I wonder what Mr Groom would think of this...

I've finally finished my mixed media piece this week.

I've been working on this on and off for ages. I started off by painting it brown, then choosing papers for the base part of it. It's Docrafts Nature's Gallery. I embossed some wooden leaves with Lindy's embossing powder, as well as a mini frame. I cut out the word wishes, embossed that, then put all the pieces, and a lot of flowers, as well as a gem butterfly on the base. I finished the base with some ribbon. For the roof I cut some lace edges out of blue paper, then attached them to make roof tiles. I used embossing powder on some embellishments, adding some rusting powder. On one side I attached a metal charm from the last BH box, on the other I added an embossed butterfly, some flowers, and some die cut leaves I sprayed with Lindy's sprays. I added some beads on a wire and attached a metal owl. Finally I die cut various spring greenery, sprayed it with Lindy's sprays, and glued it to one side with some flowers.

a feather-decked nib,
inkwell filled with jet black ink,
curlicues and swirls.

This is what I always envisaged when I thought of what a writer was. It may have been because at home we have an artist's painting of Hans Christian Anderson, and there he is, sat at his desk, illuminated by flickering candlelight as his fairytales took shape amongst the smoke. A writer always had ink smudged on his fingers; proof of a productive day. So, with that in mind, and the reality of a modern day writer a far cry from the person straining to see by a weak light, bent over and scratching out a masterpiece, only stopping to replenish his pen from the inkwell at his desk, I decided to try a little bit of calligraphy this week.

The title of this post refers to my old teacher, now unfortunately passed. He told my mum once that, because of my atrocious handwriting, he would tear up my homework in front of me, even if it was correct. Over twenty five years down the line, here is my handwriting now.

Still atrocious. This week I wanted to see whether a change of pen would improve my writing in any way. I bought myself a calligraphy kit last year as a treat, and perhaps because during my writer's block, I longed to connect with the writers of old in any way I could.

Five pots of ink, a rather heavy pen, a lighter one that has interchangeable nibs, and a little booklet with some example alphabets. When I say little I mean little. So little I had trouble seeing some of them.

Not bad for a first attempt huh? As you can see I had problems with cursive, as well as the fact that I did not use paper appropriate for a thicker nib. Still you can see I attempted a few different font styles, as well as experimenting with different nibs. The sentence I used is well known as one that has every letter of the alphabet in.

I'm going to keep practising, as well as using the calligraphy set for all birthday cards this year, which will mean that people will be able to read them for once.

Next week is an outing, so see you then!

Emma