Handlettered Signs
IT’S YOUR STORY
Signs- currently extremely popular both with crafters and buyers. Cricuts have made sign making (and everything) a lot more doable and "perfect". This month though, I decided to hand letter a few signs using INK of course. I practiced and practiced everyday for a couple of weeks, then spent an afternoon with a friend who does handlettered items as a hobby/afterwork business. Her name is Roxanne and I'd recommend giving her a follow over on the Insta @rkotelko (rKdesigns) - she will inspire you, make you laugh on the regular, and her kids are adorable! Roxanne seems to have a natural talent for this kind of thing, and she enjoys it. Me on the other hand- enjoy it, but my writing is not quite up to par just yet. But she was nice enough to take a little time and walk me through a simple process I could use to make some beautiful hand lettered signs for my home. First I will walk you through the quick little project I made with her guidance, and then you will see what I did with my new found calligraphy knowledge, and finished up those bathroom signs I was playing around with at the beginning of the month.
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T&t Acrylic Sign . Roxanne gets her acrylic pieces from a typical hardware store and then scores them herself to size. Her husband made the wood base with a slot to hold the acrylic. The ink pen I used was a gold Pilot fine tip pen (pictured in gallery). First we decided to do a simple logo for my website and the original plan was to print the logo and place it behind the acrylic and trace onto the front. Of course best laid plans- printer ran out of ink. Oh well! So instead (and I think a good thing for me to do the entire process) I then practiced drawing a logo onto looseleaf until I was happy with what I had drawn, and placed that behind the acrylic, centred, and then began to draw on my image. After getting the basic drawing done, Roxanne shared the big secret to calligraphy: down strokes are thicker and up strokes are thin. So then I went back and thickened up those down strokes and voila! She also likes using acrylic vs wood (though she does wood signs as well) for the forgiveness. You can just use rubbing alcohol to remove your ink from the acrylic if you mess up! (um yes please- who doesn't love an easy fix!)
3 cups
Blueberries
3 cups
Flour
Practice Paper
Acrylic cut to size
Base
Pens- and ruler if need be
1½ cups
Butter
Funny Bathroom Signs
So after spending a little time with Roxanne and learning a couple of tricks for sign-making/calligraphy, I came home ready to tackle my bathroom signs. The first thing I had done earlier in the month was looked on Pinterest for some funny bathroom signs and spent some time practicing on scrap paper. I had bought 2 frames from Winners that I really liked for our bathroom and instead of photos I wrote on paper cut to size with a Sharpie (I know- super fancy). I also loved this idea of multiple funny sayings in one pretty place as I just could not decide which ones were my favourite! I played around with writing and printing and really focused on the whole down strokes are thick thing and I am very happy with what came out. I think with a little practice most people can totally do hand lettered signs for your own home, that people may ask " Where'd you buy that", or at least say "Wow that really is good enough for your own home" haha!
My practice writing for my acrylic website sign.
My workstation for making the acrylic sign.
After
My practice writing for my acrylic website sign.