Typography Tuesday on Wednesday - Subway Art

Subway Art, or Subway Sign art, has taken the crafty blog world by storm. It's everywhere. And you know it's a thing when Restoration Hardware picks up on it and is selling it, too. Or maybe Restoration Hardware started the whole thing, I'm not sure.

Anywho, Subway Art is certainly trendy right now. It's inspired by the vintage signs found in subway stations with the different routes/trains listed. Something a little like this:

These are reprints that are being sold be Restoration Hardware. I love the look of them; clean, simple, straight, and not much extra space (or "white" space).

If you check out their selection, you'll see these reproductions are a tad bit spendy. So, crafty people out there in blogland are creating their own versions of subway art, and some of them are quite nice, in my opinion. This type of art is being adapted to many different things: family rules, wedding invites, holidays, birth announcements, etc. Below are a few favorites I've seen out there...

A birth announcement I created (of course I had to throw in something of my own!)

Simple Crafter - Free Printable!

Saved By Love Creations 

Barn Owl Primitives on Etsy

Those are just a few examples of what my crafty friends are creating out there. If you have Photoshop and want to do this on your own, Saved By Love Creations has a fabulous tutorial. Check it out, and get creating!

Typography Tuesday: Font Addict

I mentioned in my blog last week about how much I love Typography. Fonts, fonts and more fonts, I love them all. If you're a font addict like me, there are lots of great sites to get free fonts for you to have as your very own. Be careful, though. Make sure you read the terms for each font you download; I wouldn't want anyone to be sued for using and selling a product using a font that was only meant for personal use.

My favorite font sites:

• dafont.com - my #1 Go-To site
• fontfreak.com
• 1001freefonts.com

There are countless others, but you'll probably just get stuck on dafont.com for hours, so I won't make a huge list.

In order to use all of the fonts that I have collected over the years - and I really should count them - I've recently been trying to come up with new ways (for me) to use fonts. I've embroidered with different fonts, but I just don't have much time for embroidery these days, so I've moved on to die-cutting and print. I've been personalizing different items using adhesive vinyl and my Pazzles die-cutting machine. There are lots of other people doing this same thing, so I'm trying to make myself stand out a bit by using fonts maybe not everyone is using.

This font is Ziggy Zoe, one that I found out there on a free font site, and thought it would be great on water bottles. It is. I've sold a ton of these things! Now if I could only get them back in stock...

I've also ventured into print a little bit, inspired of course, by Pinterest. Last week I featured my "I Love You Because..." print, and this week I have a slight variation:

It's a good daily reminder of what you are grateful for, making you think of something new every day. I know I need to be reminded sometimes, and seemingly a lot more lately. It's dry erase, so that makes it easy to change it up each day.

So, I'm going to keep playing with my fonts, and looking for great examples and more inspiration. Be sure to check back next Tuesday and every Tuesday for more Typography!

Typography Thursday

Well, Typography Tuesday might sound better, but since it's Thursday, I'm going with that. Maybe in the future I'll actually plan posts instead of posting willy-nilly. One can hope, right? But, I digress.

I've always been a fan of typography. I love love love all of the font sites such as dafont.com where you can download any number of fonts of all kinds for free, or for a small donation. I'm a self-proclaimed font geek. I have so many in my collection that sometimes I don't even know where to start! But I still want more..

According to Wikipedia, the definition of Typography is "the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible." I believe it really is an art, and once upon a time when I was pursuing a degree in Graphic Design (never finished), the typography courses were my favorite.

I've recently rediscovered playing with fonts, and come up with a few fun prints that I thought I would put out there and see what the internet at large thinks. The first is an idea I've seen on Pinterest, and I thought I would give it my own touch. Just a simple print framed behind glass that can be used as a dry erase board to write in your own sentiment.

Cute, right? What a great gift to give to a new couple on their wedding day. These are available in any color you choose, and listed in the shop now.

This idea came to me after listening to "Someone Like You" by Adele a few times. I thought it might be fun on a postcard, or a card to give someone when you're breaking up, or when you've been dumped. Don't ask where my thoughts come from; I couldn't tell you. Or, maybe you just really like the song...

I really just wanted to use these colors and this part of the song. I haven't made this print into anything yet, but if you're interested, just let me know what you'd like!

So, that's what I've been working on. What do you think?