I made a thank you card / happy new year card out of the circles and lines design I drew a couple weeks ago:
I did the original circles and lines drawing with ink on paper. I added the texture and color in Photoshop. The type is from the awesome family, Novecento, a few weights of which are free on myfonts.
Tag Archives: crafts
Faux Bois Father’s Day
How was everyone’s Father’s Day today? Mine was great and I hope my Dad enjoyed it too. I churned out a handmade Father’s Day card for him and got him a gift certificate to Border Grill. I also picked up a few treats from there, to have a little lunch at my parents’ place. It was delicious and great fun.
Here’s the card & envelope:
Here’s a detail shot to show the texture of the paper:
I used this great faux bois paper from Paper Source for the background. It looks like they don’t have the teal version anymore, but they do have a gold and brown version, which I also bought from them and which is very pretty too. The strip of textured, darker woodgrain paper in the middle is from a set of origami paper I got from dick blick ages ago, which I can’t find on their website now. Woodgrain just seemed to go perfectly with Father’s Day.
Thanks, dudes.
I made some thank you cards, which I based on a “thank you” type treatment I drew out. My original plan was to scan in my lettering, then Photoshop it into a nice little layout. However, I was disliking how I was losing the hand-made, organic, tactile quality of the pencil on paper once everything became digital. So I hand-drew 8 different versions of the above type and pasted them on a variety of patterned papers. It came out very well. I drew on lightly textured, cream paper and I liked how when I pasted it on top of the patterned paper, there was a nice show-through of the pattern.
Happy Father’s Day Card From a Bird
This bird is thinking of her awesome dad. I made this card for my awesome dad.
Started out with pencil on paper, then inked the lines in Illustrator and added color and texture in Photoshop. The typeface is Designal Regular.
A Card for Katie Because She Deserved One.
After endless hours staring at a computer screen and moving shapes around to make pretty things, sometimes it’s nice to sit at a desk and move tangible shapes around to make pretty things.
Done with origami paper, and some awesome origami mesh paper.
Merry Christmas. Time for Crafts!
Merry Christmas Eve, everybody. My family does a Secret Santa gift exchange and I wrapped my presents this morning. I used brown Kraft paper to wrap, then I freehanded a design in pencil on the smaller gift. Then I colored in the lines with a silver gel pen (purchased from JetPens.com) and a thin-tipped Sharpie. Start:
Finish:
I taped this awesome textured red-and-black origami paper on top of the larger box on the bottom and then stacked the smaller gift on top.
Gotta go make some pierogi and drink some egg nog. Have a great day, everyone!
The Moles – Layout for Printing Your Own Mini-Comic on One Sheet of Paper
As promised, I’m including here a layout of The Moles so that you can print it out on your home printer and make your own mini book out of one sheet of paper to carry around in your purse, backpack, or satchel. Click on this image to download a pdf of the layout:
Check out the individual panels in my previous post, The Moles – All Done!
And here are the instructions for making your own The Moles 8-panel book from an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper:
Step 1: Print on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper
I printed on my home inkjet printer, using some semi-nice matte paper. Don’t use anything too heavyweight, otherwise the book won’t fold well. The pdf is 8.5 x 11, so print at 100%. Your finished mini book will be 3.25″ x 2.5″.
Step 2: Trim
(I’m using a blade, but you can use scissors for all the cutting too)
Step 3: Fold in half lengthwise
Step 4: Fold in half the other way
Step 5: Fold in top and bottom to the middle fold line
Step 6: Cut a line in the middle of the paper, using the fold lines as guides
This is what you should get:
Step 7: Fold stuff, making a kind of diamond shape
Step 8: Voila!
Use this technique for making your own mini-books, too. It’s eight panels worth of fun, which is just the right amount of fun for me.
Happy Father’s Day, Dads!
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A day late to posting, but I was a day early to giving, haha! I hope everyone had a fine Father’s Day. Here’s the card I made for my awesome dad:
Pattern & text (Adobe Garamond) done in Illustrator. Texture is from a wash I did using moist tissue paper and allowing it to get all wacky. I printed the whole shebang on cream card stock, wrote on the back, and stuck it in a yellow envelope. I like that it turned out to be a little bit disorienting, similar to that classic optical illusion. Scintillating!
Happy Mother’s Day, Moms!
Here is the Mother’s Day card & envelope I made for my awesome mom:
Materials used: colored card stock, Komon print Chiyogami paper, Aitoh mesh orgiami paper, white gel pen. Lettering is gel pen over Adobe Garamond Pro. Oh, how I love you, white gel pen! Less than I love my mom, but a lot.