid some silica gel in there so the charms won't rust.

Square One

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been happier if I went down the writer/creative world route. I'm no artist, but I like putting stuff together, even if my only tools are pen and paper.




Saizen is one of my happy places. I bought a 2mm mechanical pencil and a small blank pad, and I'm inspired to practice calligraphy again.









I hope I can do this with ink.

Handmade

Pattern paper + camera stamps + Saizen stamp pad + washi tape = Merry Christmas! :)

Calligraphy with The Fozzy Book and Craft MNL

I have always loved writing - writing content and the writing act itself. I guess I have pretty decent writing and handwriting skills because my classmates borrow my notes since high school. (Or maybe they were just darn too lazy to take notes and I wasn't.)

Calligraphy piqued my interest because, well, it's so pretty. And maybe I want to say sorry to all of daddy's fountain nibs that I used to drag across paper when I was younger. I first admired the posts of Leigh Reyes (@leighpod) but she doesn't hold workshops. Then I discovered the account of Fozzy C. Dayrit (@thefozzybook) I first "met" Fozzy when I read her posts in the weddings@work group. Fortunately, Fozzy held workshops and I signed up for the one held in Craft MNL last October 21 at The Collective.

Hubby dropped me off and I felt like it was the first day of school. I was alone and some of the participants knew each other so I was kinda shy and quiet haha. Fozzy said we were a bit "intense". I, for one, was very frustrated with my blobby first attempts. I wanted to take more pictures but the pages of the notebook had stuck together haha.

 

 I'm on a mini-vacation at home so I have all the time to practice.

 

Quick Fix with Washi Tape

The shade of my bedside lamp has come off. In short, it was falling apart. I dunno where I can buy a lampshade only that's not Divi so I devised a quick fix with washi tape.



Cute and quick. :)

Art Attack

Okay, printed some pictures, bought some materials. (Andami out there pero ang hirap hanapin ng magic words: acid free!!!)

Now, how to Get Crafty... ?



Meanwhile, methinks this stamp set is so cool!

Wishy Washi

Pardon the cheesy title. There are times that I attempt to be crafty shmarty. For our wedding, I DIY-ed our kissing bells. I wanted to DIY the lining of our wedding invites but I didn't have enough space for supplies and such.

I recently went through our Japan pictures and selected a few for printing. I decided it'd be more fun to place some in a scrapbook. Then, in one of the crafty blogs I read, I saw washi tapes and found them too cool for words. The blog directed me to http://www.heykessy.com.

I ordered the Red Stack and the Cherry Blossoms print and they arrived yesterday.

Loving the personal details.

So cute!

Tried 'em on my Starbucks planner. Cute, but my skills definitely need improvement. :D Spot the cherry blossom print!

Ahhh, can't wait to get started on that scrapbook!!!