It’s THAT Time Again! Christmas and Winter Fonts

Fontaholics, UNITE!! I spent some time at Dafont.com looking for some new and awesome Christmas-y and wintery fonts we haven’t seen before. I won’t tell you how many I’ve downloaded though. 😉 But I can tell you that the free version of MainType isn’t adequate for my font collection. 😀 And speaking of MainType (it’s a font manager, for those who don’t know) if you’ve downloaded and installed a bunch of fancy fonts with swirls and flourishes, but when you use them all you get are the boring base characters, here’s a link to a tutorial on unlocking those special characters… I mention this because there may, or may not, be some fancy glyphs with one or two of the following fonts. There are eight “Christmas” fonts, five wintery fonts and four sets of seasonal dingbats coming at you momentarily. They are all FREE! (For personal use, of course.) As always, the name the designer has given the font is your link to it at dafont.com. Just give it a click.

When I saw Christmas Calling, I was immediately transported back to my childhood – doesn’t it just scream Frosty the Snowman to you?

Twinkle Christmas is a pretty, twirly font that can be used for pretty much everything… titles, subtitles, captions and journaling.

I think Christmas Holiday is a more generic font, and would be ideal for layouts about cutting Christmas trees, sleigh rides, toboggan parties, ski trips and the like.

I could totally see this font with red, white and green Christmas Candy cane stripes, with an acrylic or gel Style applied on top to give it some curves.

Amore Christmas is a classic, elegant font perfectly suited to layouts about holiday pageants, choir performances, church service and even prgrams. It’s an all-caps font with both the curly and plain characters.

If you live in a cold part of the world, odds are you’ll have snow for Christmas. (I thought for sure we would, after we got about 8 inches last week, but it’s all gone, it’s 50°F and the forecast is for more of the same. 🙁 ) What I like about Christmas in Winters is that it’s very legible and would be a good title font for any winter layout.

Look at this!! It’s so baroque and capital F fancy! When I look at The Christmas, I so want to have the main parts of the letters a deep, rich red (or maybe green), and the curlicues gold. I’m going to play with it for sure! It has both upper and lower case characters as well as some basic punctuation. No numerals though.

So… I played with this one. So fancy!

Christmas Comeback is a multipurpose font as well, with upper and lower case letters and basic punctuation but no numerals. I wouldn’t necessarily call it “Christmas-y”, but I might want to use it for card sentiments.

Now on to the winter fonts. Frozenland is a good, all-purpose winter font. It’s probably not quite right for journaling but has both cases, punctuation AND numerals. That drippy icy topping on the letters cries out for a pale blue, curvy Style.

Freezing had me thinking about that ombré technique from earlier this year. It all-caps, but in two sizes, No punctuation, no numerals, so mainly a title font, I guess.

Snowby is just FUN!

Snowballs is a demo font. The thumbnail shows letters that are included, along with numerals and punctuation. The full version has an assortment of additional characters; when you click on the name, you’ll see a link to where you can purchase, if you so choose.

This one, Snow Flakes, is my most FAVOURITE! It speaks to me of snowball fights, building snowmen, winter carnivals, skating parties… whatever fun one may have in the snow.

Now bring on the dingbats! Wonderful Christmas Symbols is filled with seasonal silhouettes. There are 159, all different! I could see using them for a border, on tags, with a beveled style to create brads… really, so many options.

Winterlight Symbols is another 52-silhouette collection. They’re a little more stylized.

Last Christmas Symbols has a bit more of a detailed, traditional look. It has some religious symbols mingled with secular Christmas images, winter sporting events and nature.

And finally, Fantasia Decorative is an outline collection with so much potential.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that all of you have downloaded at least one of these… am I right?

Back-to-School

If you live anywhere in North America, you can’t escape the back-to-school frenzy, even if you have nobody in your life who’s in school. It worked out well for us though… our son’s backpack came home from his day program last week with a totally fubar zipper. Walmart had a wide variety of options and I grabbed him one that holds everything he needs on a day-to-day basis. Score one for Jan!! I managed NOT to buy any pens, paper and paint this year, so that’s another point for me. So how did we end up looking at back-to-school fonts, you’re thinking. Well, when my mom came to see me on my birthday back in May, she brought me a bag full of things she found when cleaning her house after my dad died. They were all things I’d saved from high school. I KNOW, right?! Looking through them was a real walk down memory lane. One thing that really struck me is how much my handwriting has changed over the course of my life. That bag had half a dozen different variations! So that led me to thinking about how much it bothers me that schools aren’t teaching kids cursive writing any more and how that will severely hobble them in the future. But I digress. I’ve rounded up a baker’s dozen of schoolish fonts, from learning basic printing to more “sophisticated” teenage girl script. (I don’t have to describe that one, do I?) 😀 They’re all from dafont.com and 100% free for personal use. Just click on the font’s name and you’ll go right to the download screen. Oh, yeah… they’re not in any particular order. You’ll see.

First one up is KG Perfect Penmanship. Many of you already know Kim Geswein‘s fonts… she’s a machine! This one is the most perfect example of grade-school printing ever. You’ll see a couple more of Kim‘s fonts in a minute.

This isn’t one of them. 😉 Learning Curve BV is exactly how I remember being taught cursive writing. Very controlled, perfectly shaped and spaced letters, easily legible.

Kindergarten looks a lot like a real child trying very hard to make every letter perfectly. I love it!

Makes You Stronger is Kim‘s controlled middle-school cursive. My handwriting looked a lot like this when I as about 12.

I liked Second Son School for the notebook lining. Doesn’t it bring back memories?

I feel like English Essay is an evolution of a typical girly cursive hand from the basic to beginning to add some personality. Remember writing big, loopy, widely-spaced letters to fill up the page faster? 😉

Why do I think this could be a serial killer’s first printing? Just kidding. The Writer is definitely a beginner’s hand.

Very Simple Chalk is exactly that. It’s an all-caps font, with two sizes to represent upper and lower case characters. It includes numerals and a wide range of punctuation, as well as multilingual characters.

When I saw this, I HAD to share it with you. The crayon shape is part of the character map and you can point the business end in either direction. To point to the left, use the { and } at each end of your word. To point right, use the [ and ]. Each of the letters in Crayonized has the lines above and below, so they all connect up. It’s pretty cool!

Then, if you want your journaling to look like you wrote it with a wax crayon… Crayon Hand.

Ooh, teenage boy time! Most of the guys I’ve ever known mix printing and cursive, with small letters – Random Handwritten. My husband’s writing is so tiny and tight it’s hard to read; it’s like he has to pay for the ink. And he likes superfine pens, to make it worse.

Here’s another must-conform-avoid-attention-and-meet-expectations-at-all-costs late middle-school girly hand. Ironic name, though: The Only Exception.

And last… the tween girl who wants to assert some individuality but still craves the approval of her teachers……. Simplify Notation Single Line is tidy, controlled but has little circle tittles. How many of us dotted our I’s with hearts at some time in our lives? 😉

Did you see one that you might use for the Journaling Challenge this month? I hope so!

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.