Sneak Peak!

[jzuzphreek]

Ok, so my calligraphy hasn't progressed nearly as much as some of you guys. Regardless, I wanted to share with you what I'm working on. My wife is leaving Friday to spend the week with our son at her parent's in Missouri. She'll be gone on Mother's Day and will be returning on her birthday. The plan is to send a card tomorrow, that should arrive on Saturday for Mother's Day (since I won't really be able to do anything else). Her trip is actually her birthday present, but what man in his right mind wouldn't have a gift awaiting his wife upon her return? So I'm making her a homemade version of the Midori passport notebook holder. Here's the beginning stages. I'm going to make a handful of inserts: A few dot pads, Some lined pads, a prayer journal, some Weight Watcher points trackers, and a Weekly to-do list. When we first met, she was super organized and never went ANYWHERE without a planner. I figure this will be kind of a throwback to those bygone days.

My plan is to dye the leather blue, and I may or may not get an imprint kit to etch her name. If I do end up getting the kit, I may etch her most important dates inside the back cover... birth, wedding, our first date, our son's birthdate, etc...

What do you guys think so far?

Btw... the insert pages were all printed by me... made in Open Office Draw. I have a cutting template that will print front and back (mostly aligned) if anyone wants it. You just put your design within the brackets.

 

[Cartier]

Seems like a very thoughtful gift. I bet it will be a big hit. Keep up the good work.

 

[wherndon]

That's very nice. Where did you get the leather?

 

[jzuzphreek]

That's very nice. Where did you get the leather?

Tandy Leather has a store near me (I've actually passed it 3 times a week for the last 3 years and never knew what it was).

It's tooling leather, which is the only cut leather they sell. You can buy whole shoulders of leather, but they don't cut anything, thus, they have no scraps for sale. The tooling leather, though, comes in 8x10 pieces. I'm not sure if it's vegetable tanned or not, but from everything I've read, that would be the best thing to use. Of course a whole shoulder of 3mm (6-7 oz) leather like that would run upwards of $100+. Not exactly what I was interested in for my first time trying something. 8x10 though is enough to make 2 passport sized notebook holders.

 

[jzuzphreek]

Seems like a very thoughtful gift. I bet it will be a big hit. Keep up the good work.

She'll probably cry. And she'll be with her mom, so her mom will probably cry too. (btw... I have the most amazing mother-in-law in the world... I should make her a card too... but I'm kinda outta time).

 

[Mr5x5]

Nice!

 

[airmech]

That is wonderful looking!!! I think that it will definately be a winner!!!

Tom

 

[rickcharles606]

BRO....that's awesome! She'll absolutely love it more than any other card or gift you've ever given her, because YOU took the time to create it. I like the pastel colors, what did you use to apply them?

 

[jzuzphreek]

BRO....that's awesome! She'll absolutely love it more than any other card or gift you've ever given her, because YOU took the time to create it. I like the pastel colors, what did you use to apply them?

It's about time somebody asked!! Sometime in the course of my 12 year college career, I took some graphics design courses. One of the materials requirements was an art kit containing a tackle box, various paints, colored pencils, markers, x-acto knife, rulers, brushes, color wheels, etc. Well, I was thinking, when I was coming up with the design, I didn't have any nice feminine colors. And I remembered someone (James maybe) telling me you can apply paint to a dip pen with a brush. Soo.... I got to mixing. Some yellow and blue to make green. A little more yellow, a little white.

Then I found, after applying the paint to the pen, it wouldn't flow well, so I dipped it in water, and voila! After my rough draft, I decided I needed to save the color I created somehow. I used an empty goulet sample vial, added the paint, and decided to go ahead and add a little water. It's almost ink like now! For the artwork I just mixed some other colors and applied with a brush. The paper is my company's letterhead minus the letterhead (Found some blank sheets in a copy area!) It's a nice textured paper, it just feathers a bit with FP ink, but looks TERRIFIC with thicker calligraphy inks and paint.

Actually, on the trifold, where she will see when she first pulls the paper out of the envelope, I used Diamine Syrah mixed with a little white paint to thicken and lighten and wrote Happy Mother's Day. Personally, I think it was a nice touch.