A Little Lettering

While I was still visiting back home, I worked with my Mom to get a bunch of stuff ready for Halle's party next month. Though it may seem a little early, I figured that the more that I accomplished during that visit home, the less I would have to do back in BC (and then transport back), or try to finish up when I return next month.


Many of the projects were small and tedious, and I will wait until I share the whole party with you to show those. However, one project I tackled, was a ton of fun, and I just couldn't wait to get it up on here.


While I was sitting around one Saturday morning, trying to decide what I needed to do for the party while I was there, I decided I wanted to make a sign welcoming our guests. I had an idea of what I wanted to do and began to search around Pinterest for inspiration. I finally stumbled across one pin, that brought me to this great blog post and I was instantly inspired by these images...

So, I headed to the Dollar Store and found some orange poster board for 59 cents. When I got home, I pulled out a pencil and straight edge ruler and began planning out my sign. The first thing I did was measure out the area that I wanted my first words to be in. I decided the "W" of Welcome would be the largest so I measured an 8 inch space for the "W" and the remainder of welcome would be half the size, at 4 inches. Then I freehanded my letters, using the first image from above as inspiration...

Next, I decided that I loved the banners on that first image as well so "To Halle's" would be the next words I would add, inside of the banner, using a different font. Again, I freehanded everything before I went over this whole section of the banner in a fine tip black marker. Everything then got filled in using black. I decided to do this now since I was happy with this part of the sign. I figured that way if I made any major mistakes below, I wouldn't have to worry about erasing any of the things I really liked. 

Then, I began to measure for my next section which would read "Birthday", again in a different font and at 5 inches high...

Again, each letter was free handed, using pencil, onto the poster board. I would often find myself drawing a letter and erasing the whole thing, or parts of it, numerous times, before I finally had it looking proper. Especially for "Birthday", which I found I erased the entire word many times before I had it right. It took quite a while but finally I had it just right and was able to do all of the outlining. I also added a small strip below it, with freehanded stars and circles...

For "party", I decided to use another script and spent a great deal of time browsing around online for just the right inspiration...

I was able to finish up most of the sign before we had to leave to head back here to B.C.

I still need to shade in the "shadows" behind the letters in "Birthday" and I plan on drawing something next to the word "party" - I still have to decide what to put there though. Probably something puppy related, as that will be the theme of her second party.

This was really my first attempt at trying out fancy lettering like this. I could use some improvement, but I'd say for a first try it turned out pretty good. What'd really like to do is try out some fancy chalkboard lettering like those in my inspiration. Have you ever done it - on paper or chalkboard? I'd love to know, and if you have them, I'd love to see some photos as well!