New Valentine’s Day Fonts!

I’ve been under the weather since Sunday and have been supporting a friend whose had her fourth surgery in 3 years just recently, so I opted for a font post for this week. But it won’t disappoint! I did a meander through the Challenge Forum the other day and noticed that the theme for many of this month’s Challenges is “love”. I found some completely free fonts and a few dingbats for you at Dafont.com that dovetail with that theme that will give your layouts a real boost.  Each font is hyperlinked for you, just click on the font name (bold, coloured and underlined) to grab them. Let’s check ’em out.

Darling Girl is my favourite of these, I think. It’s elegant, modern and completely legible. The free version is a demo version, so not all of the glyphs are in the zip file. But there are enough to make it worth the download. It’s versatile enough too that it could work for both titles and journaling.

Valentia has ALL the glyphs a girl could want. Its scripty look would be perfect for word art, subtitles or journaling.

Marithe is another really flourish-heavy font. The swashes are very ornamental, and there are lots of them!

I like First Love for titles. It would look great with a slightly beveled, glossy Style, or even with a metallic Style. Of course, the hearts could be Filled with pink or red to add a ton of character to it.

When I saw Enamor, I instantly knew what I’d do with it. I’d fill all those doodles with a chalk style so it looks like a blackboard. It’s an all-caps font, and would be fabulous for titles and word art.

Hello Besty Sans is a bit more of a simple bubble font. It has a folk-art look and is pretty versatile.

Better Spring Script is another variation with lots of swoopy, swashy flourishy upper case characters. There aren’t any lower-case embellies, but it wouldn’t be hard to create them.

I really appreciate multi-purpose fonts like Beauty. All the curly heart glyphs you see here are in the file!

The very imaginatively-named Be My Valentine is another script font with lots of potential. It would make gorgeous sticker-type titles – and you KNOW how much I love that! But it also is suitable for journaling. All the glyphs a girl could want are in the file too.

Now for some dingbats. This one is called Blustina Extras (which implies there’s a Blustina font… I’ll see if that’s true.) There are hearts, swooshes, banners, sparkles and even a butterfly in this collection.

So, the Blustina font is just… meh. You can check it out for yourself and decide if it’s worth the download.

Beloved is a collection of bold, hand-drawn hearts. They can be jazzed up with glitter or a glossy Style or even a wire Style for some very cool elements.

And our last dings are these, called Heart Salad. I don’t know if I’d use the Grey’s Anatomy heart, but the others I definitely would.

If you use any of these on a layout, I’d love to know, so drop a comment so I can get a look!

Wintery, Christmasy Fonts

I didn’t realize it’s been FOUR YEARS since I last did a winter/Christmas font post! Just what I need… more fonts while I’m trying to move all my Very Important Files to a new laptop (thank you Black Friday sale at Costco!), right? I’m going to have to make a resolution to get MainType properly set up so all my fonts are sortable. Might need y’all to hold my feet to the fire. Anyway, let’s look at some new-ish seasonal fonts and a few related dingbats, shall we? If you see something you like, click on the name, it’s linked for you, and the download is FREE….

Christmas Comeback is what’s known in the industry as a “display font”. It’s a solid font with an assortment of glyphs and ligatures – those extras that really zhuzh up your titles.

Last Christmas is a multilingual script font that would be legible enough for journaling. Now I’ just have to hope I escape Whamaggedon, having just typed out that title..

Home Christmas is another solid display font. It’s an all-caps typeface, but has an upper and lowercase set. It includes punctuation and numerals, but no fancy swashes.

Wonderful Christmas is a multilingual mash-up; it has curly-swirly uppercase characters and formal serif-style lowercase caps. It’s definitely legible, so it’s suitable for titles, subtitles and journaling.

Santa’s Air Mail has a lot of title potential. The snowy tops could be glittered, while the actual characters could be any colour, pattern or texture. It includes numerals and punctuation.

Whoa! Christmas Squad. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? The whole family in matching PJs on Christmas Eve… this title is included in the character map! The basic character set has those swashy caps, and offers multilingual options too.

Magic Christmas is an all-caps vintage display font. The character set includes both the version you see in the screenshot and a solid version. They could be layered with a shiny or glittery Style added to create a pretty fabulous title or siggie.

Magical Nordic includes BOTH of these typefaces in your download. Along with multilingual support, the snowflake is in the special character set. Since I’m currently working thrulines on my Swedish family tree, I was very drawn to this one.

Winterlight Season has such whimsy! The multilingual fairytale quality is charming, including punctuation and numerals.

Snowballs has a handwritten look to it, with snowflakes surrounding each character. Some characters have swash versions.

This one, Snowinter, started giving me ideas the second I saw it. The actual letters in white, with maybe a glossy coloured Style, and the crystally bits in matching glitter? Oh, yeah! I’m definitely going to play with it! It’s an all-caps-in-two-sizes multilingual typeset.

St Nicholas is giving me really strong A Christmas Carol or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas vibe. It’s such an old-timey look; there are numerals and basic punctuation marks in the set.

This one, Mickey’s Merry Christmas, is my segué from font to dingbat. This all-caps set has a Mickey in a Santa hat in all the uppercase characters! Christmas at Disney World, anyone?

I’m really doomed… Last Christmas Symbols is a collection of Christmas and winter images.

If you’d rather have festive outlines, Christmas has got you.

And last, a seasonal but not festive set of mittens! Christmast Gloves could be used in so many ways.

I’ve got an idea for next week’s tutorial that might be a useful one. It’s a hybrid technique. Stay tuned!

Celebrating Grads and Dads Again

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3yYDDVH

Are y’all getting tired of font-based posts? Lately I’ve been looking at fonts from a bit of a different perspective, searching for those that would be suitable for cutting with my Cricut for cards. When I was making my Father’s Day cards this year, I ended up using an old standby, Lumberjack Regular – the very font I use to create the text on my tutorial screenshots. I think it worked fairly well, considering the text I cut was only about 1/2 an inch tall…

While I was browsing at dafont.com, I noticed a few [100% free, no-pennies!!] fonts that I could easily use to create titles for graduation and Father’s Day layouts too. I’m going to share some of them with you today. As with past font posts, each is linked directly to the download to make it easier for me to enable your font hoarding. Just click on the font name, in red.

I think this grungy font Nexa Rust Slab would work for both grads and dads. It might look fabulous with one of the gradient techniques we’ve played with recently.

College Boy has a varsity vibe and could be used for both titling and text.

Reach has several variations included in the download.

Stitch’n School has a letterman’s jacket look to it. I wish I could have put my letter on my varsity curling sweater.

Athletica already has a gradient applied!! I would probably find a way to make it metallic using Styles.

Now for the dads… Hot Winner Team might actually be suitable for both. I like the condensed form and the funky angle on the horizontal aspects of the letters.

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This one, Hand Shop Typography A20 is sort of similar, but still different enough. Be advised, the only numerals in the download are the 2 and the 0.

I like the vintage look to Rumble Brave. It’s a bit of a fairytale-hero font, don’t you think?

I love the texture I see with Inlander. It could be zhuzhed up with some Styles for a unique title. Chipboard or felt would be perfect.

Kingston Roman makes me think of gladiators. Who doesn’t love a good toga? 😉

Speaking of superheroes… Smallville actually included the curved title! You can find it by using the tilde [ ~ ] key.

Catastrophic Consequences is perfect for journaling. Clean, upright, legible – exactly what good journaling needs.

Here’s one for the gamer dads. Darks Skyrim has so much potential. I could see it with a shiny shades-of-blue gradient. Yeah!!

And one more journaling font, Philosopher. It’s a little fancier but still clean and clear.

I’ll confess, I’m really struggling with scrapping inspiration and even more with tutorial topics. After almost 350 tuts, it’s really hard to come up with fresh stuff. I may have to make some changes. Stay tuned.

Autumn and Creepy Season Fonts

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/48Ay6lP

Have you chosen the font(s) for your October Signature Challenge siggy or Inspiration Challenge? Have I got some options for you! Now, Heather‘s instructions for the Signature call for a “beautiful font”, while Joy just wants 2 different fonts in the title. Since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think you’d be quite safe using a creepy/spooky font for the siggy, and anything goes for the other. I took a quick wander through the dafont.com collection of FREE fonts and found some I didn’t have but must… and I’m going to share them with you. Each font/dingbat’s name is linked to the site so you can quickly and easily download the ones you love.

I didn’t find any fonts that really proclaimed *AUTUMN*, but there are some lovely dingbats (little drawings). This one is called LCR Autumn Harvest Dings. The scarecrow sold me on it!

KR Fabulous Fall has some lovely leaves.

Next up is WM Leaves 1, which is literally all leaves, complete with the Canadian stylized maple leaf from our flag.

Autumn Days Clipart has a selection of solid symbols. Just look at that cute little fox.

I love the line drawings in Arboris Folium. They can be used like stamps or brushes and are filled with potential.

While we’re doing dingbats, let’s carry on into the Hallowe’en sets I found. Freaky Halloween has some classic images, like those creepy jack-o-lanterns.

I LOVE the frame in Alit Halloween. And the spiderweb, and the crow, and the haunted house… well ALL of them.

Look at the creepy witches’ hats here in Halloween Dreams Doodles!

This set, simply named Halloween, has more, very detailed line drawings.

Ooh, Vintage Halloween is really creepy.

Now on to some actual fonts. I’ve never seen this one before. Gnarly Skeleton has both an outlined alphabet and a bold version. That skull is in the glyphs section, along with an assortment of symbols and accented letters. No numbers though.

Halloween Guises is a bubble font with more of a cute look to it. There are numerals and a bunch of glyphs too.

Spoky Spider (not a typo) is both cute and creepy.

Halloween Party 3 has elements of both font and dingbat. There are numerals and glyphs galore here.

I feel like Spooky Halloween is my favourite of all today. It has upper and lower case alphabets and numerals but no glyphs.

Nightside is a bold, Gothic font that made me think of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s a demo font, meaning only upper case alphabet, no numerals or glyphs.

Then I found Nightmare 5… which also made me think of Tim Burton, or maybe the Addams Family. It has no numerals or clyphs; to achieve the look in the sample, use alternating upper and lower case letters.

And THEN… I found Burton’s Nightmare! It’s not really scary or creepy, but definitely has a vibe. There are numerals, some accented letters and some punctuation.

Okay, so maybe Single Ghost is my actual favourite! It’s got it all, wrapped up in a very elegant package.

Last, I have Dracolas for you. It’s Goth, it’s vintage and elegant. It’s a bold, all-caps font with the lower case characters smaller and less fancy. And there are glyphs!

Did you see anything you like? Did you find Inspiration for Joy‘s Challenge? I think I might pair Nightmare with Single Ghost. I’ll have to go back and make sure I’ve downloaded all the ones I love.

3D Title – Paper Letters

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3N838aO

Today’s tutorial is in response to a request from Glee. She’d seen a layout in a gallery created by biche57 that had a paper-letter title with the letters stitched to the background. The letters appeared to be lifted away from the background, sort of like butterfly wings. “How’d she do that??” Well, this is how JAN would do it…

I’m using the June Font Challenge font for my layout, and then Clipping papers to each individual letters. You can absolutely use an alpha to get it done faster and with fewer steps. The papers I’m using are from the GingerBread Ladies‘ collab Outdoorsy.

Here’s a little Quick Trick I just discovered. You can BATCH-SIMPLIFY all the text layers! To activate them all, click>shift click on the first and last text layers. Then right-click and choose Simplify Layer.

Here you can see that I’ve Clipped papers to each letter layer. Right-click>Create Clipping Mask or CTRL/CMD>ALT/OPT>G for Elements versions 15 and newer. For older versions the shortcut is just CTRL/CMD>G. To make each letter easier to manage, the paper and letter layers should be Merged. Activate the two layers then right-click>Merge or CTRL/CMD>E.

There! Now I have my paper title. Let’s stitch them down.

My granddaughter’s backpack is lavender, so I thought, why not use lavender stitches? You can put those stitches wherever you like; they’ll be your anchor for lifting the paper, so I felt it was best if I ran the stitches through the centre of the Bs.

We’re creating the illusion that those letters are lifted away from the background, and the easiest way to do that is to use custom shadows. For a lot of you this will be a review so feel free to skip ahead. I won’t mind! (I also won’t know. 😉 ) For those who haven’t seen the previous custom-shadow tuts, we start with Selecting the outline of the object we’re shadowing. To do that, CTRL/CMD>click on the letter’s thumbnail – that little picture of what’s on that layer – in the Layers Panel. That engages the marching ants and gets them doing their drill around the contours of the letter.

Now add a new blank layer UNDERNEATH the layer you’ve just selected. CTRL/CMD>click on the sheet-of-paper icon at the top left of the Layers Panel.

Over at the Color Picker, choose your shadow colour by clicking on the Foreground Color as shown. I’m using black [#000000] but a lot of people like a browner colour like #2c2801. It’s up to you. Then grab the Paint Bucket Tool and dump it into the outline.

Before Elements will let you do anything else, you’ll have to Select>Deselect or CTRL/CMD>D to stop the ants from marching.

The quickest, most effective way to simulate lifting the paper away is to use the Image>Transform>Distort Tool. This lets us change both the size and shape of the image in all directions. The only real limit is how far you take it. Remember to have your shadows all falling in the same direction; decide where your light source is so you can be consistent.

Click-drag one corner of the Bounding Box at a time until you get the shape you want. See how my Bounding Box isn’t symmetrical any more?

To hone the shadow and add realism to it, the shadow needs to be very narrow where the stitches are holding the letter down. I use the Smudge Tool for that. I push the shadow toward the letter at the stitches, and pull the shadow away where I want the paper lifting. The Smudge Tool also adds a slight Blur, but not usually enough to look real.

So… we’ll add a Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur… to the shadow.

To be able to see a Preview of the Filter, click your cursor on the edge of your shadow. Then you can see up close how moving the slider softens the edges of your shadow. Remember, shadows are softer the more light is allowed to leak underneath an object – the farther away from the surface it’s sitting on it is, the softer the shadow. Hot Tip: you don’t have to go through all the Filter steps if you’re going to use the same settings for each layer. Just click CTRL/CMD>F and Elements will do the rest.

To be realistic, the background colour shows through the shadow. To achieve that requires changing the Blend Mode from Normal to Linear Burn.

To make it look less stark and harsh, decrease the Opacity of that shadow layer. Move the slider until you’re happy with what you see. I like 35% – for now – and it’ll be adjustable if I decide it’s too light or dark.

After each letter is shadowed, the stitches need shadows too. I just went with the same steps, but without the Distort and Smudge. I also used a much lighter touch with the Blur because the stitches are literally IN the paper so the shadows will be sharper.

Last thing is to make any tweaks you think will make your title really POP. I just use the Smudge Tool!

I know this method of creating shadows sounds complicated and labour-intensive. At first, it really is. But the more you do it, the easier and more intuitive it becomes. I don’t even really think about the steps now, they’re so familiar. It’s the shadows that really elevate a layout, so it’s worth practicing. Don’t forget to have fun! Next week we’re going to play with doodles.

More Hearts and Flowers Fonts

PDF Version : https://bit.ly/3k05qOr

It’s been a rough week at our house, meaning no time for me to do anything really inspiring. But I’ve been seeing a LOT of inspiring Valentine’s Day projects so I had a thought… Surely there are some great new Valentine’s Day fonts and dingbats that y’all can use those Styles we talked about last week to make REALLY fabulous. And there are!! I’ve got eleven FREE fonts and six dingbats for your scrapping pleasure, from dafont.com. (If you want any of these, just click on the font’s name and you’ll be linked up.) Ready?

Couple Valentine is a fancy, all-caps font that would be perfect for pretty much any application. Titles, subtitles, journaling – all of it! I love that.

This romantic script font, Mybook Again, is another multipurpose gem. I could see this on wedding invitations, all kinds of wedding favours and Valentines. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?

I really love these bubble fonts like Romantic Love. There are SO many ways to use them and so many things you can do to zhuzh them up.

Pink Valentine is so retro and cute! It brings me right back to my teenage years when I still had rose-coloured glasses.

This font could be right out of a fairy tale. Lovaline Story is another versatile font that is suitable for any purpose.

Candy Kisses would make beautiful titles. Beyond Valentine’s Day and weddings, I’d probably use it for baby layouts.

Beauty Heart is a lovely farmhouse-type font. I’d love to see it with a glossy Style so it looks like candy.

I like the heart ligatures on Finding Love. It’s yet another all-purpose font with infinite options.

Ooh, here’s a swashy script called Jully Julia. It’s perfect for subtitles and journaling.

I don’t know that I’d use You Are My Valentine for journaling, but it would be good for titles and subtitles.

I was looking for dingbats when I found Quirky Love. It’s already pretty fabulous, and has potential to be even more so! Doesn’t it look like leather?

Now for the dingbats. Heart Salads is the first set I’ve found that has an anatomical heart in it.

I can see so many things that can be done with Romantine Dingbat. Yes, most of them involve hitting them with a Style… or three.

I love these heart emoji dings, don’t you? Fluffy Hearts Ding just makes me smile.

PW Little Hearts covers the gamut of things we love. That heart-with-the-ball-of-yarn would make a great element for a cat layout.

These are pretty romantic hearts in Vanlentines Day TBF. I think my favourite is the solid heart with the stars along the right side.

Last, but not least, we have Merciful Heart Doodle. I might use this one to create a border. What would you do with it?

Now I must run… gotta deal with all the errands I’ve put off for the last week while my son has been sick. Hopefully I’ll get ’em done before the rain turns to snow…