When I was little, my mom (and probably Santa) bought me some books on doodling and handlettering and other fun things to draw. I had 3 or 4 of them and I loved looking through them and re-creating all the fun doodles and designs- birthday cards, pictures for the fridge or just in the margins of notebooks. You can still find doodles in all of my high school and college notebooks that are reminiscent of those books- although, I do hope they’ve matured a bit from what I could draw at 10 (even though I was undoubtedly a genius child doodler).
In fact, I took 3 classes last semester and I’ll admit that my notebook is filled with probably 5 times as many doodles as there are notes. But they were all art classes, so IT’S OKAY MOM, STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK! I’m sure my brother doesn’t even take notes and he’s going to be an accountant. She’s not giving him that look.
Anyway, as I was saying: I’ve loved doodles and making words pretty for as long as I can remember (that Santa’s a really smart guy…really mom, you can stop with that look, I know it was really you!) and lately I’ve really been trying to practice my hand lettering to make it more natural and perfect in a not-so-perfect-I-didn’t-really-try-that-hard-but-really-I-did handmade way.
This book was the final project for on of the classes I took last semester, we were supposed to create a book by hand that had a clear beginning and end in just seven pages. I decided I wanted the chance to practice more of my hand lettering and what better “story” to tell than the one I was going through? So, I picked these quotes off of my Pinterest Board to show the story of my inspiration.
Take a look:
I hope you can see the clear progression of thought between the quotes- going from just thinking about it to actually acting on them. One of the quotes I didn’t have enough room for is by Elenor Roosevelt: “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” I like that– Be active in your desires, don’t just hope that one day they’ll happen.
Before I started this whole crazy business venture and changed what pretty much my entire life looked like in the span of a couple months, these quotes (and many others on my Pinterest page) gave me hope and this insane idea that I could make all these things I wanted into a reality.
It really has been a crazy journey so far these past couple months and I’m looking forward to the year ahead. Doing more hand-lettering this year and learning to better translate that into my digital designs is one of my goals for 2014. Calligraphy is on the list too. It’s going to be a fun year! (:
If you like my hand-lettering, I’ve used it in some of my prints in my Ruby and Sass Etsy Shop and I hope to continue to letter even better {ooo, fun rhyme!} this year and come up with some more pretty prints.
But for now, you can check out these:
CALM MY ANXIOUS HEART
FIND YOUR MAGIC
THE PRETTIEST THING A GIRL CAN WEAR IS A SMILE
LITTLE GIRLS ARE MADE OF SUGAR AND SPICE
Do you have any favorite quotes you find inspiring?
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