Freebie Friday

More Halloween Freebies to finish the week

Love Ormolu’s stuff anyway, but these are very cute and versatile.

Great Bats and cute skulls here

Type on a Thursday

OKAY, well not a specific font today, but a character, I love ampersands they can be both elegant, simple and yet quirky

I think they are a great tool for use in titles and oversized as design elements too.

Here is a LINK to an article about this character.

And another feature HERE

Get Creative & go do some designs with ampersands

Colour me Happy

A little colour for you all on a Wednesday as it is the scary season this week, I guess it has to be ORANGE, which I would never have listed as one of my favourite colours a few years ago, I’m still not keen on, in your face BRIGHT orange, but there are some great alternatives. I like it even better when it is combined with other colours and only used as an accent colour.

One combination I particularly like is a soft orange combined with an icy blue and them a chocolate brown (much softer than black)

Or as an alternative how about some traditional autumnal colours

Tuesday’s To Do

Well, it all depends how creative you are feeling today. Me personally, not so much, but I’m hoping to change that.

PUMPKIN CARVING, let me hear you say YAY !!

Ok so that’s a not so enthusiastic response, well I know that Halloween celebrations here in the UK are more low key than in the states and a lot of people here are “Halloween, sorry, when and why did we start celebrating THAT”

BUT when you have kids you tend to get suckered into the whole shenanigan and I do love fancy dress, even if I am doing it vicariously through my kids and the dog (OK sorry, I’m just kidding I won’t be dressing the dog up, but it is tempting ! )

ANYHOO back to pumpkins, I have been looking around for some designs for carving. I usually just get the boys to pick their favourite face from punkinhead font and then enlarge it to A4 size, print it out and transfer the design to the pumpkin and get carving.

But I have found some other nice ideas on the web so here they are, some are more advanced and some are a little more gruesome, hopefully something for every taste.

Hersheys – Kid friendly and definitely achievable
the designs range from easy to advanced.

Extreme Pumpkins – More wacky and probably more appealing to grown ups, fun to look at none the less

Pumpkin Masters – 4 free stencils here again nice and simple.

Pumpkin Lady – These ones aren’t free (between $1.50 and $2.50) but there is a lot of inspiration on there.

Celebrating Halloween – Again great ideas, especially love the word designs, more complex carving skills needed though.

Martha Stewart – Of course there’s always Martha !

Have a Sqishy Tuesday !!

Monday, Monday

I swear someone has taken a day out of my week, Monday keeps coming round too darn quick !!

As it is the run up to Halloween this week I figured that I may as well jump on the band wagon and post some “themed” stuff.

Firstly I like these sweet treat tags from sherbet blossom Bold, bright, simple and cool

Next, these appealing skull lables from Jinjerup Love the bold simplicity of these, you could adapt these to make tags or journaling cards.

and finally for this morning I like this invitation from cottage industrialist, which again has great possibilities for adapting into a journaling card or a tag (reduce the size when you get to printing options)

Have yourselves some fun with these…

Inspiration

I am inspired by design generally and it doesn’t always have to be something new or cutting edge.

Type will always be my thing I have always loved lettering, when I was a teenager every place I visited I would always pick up “printed” stuff from places we visited, Menus, postcards, tickets, drink mats, food wrappers and I always took photos of road signs and shop signs when we visited other countries.

See, I have always been a collector of memories and therefore a scrapbooker even though I never really knew it.

Logos are also one of my big “likes” (again with the lettering) which led me whilst I was doing my graphic design degree to do my thesis on carrier bags (can you believe it) I spent many happy hours trolling around the stores in Leeds asking for a sample carrier bag. My favourites were those yummy block bottomed with cord handles from higher end stores (these are still my favourites now and yes I do still hoard them !)

So today be inspired by by type/lettering and logos that you see as you go about your daily life.

If you have a camera phone take a photo, if you carry a notepad jot down the store or brand you liked and look it up on the internet when you get home.

Here are a few images from flickr to get you going.

Go over to flick yourself and look at all the other entries under typography and lettering

Freebie Font

Its back to display type again today, I adore this font and I know its not a rare unseen font but that doesn’t make it any less loveable. I think the thing that appeals most to me about this font is its nice clean lines and the slightly condensed look. See what you can do with it.

You can download it for Free (for personal use) from HERE

Middle of the Week again

Time seems to be flashing by in an absolute blur these days …
Wednesday already, well its another grey and dreary day here in the Essex burbs and I have been scouring cyber space looking for some colour inspiration for all of you that are kind enough to keep visiting this blog.

I’m not a Grunge, Retro, Vintage or Floral fan, I prefer clean simple and usually geometric, thats not to say that I don’t appreciate some Grunge, Retro, Vintage or Floral now and again.

Anyhoo for colour inspiration today I have added some cushions I liked that I found on the John Lewis web site, I hope that either the pattern or the colour inspires you today. Happy Mid Week.

To Do on a Tuesday

As I am an incessant list maker it is vital that I have note pads absolutely everywhere. (my Husband thinks leaving scrap paper in every room is the answer !) AND I like great looking note pads too. I usually have them fixed by a magnet to every available metal surface and if I can “magnet them” to anything I pin them up with a bull dog clip.

There are lost of FREE PRINTABLE note pad pages around on various web sites, a few I have highlighted on this blog, but I recently came across a “TO DO” of how to make your own note pad with rip off pages.

If you had the tools and materials available you could make a bunch of them for stocking filler gifts and teacher gifts.

So here it is, find the step by step HERE

Something for Nothing Day

There are so many great free printables out there. We are really spoilt for choice, but these are my absolute favourites today, combining both a bold font and a luggage tag, 10 out of 10 for these tags, there are so many possibilities.

Have fun with theses. Find them here