My free handwritten font!

Let's continue with the "free stuff" theme here... why not.

I'm slightly obsessed with typography (it's my favorite part of design!), so making my own font has always been on my radar of things to do. I finally started the process a little while ago and have been finalizing on my first creation... a spin-off on my handwriting.

Well, it's finally ready! I figured I'd share it with you all, because who doesn't love a free font? Especially a good handwritten one complete with numbers and punctuation. I'm always on the lookout for those.

Here's my font preview:

You can download it (for free!) here.

UPDATE: There won't be any modifications to this font (sorry, international friends!) but I am working on a new similar font which will have a complete character set with lots of glyphs. Keep checking back for the official release!

UPDATE 2: Yep, I've already submitted it to Google fonts!

While we're on the subject of type... I recently had a customer ask me to design her a poem for a friend's baby shower (she's having a little girl named Eleanor). I had so much fun with it and she was so pleased with the results, I decided to turn it into a template for my shop! Here's how hers turned out:

Isn't it such a thoughtful gift? I think her friend will love it! You can find the new (completely customizable) design here.


Well, I'm off to bed... our AC just broke and it's about 100 degrees inside with 200% humidity... I think it's causing my computer to malfunction... along with my brain... I might have to sleep in the pool tonight... hurry up 3-day weekend!

Where to put our clothes line?

I've just realised that we don't really have a spot dedicated for the clothes line. I was thinking it could go on the wall next to the sliding doors (marked green) but this area is only 1.2m x 0.82m. This is not sufficient for an average family, is it? And it will probably detract from the beauty of the plants as discussed in one of my previous posts (thank you Anette, Kellie, KL, M, Jane and A-M for your suggestions!).

Should we instead have the clothes line on the outside wall between the the gym/study and cinema windows? We plan to have a carport over this area in the future, which would be great as I prefer to dry my clothes under cover. However, it will be a longer walk from the laundry (I'm being too lazy now, aren't I?).

Would love to hear what you think :)

B

What do you think of our new architraves and skirtings selections?

Yay or nay? Be honest though :)

Backyard ideas

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but my man is having a detached garage at the back of the house. It's like a mini house and made out of steel frame, brick veneer and terracotta roof tiles just like the main house.

He is having a concrete path all around the detached garage (just like around the house) and wants a driveway leading from the (house) garage to the detached garage. Now the question is, should I let him concrete the whole area other than the grass labelled part or should I get him to only do a driveway path and then have grass in the highlighted green area? What do you think? I think either way there would be way too much concrete for my liking :(

The yard labelled grassed area is 13m long and 6m wide.

Front yard landscaping

Thank you all for your feedback on my previous post. Thanks to you we've now decided to widen the walkway to match the front doors. Now, it's time for us to think about the landscaping :)

What we love is greenery!

I was thinking of boxed hedge or those ball type trees or shrubs. And lots of grass of course! I also wouldn't mind a ball type tree on either side of the portico :)

What would you recommend? Should we only do this on either side of the walkway, or between the driveway and the fence on the RHS as well? Would all this greenery look strange with our ALL brick facade (and one day a brick & steel fence)?

Walkway ideas

We are planing to get our driveway done in exposed aggregate. We are thinking it would probably be best to continue the same material around the front of the house as well (in front of portico etc).

The only thing we are unsure about is the walkway from the street to the portico. Our architect has drawn it in as a single door width, however we are thinking it should probably match the width of our front doors. Or should it?

What material should we do our walkway in? Pavers, bluestone or just match it to the driveway?
Also, should we keep it "straight" or flare it out a bit towards the street?

B

Skirtings and architraves

We are thinking of going with Lambs Tongue Colonial skirtings (92mm) and architraves (42mm).
Do you think they will look ok with the rest of our selections (cornice, internal doors and door handles)?
What do you think of 140mm skirtings and 42mm architraves? Out of proportion or would work?

Plywood in the sunspace

Here are a couple of the pics of the void and the sunspace. This gives you an idea of how much glass balustrading will be required. Ouch!

Also included is the tile which we ordered for all our wet areas :)

Who likes free stuff?

Guess what?

It’s free print time!

I’m excited to announce my latest shop feature & giveaway hosted by Danielle at Breakfast at Toast. For those of you who missed my shop grand opening giveaway, now is your chance to score some new art for your home! The winner will receive a $25 credit towards anything in my etsy shop. You can enter by leaving a comment on her page (earn an extra entry for following me on facebook!)

This giveaway comes at just the right time for me to introduce my newest design: a custom sketch of your home!

I’m always looking for new options to display important pieces of life and capture them in unique ways on print. I love the personal feel of hand sketched art and thought it would be neat to re-create your house (or special building, landmark, etc) in that style.

As with all my prints, I took it a step further and provided color options so that you can custom match it to fit your décor and color scheme! I’ve played around with it a lot and you can come up with some really cool two-tone looks with different combinations.

Just for fun I made one of our house! Now I just need to find a good place for it…

That’s the latest update from the shop! It’s getting busier every day and I’m SO grateful and still in awe that I am able to live out this little dream of mine. I think it’s even inspired Brad (or maybe it’s just the lack of jobs in this town) because he just started working on his own business endeavor… I couldn’t be more proud of him, and our fingers are tightly crossed that both of us can continue to do what we love (and make a living at it, so we don’t have to move!)

I have a little personal project in the works for you guys… should be ready next week once I work out the final bugs, can’t wait! Now go enter the contest! :)

Spa bath is on its way!

We were going to get a spa version of Medina by Caroma. However they no longer make it and the their replacement is Classic 1700 Oval Spa by Stylus. I ordered it today and it should be delivered on Friday. Yay!
Also, we ordered the tiles today and they should also be here on Friday :)

Another bargain for the house (kitchen)

I purchased this Scanpan set for $179 (including postage) yesterday and can't wait for it to arrive! And more importantly, I can't wait for our kitchen to be finished so they can sleep in my lovely pot drawers :)

The set contains:

- 16cm/2L saucepan with lid
- 18cm/2.7L saucepan with lid
- 26cm saute pan with lid
- 24cm/7.6L stock pot with lid

B

No room for architrave :(

We have bulkheads in our study an media room. Both rooms will have 2.4m high doors and the bulkheads sit flush with the door on top. Door frames still haven't been installed.

Once they go in we will probably gain 1.5cm or so to which we could fit the architrave. But would a 1.5cm architrave on all 3 sides look weird?

Should we do square set on top and a standard width architrave on the sides? Or just stick with a 1cm-1.5cm wide architraves on all doors throughout the house?

Help us choose our tiles!

We've  managed to short list some tiles we both like. They are all porcelain and rectified but we are having troubles deciding :(.

We will be using the same tiles on the floor and walls, and all the bathrooms and powder rooms will be tiled floor to ceiling.

I would love it if you could help us out with this huge decision.

This is the tone/colour I am trying to achieve:

The photos were taken with my iPhone and look different in real life :(

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

B

Waterproofing and plywood installation

Just a quick update on what's happened over the weekend: 

• We've sanded the hebel in preparation for plywood.
• We've started installing the plywood onto hebel in preparation for timber flooring.
• Our tiler has completed the first step in waterproofing the two bathrooms upstairs.

We've had a terrible start to the week :(

 

The tiles we had selected and both loved - we can't have, as there aren't enough in stock and the next shipment will be here in August, possibly later :(

 

So yesterday we spent the whole day searching for our new tiles. It has been very depressing :( and we still haven't found the IT tiles :(

 

Hope you are having a lovely week.

 

 

 

B

Abstract painting DIY-over

First of all... Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! I want to give a special shout-out to the greatest one who ever lived (no, seriously.... he is)... my daddy :)

Christmas 2006 on New Melones Lake... remember this dad?

Moving along....

Remember these paintings I did back in February?

Well, I was over them. They ended up drying a looot darker and brighter than they appeared while I was painting, and I was way too exhausted to change it that day. So they've been hanging there like that ever since.

With the recent life events, I need to start focusing on smaller (read: cheaper) projects around here since the big stuff is put on hold for now. I knew it would be the perfect time to re-do these paintings that have been bugging me for months.

I stumbled upon this picture somewhere on the internet (I really can't remember where) and I fell in looooooove with these paintings (or maybe it's just one big painting?):

It became my new official inspiration.

I noticed that the paintings seemed to have an iridescent/metallic-like quality to them. So I took a trip to Michael's to pick up some additive to give it that sheen (I also picked up a tube of black to give the colors a hint of gray, and some new brushes):

Total cost (with a 50% off coupon, of course): $11.75. Not bad.

So I took the paintings down and got to work.

Again, I had no plan or technique beforehand... I just started brushing and crossed my fingers it would bear some sort of resemblance to my inspiration pic.

Here's how the first one turned out (next to the original for comparision):

After repainting two canvases, I noticed they started to dry darker (oops, forgot) so I ended up redoing them again. This was not an easy process for me—trying to smoothly blend paint into a gradient without seeing a bunch of brush strokes with acrylic paint. So after two failed attemps, in frustration I just started squeezing a bunch of paint onto the canvas and smearing it around. Surprisingly, it seemed to work. So by the fourth and final canvas (which is six attemps if you count the two failed ones), I had the technique down.

So if anyone at home is planning to take on a similar project... here's the key with acrylics: LOTS of paint, plenty of water, and work while it's still wet.

In the midst of my painting madness, I looked up to find a familiar face:

Apparently Harry has a thing for the arts (last time he came this close was with my first painting experience).

He watched me paint for a good 30 minutes... while Susie watched him.

Pretty sure Harry could eat her.

At one point he started doing some sort of mating dance...

Can anyone speak bird? Does this means he loves my paintings?

Anyway... progress shot, 75% done:

A note on the iridescent additive: didn't do as much as I thought. Up close and in the right lighting you can tell, but in flat lighting, you'd never know it. Sigh, oh well, learning experience.



And finally, the finished product!

I'm much happier with these new colors. They are a lot more calming and less "look at me!" on the walls. Hopefully I don't change my mind cause I realllly don't want to go through a round 3 of this.

But I think these will stick around for a while :)


I've got a few fun things lined up for this week... so stay tuned!

(Pssst...the latest on the job search for those of you wondering is.. not looking great. Nothing promising as far as full-time work yet... please keep your fingers crossed for us!)