I broke out my Rapidiograph pen

One day I posted on my Facebook page that I was searching through my drafting supplies looking for a Rapidiograph pen. I told anyone who knew what that was to holler. A couple people knew, and a shout out to my friend Jan Hurst, who aptly called it “like a Micron only more trouble.”

The project that I was working on was a guest sign in sheet. The bride and groom wanted the monogram from their wedding invitation reproduced on the top of the document. The monogram just happened to be inside of double circles. My first attempt was to just draw the circles freehand. I did not like the result. No matter what I did, it just kept getting worse. You know it’s bad when I bring artwork up for the hubby to look at and give an opinion.

I just didn’t want to do the entire thing over. It was finished, except for those ugly circles. Then I finally realized that I could just do the center circle over, cut it out and paste it on top. But, I still had to find something that I could make a perfect, even circle with. Hubby grabbed various round cups and things looking for the perfect size.

I started searching for my drafting supplies. I found the Rapidiograph and some circle templates, but none were large enough. I took a break. While away from the house, I remembered that I had a circle ruler that I’d bought at a calligraphy conference several years ago. Woo Hoo! I had my solution. Now, to fill that darn pen, but, oh wait, the ink made for the pen was all separated and all that squirted out was something that looked like oil. Ok, so let’s try the Sumi that I used in the rest of the artwork. Ta da! it worked. Suddenly, I could draw perfect circles. Nice. 

This is the pen and the now, perfect circle. I once had a job where using a Rapidiograph was a daily occurrence.

Now, to just re-do the inside monogram.

Here is the finished project. I’m extremely pleased with how this guest sign-in sheet turned out and will soon be offering it as 

an item in my Etsy shop.

Until next time.

Jen

The year of the butterfly

Evie started preschool last fall. Her class, and all of the classes have cute little names, she happens to be in the butterfly room. And, I guess her fascination with butterflys started almost a year ago. She affectionately calls them ‘fireflys’ and she’ll probably accomplish the ‘B’ sound soon, but for now it’s cute. We did take her to the butterfly show at Khron Conservatory, but the real live critters weren’t to her taste. She did not like that one particular moth decided it liked my shirt and attached itself to me and had to be pried off.

So, it seemed natural that I use butterflys for the theme for her birthday party in January.

Note: I’m way behind on my blog workings, because of a month long bout with the crud going around, but we are all well now, and I’ve got lots to blog about.

So, here are some photos from Evie’s butterfly birthday, that carried on into Valentine’s Day.

This is her birthday invitation. I used a butterfly rubber stamp and then partially cut out the wings and folded them inward to make the card 3-D.

I found a cool butterfly punch to make the cupcake picks. I did try spraying glimmer mist on them, but you can't really see it in the photo. It made them look iridescent. I also folded them, then hot glued them to skewers. This party wasn't as elaborate as in the past, due to said crud.

The guest of honor.

Just after her birthday I discovered Pinterest and found this cool pattern for her Valentines. It was easy, but cutting them all out was time consuming. And, as brilliant as I thought I was, another parent did the same pattern. Oh well, it was fun and as I was signing Evie's name to them she realized that it was her name and promptly spelled it for me. I was very pleasantly surprised that she could spell her own name. Smart girl.

Until next time, when I promise I will get back to calligraphy. 

Jen