Hand Lettered Trivets

Hand Lettered Trivets

Friends, I have a new obsession! I’ve just recently started playing around with hand lettering and I can’t seem to stop! There are lots of different ways to do it, and even more ways to use it. For my first real project, I decided to play around with making some cork trivets for the kitchen. I had a few of these cork squares in my stash from a time I found them on sale at Michaels, so I thought they were a great surface to experiment on.

Hand Lettered Trivets

Materials:
Cork squares
Permanent Markers

Literally, that’s all you need! I came up with three different sayings I wanted to use, then got to work with my lettering. Here are a few tips for trying it yourself.

1. Write on an angle.
Unless you want to measure and draw guidelines {which I’m too lazy to do}, do your lettering on an angle. That way no one will know if it’s straight or not and it totally looks intentional!

2. Start by writing your basic letters.
Use your own natural handwriting or you can mimic letter shapes you like in other peoples’ work or various handwritten-inspired fonts. Using a thin tip marker, draw the letter shapes leaving enough room between them to thicken your lines.

3. Thicken all down strokes.
The basic rule of thumb for your shading is that if you’d be moving a pen or marker downward to write a part of the letter, that part should be thick. If you’d be moving the writing utensil upward, it should be a thin line.

4. Add dots and dashes for embellishments.
Anywhere a letter curves, you can add a trio of dots. Three little dashes can go next to any straight line or on either side of a word. If you really want to get fancy, you can try flourishes like the one I used on my “Because, Coffee” trivet.

Hand Lettered Trivets

Here is a quick little time-lapse video to show you the process for doing the lettering!

What do you think? It really is do-able, honestly! I used permanent markers for this particular project because they were necessary on the cork, but on paper I also like using a brush tip marker. I follow the same process, but use the brush tip to do my thickening, which is even quicker and easier than what I just demonstrated above. Today, I challenge you to give it a try! Try writing the word “coffee” like I did in the video, or try your name. Then send me a picture via email or Facebook…if you haven’t joined the One Artsy Mama and Friends Facebook group, now’s a great time to jump in and start sharing! Hope to see you there.

Hand Lettered Trivets

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