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PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT...

  I have always, always LOVED great calligraphy, I suspect typography in general (although up into a few years ago I didn't know it had a name). 
    No offense please to people that do Italic calligraphy, it just rubs me the wrong way, in a sort of avocado 70's green sort of way, something that I am trying to withdraw from my memory bank. I digress..BUT  beautiful antique penmanship, Copperplate and Spencerian make me swoon.  I decided that being the 'Miss Everything' that I am I had to get in on this, so I signed myself up for a local one night class at Paper Source, of course one evening of lessons will not get you very far, but it may point you in the right direction and my direction being the obsessive that I am pointed me straight to addiction edge.
     I MUST learn this, I must, there's not a computer generated font that will do even though this one  is quite satisfying.  You really can take this into the 21st century by developing your own style of this gorgeous type of writing such as Rebecca Trawick has done , which she aptly describes as hand lettering and is just magnificent!

     I doubt that one gets to point B (Rebecca's very own style) without at least a little information on how to use at the very least the oblique pen and how to get the darn ink in there.  May I suggest some sites that may help you on your road to developing some fine lettering skills?

Spencerian Micheal Sull has courses on DVD which I will be asking for my upcoming birthday (it is difficult to shop for an Everything girl after all) also this site is a great resource for FREE, yes FREE videos although I don't know how far you'll get, although they do have some great lessons available via pdf...  Okay, one last image of some mouth watering script and I need to go, because evidently the key to perfecting this skill is practice...

IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK...

   

      I wanted to add this post about walls, since I have started obsessing over the idea of upholstered walls.  I really believe I can do this project without incident.  I turned to my friend Jonthan Fong, an uber creative and kind designer.   I figured I should let you all know about him because his site (and books) are a wealth of how-to mania.  Even if your style is not like his, you can still learn something and adjust it to your liking.  I really want to make these panels but bigger and spaced out, but he gives you a good step-by-step on the project to get you started.
    I also found this fun video on the process.  Loving the yellow fabric, even though I would never dare go there, I am very sedate in my color palette, one day perhaps I will branch out but for today I really like bright white and espresso brown with some shine tossed in like glass, mirror, lucite, nickel.  I bring in colors via flowers and people even my dogs are white!  Talk about color fear....

INTERIOR DECORATING JONES

   

    I must say that after posting that photo of what I'd like the Atelier to look like and knowing that my budget was practically nil, I started to get an awful case of 'The Wants'.  I needed to desperately do something, anything and my budget was about $40.  What could I do with $40 that would appease my champagne taste on my wine-from-a-box budget?  It was hard, I don't go for crafty looking painted pieces of furniture or full-on thrift, besides in my neck of the woods anything worth having is usually bought up by some super thrifter with an excellent eye for the D.I.Y.
    I knew this much, I needed a large table in the atelier for a multitude of reasons, shipping packages for
Bella Bella co., a place to cut my paper, a place to sew, screenprint and a place that is not a desk but a work station.  I decided that I needed to commandeer the dining room table that we never use anymore.  It just sits there forlornly in the dining room that is soon to become my library/lounge.  So I dragged this thing into my atelier:                                           
    

It was looking pretty neglected and worn out, not to mention dated.  I wasn't going to just drag this in the atelier and plop it down and call it a day, no I had $40 (count 'em) BIG BUCKS to spend, what to do with all these riches?  Well, I sanded this baby down a little, a lite sand with fine sand paper, #240, couple pieces ran me about $3.  I bought a can of Zar wood stain in charcoal (about $12) a foam brush (.80) and got to staining  Staining is a lot like painting, it's pretty simple and you don't have to pull off all the previous stain to get a nice end effect.  I only sanded the darn thing because it had a bunch of water stain rings and I didn't want them to come through after the staining or else I would have been lazy and just started staining.  I let the stain dry and bought myself a quart of the Polyurethane Min wax gloss ($13), after that dried I needed to attach my new handles which ran me about $10 for the pair, they are gorgeous, shiny nickel plated beauties.  I chose a very clean lined hardware for the draw pulls because I didn't want it to be too femme and also I wanted to offset the traditional piece with a little modern day accessorizing.  Here's the finished piece:

       If you can see there is a little chest under the desk I am using it for my shipping supplies (boxes, tissue paper, scissors, etc.  It did look like this until I got to it  It was pretty ugly, but now it's not and  it can double as extra seating if I was so inclined.  The stain I had bought was enough for this job as well (lucky money bags me!) 

    I am definitely going to keep this area sparse as I need the room to lay things out so I don't want any extra clutter, but I did frame some sentimental items such as a sketch that my fiancee drew of us and a black and white photo we took last year.

WILL WORK FOR FURNITURE...

   

    Oh how I wish I had the cash to re-do my atelier.  This is after all the place where I spend the majority of my waking hours.  I am pretty good with the DIY but I did f-up (yes, that bad) my wood floors when I attempted to stain them ebony.  Then to my dismay I realized that now I could see all the shedding that Miss Bella does, for a neatnik like myself this is very disturbing. 

    I may not be in the position to do anything at this moment, but I can start planning for that mystical, magical day when I'll have oodles of cash or a couple extra bucks to start my makeover...  I did find this gorgeous inspiration from The Beach Studios in the U.K.  I think this is a good start..(note the white floors..) 

THE END OF SUMMER...

    It is the last weekend of summer, but in our parts it feels as if summer has just arrived. 
    Bella was bored, hot and bothered (as were her parents and little, big sister George).  Bella was thrilled that her Uncle's Will and Jack invited her to come swimming, since she can't drive, her parents tagged along and of course brought George (George is a great swimmer).
    Since Mama Everything can't be counted on updating her blog on a perfect day, let alone on a day when the non-air conditioned atelier temps are high enough to make the keyboard melt, so it's amazing that she was motivated enough to add these pics from our last weekend of summer...

P.S. If you too would like your own custom church sign, visit this fun place.