Donna B Miller

Fun Friday Freebies: Fonts

Who doesn't love free fonts? And, who doesn't love to share them? Just type "free fonts" into Google and you'll get over 52 million responses. How do you narrow them down? Here are a few of my favorites.

One of the largest and easiest font resources to use is Dafont. Not only are more than 7,500 fonts available, but the fonts are broken up into categories. If you're looking for a handwriting font that looks like the style you used in elementary school, you'd simply go to "Script, School" and you'd get three pages of fonts to search. This is really handy when you've designed a piece of art and you can visualize a font style, but have no idea where to go to find that font.

For pure funkiness and grungy good lucks, the fonts at Misprinted Type can't be beat. Designed by Eduardo Recife, these free fonts are the ones I find myself turning to again and again. I'm particularly crazy about Dirty Ego and Porcelain.

 

A third favorite is The Font Garden. This site is just plain fun. It's specialty is handwriting fonts (the site offers the service of converting your handwriting to a font for small fee.) But what makes it fun is that each font is presented in the form of quotes and jokes. It's almost as much fun to read what's there as it is to download the gorgeous fonts.

So you've downloaded dozens of fonts. It's getting to the point you can't even find your favorites in Photoshop. What are you to do? Go to STC: Font Browser and all of your fonts magically appear on your Internet screen, ready to be reviewed and resized. It's so cool. I don't know how they do it; I'm just glad they do.

Do you have a favorite free font site or source? Leave us a comment and let us know.   

Finding the Muse: What's a Quirkle Anyhow?

Kim Gabriel (alternately known as Raven or Nevermore in the digi-scrapping world) recently came up with an idea for an art challenge she calls "Quirkles." Here's how she describes the challenge, "The idea is that you create a layout using the three items listed for the challenge. The point of interest is how each artist runs with the "grouping". For no reason whatsoever, I am suggesting that these be done in a 6 x 6 format: bigger than an ATC but much smaller than standard scrapping format. Just enough room to hang oneself so to speak."

The challenge is being hosted at Digital Art Quirks, and the participants take turns hosting and choosing the three items. This week was my turn. Since autumn officially began this week, I chose a fall theme, asking participants to combine the following elements into a layout.

1. This photo of an autumn leaf from StockXChng, http://www.sxc.hu/photo/869368.
2. A movie title.
3. The shape of a diamond.

The ironic thing is that I had trouble doing my own challenge. I was visualizing a diamond stamped background, but couldn't find a Photoshop brush that would work. I ended up using a pattern instead. Here's my result:

Leaf photo from StockXChng; diamond pattern by Kim Sheen; harlequin from Annika Von Holdt's Marmalade brushes; text from Nancy Rowe Janitz's Little Bits of History brushes, and stars from Vera Lim's A Little Magic Volume One. Font is Jane Austen.

If you'd like to play along, you can visit the forum here. 

Down and Dirty ATC Construction

As I was putting together some ATCs for the latest swap at Digital Art Quirks, I was thinking about how much easier the process is now that I've had some experience. To be perfectly honest, the first time I put together an ATC, it was an awful mess. I used a lot of paper and ink just getting my digital creations printed, and the physical act of putting the cards together resulted in glue and paper everywhere. So, here's the process I use now.

I almost always print my card on matte cardstock designed for laserjets. The colors are crisp, the weight is good for cards, and the surface takes inks and paints well. I print the cards eight up on letter-sized paper. (Since we usually have 15-16 ATC swappers at DAQ, I only have to do two printings). Obviously, you'll need to print both the front and backs of the cards.

To end up with crisp, clean edges, you really need a good pair of scissors.  I love the Cutter Bee brand. They're precise and they cut through sticky papers without any problems. When cutting, always cut from the base of the scissors instead of the scissor tips. You'll find you have a lot more control.

I've tried tons of ways of adhering the two sides of the cards together -- spray mount, Elmer's glue, running them through a Xyron machine. And for me, the one that works best is a plain old glue stick. I really like the Archiver's brand, but their store is two hours from my home. I'm having really good luck with the Scotch brand. When using a glue stick, the papers will adhere better if some heat is applied to the surface. Usually, I'll just run my hand up and down the cards a few times. Body heat is enough to make the adhesives stick. (Tip I learned from Donna Downey: When working with glue sticks and larger surfaces, such as book covers, just place the project in your chair, sit down, and let your body heat do the work.)

For a more finished look, I like to round the corners using my handy-dandy corner punch. Beware, not all corner punches are the same. With some of them, you have to have the strength of a linebacker just to punch through the cardstock. That's not true with EK Success's product. Oddly enough, they're also some of the least expensive punches available.

The last step is to ink the edges. Any flaws that occurred during cutting and pasting are easily covered by the ink. I love the little Color Box fluid chalk inkpads (they're shaped like a cat's eye). Because of their small size and elevated sponge, they're perfect for inking the edges of any of your scrapping projects.

See how easy it is. If you'd like to join in an ATC swap, we'll have a new one starting at DAQ in early October. You can find it here.

Fun Friday Freebies: Brushes

Since I spend a lot of time in Photoshop, I'm always on the lookout for new brushes, vintage photos, fonts and textures. Here are some of my favorite sites to pick up fabulous brushes. They're FREE.

The brushes I turn to on almost a daily basis are Jason Gaylor's gorgeous high-resolution brushes at DesignFruit. You can pick up the brushes for free or buy his high-res vector images at very reasonable prices.

Jason Gaylor's Tasty Tattoo Brushes.

For sheer beauty, Anika Von Holdt's brushes cannot be beat. Featuring angels, ghosts, cemeteries, and other gothic subjects, these brushes are detailed and delightful. You can find them at The Fifth Muse.

Another great site for both brushes and vector art is BittBox. The site offers very generous terms and conditions, allowing you to use these in works you plan to sell.

And finally, for sheer fun, be sure to check out Seishido. There are tons of brushsets available for $1 each, and the site is always offering surprises to its customers. Check out the freebies here.

 

Finding the Muse: Frameworthy Challenge

At Scrapbookgraphics, I co-host a weekly challenge called Frameworthy. The idea behind the challenge is to urge participants to look to the great artists of the past and present for inspiration. Now in its 28th week, the challenge has developed a loyal group of artists and scrapbook enthusiasts who participate on a regular basis. This week, we're examining the work of Italian painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani. Our inspiration is his work, Portrait of Jaques and Berthe Lipchitz. Click here to see this week's art.

Portrait of Jaques and Berthe Lipchitz, Modigliani

Finding the Muse: Back to Basics

Over at Digital Art Quirks, we're having an interesting challenge this week that's getting us back to basics. These are the rules as set out by this week's challenge hostess, IndyBev.

1. Start with no props,--no kits or elements may be used.
2. Create your own background, and use only shapes offered by your software.
3. Include a quotation.
4. Script font of choice.
5. Colors of choice.
6. Design in a 6x6 format.

Since we had to include a quotation, I went to ThinkExist and searched for quotes dealing with squares. (If that hadn't worked, I'd have moved onto circles, then triangles.) See there is a method to my madness.

I found this Japanese proverb and the piece just sort of designed itself. I really don't do much in the way of pop art, but this was lots of fun. If you'd like to try it, check out the challenge here.