LETTERING + GRAPHIC
DESIGN LEARNING
It’s almost Valentine’s Day! If you’re creating your own valentines this year or have ever needed a heart shape in the past, then you know it’s not a default shape that comes with Illustrator. It can also be a little tricky to figure out using the default shapes as ‘shape builders.’ In this week’s tutorial, I share my favorite 3 (quick) ways to create a heart shape in Illustrator. Read on to see them all!
With Mother’s Day right around the corner, this week, we’re DIY’ing a hand lettered watercolor Mother’s Day card! My mom’s birthday is actually on Mother’s Day this year, so I had to think of something extra special 🙂 Cue masking fluid, brush pens, a watercolor effect and some lettering enhancements! In this week’s video, I share my trick for protecting your paint brush with masking fluid, how I cut down watercolor paper for greeting cards, use brush pens to create a watercolor texture and use regular lettering supplies to add final details. Pick up all the supplies shown and catch the full video below!
Can you believe Valentine’s Day is next week?! If you’d like to DIY this year, this watercolor florals Valentine’s Day card in Adobe Illustrator can be created on a lunch break 😉 In this week’s tutorial, we create a quick and simple vector heart, then surround it with watercolor florals and a radial gradient background. It’s a print ready file, so you’ll be good to go for printing at home from start to finish. If you’re new to working with digital watercolor florals, there’s a free mini kit below to get you started!
As much as I love having digital calendars at my disposal, there’s still something about things written in by hand. If you feel this way too, this tutorial’s for you. In this video (perfect for beginners), we’ll create a printable calendar that fits any 8.5″x11″ or A4 sized paper. We’ll be making use of some handy Illustrator tools and by the end, you’ll have a watercolor floral calendar design fully created using Illustrator. We’ll use a watercolor floral bouquet from my kit here, but I also have a free mini kit you can pick up below if you’d like 😉 Let’s get started!
I’m so grateful for the kind feedback the watercolor floral save the date had a few months ago! I thought this week it would be fun to follow it up with a watercolor floral RSVP card in Adobe Illustrator. If you’re new to working with watercolor florals in Illustrator, you’ve come to the right place 😉 There’s a link below to my free watercolor floral mini kit and this tutorial is very beginner friendly. At the end of this video, you’ll be able to create a custom, print ready RSVP card ready for the mail. Read on to see how!
This week, I thought I’d go completely analog with a DIY watercolor ribbon Father’s Day card. I love taking handmade creations digital, but every now and then – especially for sentimental holidays, you can’t really beat 100% handmade 😉 With Father’s Day coming in less than a week, you’ll still have time to seal this in an envelope, stamp it up and get it in a mailbox in time. So, let’s get this card going; all the instructions, materials and full video are below!
First off, I want to tell you this isn’t the sexiest tutorial you’ll ever watch, but it can be a giant time saver and really make you look like you know your stuff. So, stick with me, because this is pretty handy to know: list format data merge in InDesign (sorry if that was a little eek-worthy to read, but you were warned 😉 ) To accompany our save the date postcard from last week, this week we’ll create a wedding seating chart to go with the big day. Traditionally, data merge is used to automate large amounts of data into multiple pages, but it’s different here: we’re placing lists of data onto one page, so there are a couple small tweaks that need to be made. I promise this is super simple and you’ll be glad to have this in your designer arsenal when you see what it can do.
A few years ago (ok, more like 8) when I started creating templates for others to use online, wedding templates were one of the first kinds I made. I loved putting together a stationery set that felt like it belonged together, but altering each piece slightly to still feel special. I realized – here we are in May, and it has been since 2014 since I created a wedding stationery tutorial. With my new watercolor leaves and florals kit now available, it makes wedding stationery that much easier and quicker to put together (grab a free mini kit below!). In this week’s tutorial, we’ll create a save the date postcard together in Illustrator which will be all ready to print at home, or send off for printing when we’re finished. Read on for all the details!
Happy Tuesday! This part of the year is always one of my favorites because it’s all about celebrating moms. My mom and I have always been really close – she was actually born on Mother’s Day the year she was born, and when she had my youngest sister, it was Mother’s Day that year *and* her birthday. Pretty crazy, especially since Mother’s Day doesn’t land on the same day each year. In case life has gotten a little crazy lately and you haven’t picked up a card yet, I’ve got you covered 😉 This week, we’ll create a simple (beginner friendly!) watercolor florals Mother’s Day card in Illustrator using a bouquet from my newest Watercolor Leaves and Florals kit, or you can use the free mini kit I’ve also included below. Read on to see it all!
Happy Tuesday! I’m not gonna lie, this week’s tutorial is one of my favorites. Essentially, we’re combining the watercolor photoshop brush tutorial from a few weeks ago with last week’s ribbon tutorial. And we’re doing it all in Illustrator and keeping things simple and easy 😉 We’ll start by taking some watercolor textures on transparent backgrounds (like these, these or these), and then directly convert them into watercolor texture brushes in Illustrator. You’ll be able to transform the textures into any shape using the brush tool to create beautiful results. Create them once, then save them out for infinite future uses, too! Read on to see how!
If you’re just diving into Illustrator, this week’s tutorial is perfect for beginners! We’ll go over some very basic, but powerful tools that you can use in different ways well into the future. In this tutorial, we create a simple ribbon brush together (from scratch) using Adobe Illustrator. We’ll talk about different brush settings, customizing your ribbon before and afterwards, and even how to save it for future use. Everything you need to get started is below!
Happy New Year! To celebrate, I thought we could create some wintery geometric snowflakes in Adobe Illustrator this week! We’re definitely starting to feel the chill of winter here in Georgia. The main reason for my move from upstate NY to Georgia in my early twenties was specifically to avoid the harsh winters. I’ll take being too warm over being too cold any day. Regardless, snowflakes *do* make being that cold worth it. If you saw this tutorial awhile back, we’re applying similar techniques, but creating something completely different with them 🙂 Read on to see it all!
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