Recycled magazine page font Father's Day card

Have you missed me? I know it's been a while. I've been blogging every day at Craftside and Craft Gossip Recycling. But today I'm back to give you a fun Father's Day Card tutorial on how to make recycled magazine (or book catalog) letters used to make a Father's Day card using an idea featured in the book Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists.

I had an old catalog that I thought would work great for cutting up these little block letters.

What made it so easy was that the books were all about the same size rectangle and this font is very boxy. I cut out each book cover first. I chose book covers for each letter that the title would still be exposed even when I snipped out parts to form the letters. It took a few different tries as I ended up using all white background covers so they would coordinate and stand out against the black background paper

I glued the letters down to the card and added two strips of scrapbook paper to make a "shelf". I also kind of had to giggle in that one of the books is Water Paper Paint and another is 1000 Creative Re-use. Nothing like re-using paper images of the words to make another word!

If you are like me and love type and lettering you will love Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists.

More about the Lark Crafts book

Creative Lettering: Techniques & Tips from Top Artists
by
Jenny Doh
 
" Hand-lettering techniques are a popular and visually dynamic way to add textual elements to crafts, from journals to mixed-media art. Sixteen accomplished contributors—including calligraphers, painters, collagists, card makers, fiber artists, and graphic designers—give their personal perspectives on lettering. They all offer their favorite tools, how they use them, their signature technique with step-by-step instructions and photos, and an alphabet sampler of their own font. Gorgeous gallery images of each contributor's work are also included.

 

Contributors include:
Andy Ainger   •   Francois Begnez   •   Flora Chang   •   Barbara Close   •   Philippe Debongnie   •  Karyn Denten   •   Aimee Dolich   •   Lisa Engelbrecht   •   Pam Garrison  •   Stine Kaasa   •   Rhianna Lederman   •   Martha Lever   •   Linda Schneider   •   Jessica Swift   •   Madeline Tomkins   •   Lori Vilegen   •  

 

Jenny Doh is the former Editor-in-Chief of Somerset Studio magazine and the President and Founder of crescendoh.com. Jenny serves regularly as keynote speaker across the nation to deliver messages related to creative passion, authentic leadership, effective communication, and focused compassion. For her leadership in publishing and the art and crafting community, Jenny was recognized by Folio magazine as one of the top 40 leaders within the publishing industry. Jenny is the author of several books, including Hand in Hand and We Make Dolls (both Lark). She lives in Santa Ana, CA."

How to make a St. Patrick's Day custom label and card

As an Industrial Design major in college I think package design was one of my favorite classes. Now as a craft designer I don't design much packaging but making a custom label to celebrate a holiday is doable these days. I found these free downloads for St. Patrick's day graphics and labels and all that was left to do was a little punching with some Marvy Uchida Big punches and some cutting.

I glued the graphics on two more layers of scrapbook paper and then onto the bottle of real maple syrup. The card was made the same way simply layered up the graphic with two more pieces of scrapbook paper.

Mother's Day Cross Stitch Done and Displayed!

Better late than never! The border is from the wonderful book Subversive Cross Stitch and I plotted the type.

And here it is all framed up!

And on the wall with an award my mom got in Law School and a collage of memorabilia from a trip to Catalina. Kind of a neat mix of stuff, hu?

But this cross stitch wasn't all, The Mom also wanted note cards with the cross stitch saying on them. So I used the photo I took and brought it into illustrator and laid it out two up on a page horizontally and printed out a bunch!

And for plotting out the letters I went to Incompetech.com for the graph paper, it is so cool you can make any size you need there and print it out!

I think it was a great idea to use a custom piece of art/craft to make a useful item that more can share in.
Now I have a tip for you, you already might do this but for some reason I hadn't up until this point. I had always cut the paper in half to separate the two cards, then folded them. This always then required some trimming of the cards. This time I folded the large piece of paper in half, then cut the two apart. No trimming up!!! Learn something new every day.

There was a second cross stitch that was requested for another person as part of this gift, but the recipient hasn't gotten it yet, but after they do I will post it!

And here is the cross stitch I did for the parents for Christmas all framed up:
And this is the post about the technique I use to plot my designs.