Silhouette with iPad: Custom Lettering

I’ve been on a lettering kick recently – last month I took a pointed-pen calligraphy class at Meant to Be Calligraphy and I’ve been obsessed with Jenny Doh’s Creative Lettering: Techniques and Tips from Top Artists – but struggled with adding my lettering to my traditional and Project Life layouts. Finding the right ink/paper combinations with my very limited lettering supplies (I seriously have over 100 pens but only a few of them are right for the loopy lettering techniques I’m in love with), is very challenging. The Higgins Eternal black ink we got in class absorbs straight into the Becky Higgings Project Life paper. It looks okay on water color paper but as a newbie to pointed-pen and other technique-centric pens, I’m still getting used to the scratchiness. The Mister Huey’s inks work on the Project Life cards but the pointed pen part leaves weird scratchy marks for this nube….

Complaining aside, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to add personalized/custom lettering to my projects without the hassle of figuring out what ink to match with what medium and the solution seems to be the Silhouette Cameo. For the layout below, I tried some brush script techniques using a tablet, drew the image, saved it as an image file (e.g., jpg), and then cut the file out using water color paper. Voila! No special inks needed!

Then I colored the words using some Faber Castell Gelatos. My favorite part was distressing the outline of the words using the Black Soot distress marker. I originally created a harsh line, but using a water brush, I was able to blend the gelato and distress marker for a unique look. 

For the rest of the page, I used scraps from my Gelato swatches and other projects. I seem to use up a lot of my scraps in the scrapbooking process and generate a lot of scraps working on greeting cards and Project Life. I don’t scrap very much, but I’d be very curious to know if that happens to others.

The most recent Amy Tangerine/Kal Barteski woodblock stampset is perfect for so many layouts that I created a cut file so I could easily create embellishments. I used Delicata Gold ink to stamp it and then distressed the paper using Mowed Lawn and Black Soot distress pens. 

“With Sympathy” Card Using Distress Markers

The Distress Markers never cease to amaze me. Even when the color swatch is completely uninspiring, the transformation when it’s used with water is incredible. The die cut was made out of watercolor card stock. The white background was embossed using a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder on Stampin Up white cardstock.

 

Card inspired by Kristina Werner

I learn so much from the kwernerdesign blog and the moment I saw this blog post, I had to try this technique myself.

I don’t have many flower stamps so I embossed a Hero Arts background stamp with white powder. I used all the colors Kristina Werner used on her blog (combination of distress markers and distress ink pads) and added Shaded Lilac to the mix. I also bought a set of watercolor brushes which enabled me to control the color saturation. The first photo is my tester and I love it. I think the first time around, this technique yielded an almost stained glass look.

After building my confidence, I tried my hand with the larger piece, which is for a greeting card. I wasn’t as careful on the larger piece because I was trying out the larger water color brushes. I messed up a little on one of the lilac flowers and I could have left the pumice stone ink on longer before dabbing but overall, I love the effect.