I cannot lie. I am a fontaholic. Happily addicted to letters in their many forms. I am also a huge Disney fan. I was actually introduced to my husband only because my step-sister knew we were both single and both liked Disney.
I’m just dropping by quickly this morning to share some of my favorite “Disney Park Inspired” free fonts.
Enjoy! Feel free to share any other ideas for fonts that remind you of being at the Happiest Place on Earth…
Today’s creative inspiration is not so much a craft project or something I made as how we are creatively teaching our children about their roots. I think I’ve mentioned that my children are 6th generation Californian on 3 sides. There are not a lot of people whose California roots stretch so deep. California school children study California history in 4th grade. A big part of how modern California was founded was through the construction of the Mission system (unarguably at the detriment of the Native Americans who were the first inhabitants). Studying the Mission system often involves the inevitable “Mission Project” where children are required to construct one of the 21 California Missions.
My husband and I decided that as Native Californians our kids needed to have a good understanding of that part of our history so we set out on a family Mission Mission. Yes – we were crazy enough to visit ALL 21 of the California Missions stretching from San Diego north to Sonoma. This endeavor was started the summer before our daughter entered 4th grade and ended this past weekend just days before our son was to build his Mission. 32 months of creatively working Mission visits into our other travels throughout the state.
As a scrapbooker I took just a few (that is an understatement) pictures on our adventure which of course will be made into a fabulous album (eventually). One common site at the Missions is a statue of the founder of the Mission system, Father Junipero Serra. We made a point to get a shot of this statue at each site. Here they are compiled into a single snapshot:
The astute mathematician will notice that there are only 20 images in the above combined image. Sadly, one of the Missions had significant earthquake retrofitting and construction going on (this is California after all). #irony is that this is the Mission my son is constructing for his project and therefore one that is near and dear to our hearts – San Luis Rey. Here is the best we could do at that location:
So close and yet so far away…
I thought it might be fun to throw in photos of the Mission projects my children did in school. It has almost become a joke among school parents that you can always tell who really did the kid’s Mission when they brought it into class. At some schools, it has become a contest among the parents. To combat that idea and actually give the kids the opportunity to build the project themselves, at our school, the Missions are created in class. Parents send supplies and may volunteer to help, but are not allowed to do all the work.
Mission San Antonio de Padua
Mission San Luis Rey
At any rate, we love teaching our children through travel. Other travel bucket/checklists we are working on:
We were lucky enough to find a “National Park Passport” at the first National Park we visited and have been having it stamped ever since. Same thing goes for the California State Park system and the Presidential Libraries. A fun way to keep track of your progress.
We haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on our list. Happy travels!
I love quotes. I think they can be powerful and help you make sense of things, see things from another way, validate your feelings or just entertain you. I also love fonts. So it only makes sense that the creative side of me really wants to make signs. I had seen a quote recently that I have been dying to do something with. “Not my circus. Not my monkeys.” Apparently, it’s origins are as a Polish Proverb. This speaks to me as I tend to get wrapped up in and worry about family dramas (and which family doesn’t have these!?!?!?). This tells me to step back and try to worry less about things that are: a) not my business and b) out of my control.
I am playing around with different mediums of signs – canvas, wood, burlap, etc. I recently discovered pre-made black canvases which seem like a bit of a time-saving step to me as I am almost always going to feel the need to do something with a white canvas before doing a quote, but may skip that step with the black background. I picked one up at a recent excursion to Hobby Lobby. These are new to my area and the closest is 45 minutes away. We are getting our own in March or so and I can’t wait!
I love working with vinyl, so for this sign I decided to use the mask of the vinyl and paint the inside. Here goes
Materials:
I started by playing around on my Cricut Gypsy/Craft Room looking for the perfect font. I wanted something “circusy”. I played around with Storybook and added the embellishments to the letters. Perfect, but after I cut them out I realized I was never going to be able to use the mask of the vinyl to paint them. I ended up throwing them on a piece of paper and we’ll see what I end up doing with that.
I then dialed back the fanciful font to one of the basic, slightly fatter ones on the cartridge. I got a little too excited and ripped off the mask that I needed for my painting project – ooops. My husband would describe this as 1, 2, GOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
I finally hit my stride and ended up with a simple finished product.
On to the next project!
Happy New Year! Hope everyone enjoyed a great time with friends and family.
I’d like to share one of my favorite projects I did for the holidays. It was inspired by the quote, “Create that which you wish existed” after a little trip to Home Depot back in October for some Halloween costume supplies. As soon as I walked in, I saw this…
I am a huge Eiffel Tower fan (we went to Paris for our honeymoon). What I am not a fan of at my own house (although I love visiting other extravagant displays ) are Christmas lights. Seriously, we have the old school big bulbs out on our house and that is it! But I saw this and wondered if I was crazy thinking that I HAD TO have it. I texted a few friends this photo and they agreed that I did. They asked how big it was and I casually replied 4 or 5 feet.
I ended up having to order it from Home Depot online. Apparently there were other people that had to have this too (really?!?!?!). I was quite excited when it arrived, but put it aside until after Thanksgiving. Not being familiar with assembling outdoor yard lighting, let’s just say that this ended up being a labor of love and a strong argument to keep this an only child. AND, it was a little taller than I thought – nearly 7 feet!
I was a little concerned that it might be slightly out of place on my porch. How can I make a 6’8″ Eiffel Tower look like it belongs on my porch for Christmas?
It was at that point I realized I needed to go with French Christmas theme and coordinate it with the wreaths on my door. I am pretty sure that involves needing a glittery “Joyeux Noel”. You can find nearly every other glittery holiday word/phrase imaginable, but not that one. Time to take, “Create that which you wish existed” to heart and make my own.
Project List
I started by selecting a script font (Gypsy Font) and welding the letters together on my Gypsy. I then attached the vinyl to the corrugated board.
The next step was the most tedious of all as I used the box cutter to trim around the vinyl so that my words were free standing.
I figured that it did not have to be prefect around the edges as it was going to be covered with glitter.
Then I went outside and covered up my work surface to minimize the mess. I used the same technique of mixing glitter into the Mod Podge, painting it on and pouring additional glitter onto the item that I used for the tennis shoes I covered with red glitter.
I was especially impressed with the idea I came up with to hold my words off the work surface, so they don’t end up stuck to it and I can get a little more of the sides covered. I cut off water bottles at the same length to use as risers.
I did not end up worrying about covering the sides too much as I figured it would blend in against the greenery of the wreaths.
I patiently let it dry before I used wire to attach it to the wreaths. This was another reason the corrugated plastic was a GREAT idea because I would run the wire through the “tunnels” in between the layers of plastic and not have to have my wire show on the front of the words. I added some crazy metallic bows, and was pretty happy with how it all came out!
Create*Bloom*Grow 