celebrating miku

One of my dear friends gave birth last month and I wanted to send her a little card  in the mail. 

Can you guess what this adorable little boy's name is?

I was playing around with paper and came up with confetti pieces spelling out his name. I thought about gluing one on the card but I just left it on top when I inserted the envelope, in case she wants to stick the pieces elsewhere, like on a wall or frame. The rest were placed inside the envelope.

And of course, a calligraphed envelope.

I'm so excited to meet this darling little boy, who has brought so much joy to my friends! What a wonderful gift it is, this new life.

addressing envelopes

I've been working with different sizes of nibs and fonts to adjust to different sizes of envelopes. It's been a lot of fun but with all the experimenting I've been doing, I can't help but feel a wee bit guilty over the amount of paper I've used! I do however set them aside for recycling at the very least.

The first sample was done a fine nib, it's a smaller font better suited to A2 envelopes (4 3/8 in x 5 3/4 in). This is the same size as the Christmas cards in the previous post

The second sample is for bigger envelopes such as the A7 (5 1/4 in x 7 1/4 in), the kind you'd use for formal invitations and the like.

I've also been trying out different inks and I'm in love with this particular sepia shade from Windsor & Newton that I've been playing around with. It would have been perfect for our chocolate brown wedding invitations. Perhaps I shall still make a sample to see how it looks and feature colored inks soon.

holiday calligraphy

With the holidays around the corner, I decided to jumpstart out holiday correspondences while I still had free time. I was lucky to find a set of 40 assorted blank holiday cards on sale which would give me a nice canvas for calligraphy practice.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the cards were printed at the back as well which meant that they were too dark to see through and would all have to be hand-lined in pencil! Lining will be the death of me!

I'll post the matching envelopes next time.

cookies, christmas, and calligraphy

So I know I've been kind of slow to start this blog. I've been working on a lot of little projects here and there but nothing yet of note. I've been taking calligraphy classes, working with watercolors, and baking, just to name a few.

Lately, I've been trying to perfect my almond graham bark and tomorrow, my calligraphy class is taking a field trip to visit Michele Papineau, a well-renowned calligrapher in the Bay area. As a thank you to her, and my classmate who's giving me a ride, this is what I came up with:

I'm really excited that I'm finally taking a calligraphy class after all these years of being self-taught. My instructor is wonderful and very encouraging and I've learned so much from her. I love that she encourages us to develop our own styles.

I'm thinking of participating in a calligraphy Christmas exchange (where you send handmade cards out and you receive some in exchange) and I've been jotting down ideas as to how I can use calligraphy this upcoming holiday season. Do I have it in me to hand write a gazillion Christmas cards? We shall see.