What to write in a card for someone leaving work
Easy DIY Calligraphy Birthday Card
hey i'm becca with the happy ever
crafter and in this video i'm going to
walk you step by step
through how to create a calligraphy
birthday card like this
[Music]
all right so first things first
obviously the tools you're gonna need
so get this the first
most important thing you're gonna need
is a card
shocker i know no but seriously you need
a card you can use
a card of any color any shape any size
i'm using this pretty blue one just
because i had it lying around but
you can literally use anything you can
even make your own out of card stock
whatever you want to do
i often get asked about the different
types of cards and where to buy them so
that they're good for your brush pens
i have a whole video about paper and i
touch on that but
in this video i'm actually not using
brush pens so i'm just using any card
if you're using brush pens you just want
to look for a really smooth card that's
it but again for this video
we don't need a brush pen which brings
me to my next point you need a pen
another shocker i know for this i'm
going to be using a white gel pen this
is a uniball signo or sino however the
heck you want to say it
and i like this one because it's really
nice and opaque on a colored background
like this but
again any pen it can be a ballpoint pen
it can be whatever is lying around as
long as it's the right color that you
want to use on the color of card that
you chose
next up you're probably going to want a
pencil just to do some outlines
any pencil is totally fine i know this
one looks fancy it's a black wing it's
like
you know a really instagrammable pencil
that people love and it's a nice kind of
lead but it really doesn't matter in
this video
a ruler and then something round you can
use a compass
or just something that has a round
surface like this that you can trace
so this is just like a jar that i use to
hold pens
and it's about the right size so that's
it for tools and now let's jump in so
i'm gonna actually open my card up i
find it easier to work on it flat like
this
and the first step is actually just to
take your pencil
and draw a line essentially in the
middle of the card
really lightly you don't want this to be
heavy because you're going to want to
erase it later so just really really
lightly so that you can see and if you
are a person who likes having a top
guideline as well when you're doing
calligraphy
definitely go ahead and do that once you
have your guidelines set up i know you
can't really see mine on the video but
that's okay
just write your word so you're going to
write the word birthday first and we're
going to do this in calligraphy
we're going to be doing faux calligraphy
if you've never heard of faux
calligraphy before watch this video and
then come back
it's a really important skill if you are
in the calligraphy world
and that's what we're doing with this
card so i'm just going to write the word
birthday in
faux calligraphy okay so you can move
and adjust and erase and
fix up this word as much as you need to
but i'm just going to try and gently
erase
the original guideline that i drew it's
easier to do this while it's still
pencil
than when you have ink on here and just
generally try and make sure that your
word is fairly centered
on this card it's actually also okay if
it's a little bit
closer to the bottom edge and you'll see
why in a second so
the next thing i'm going to do is write
the word happy and the person's name
so you can do this with your ruler again
if you like and i'm going to do it in
block letters
so you're going to draw yourself a
guideline that's fairly close to the top
of your
original birthday letters and centered
above it
and then you can draw the top guideline
too if it makes it easier for your block
letters
and then you're going to write the word
happy
if you need help with block letters i
also have a video
on that and i'll link to it okay and
then again
erase the guidelines as much as you can
as long as you can see
your pencil guidelines here at the
beginning when you start with your ink
like it
just enough to give you a little
guideline it doesn't have to be super
perfect and then same thing you're going
to add the person's name here at the
bottom
my friend that i'm doing this for her
name is jen
or jenny i'm going to write jenny and
you want to make this about the same
size
as your word happy
and then again erase your guidelines and
that's it for the pencil so
now i'm gonna take my uniball signo
i'm gonna go over this with my ink now
you can do this with whatever pen again
you want
if you're doing it with a gel pen just
kind of have a piece of paper
a scrap piece of paper over here on the
side that you can start getting it
running because sometimes gel pens don't
work super well
this is my favorite one for sure but
sometimes it's just annoying
and then essentially you're just gonna
go over your
original pencil lines here
okay so the writing is all in and now
we're going to add the floral bits
now you can do this in pencil first take
your pencil
and your round surface the one i've
chosen is making it really easy actually
because
i can see exactly where i'm placing my
circle and you're going to try and
center it over your word and then add
this pencil line really gently
around the edge just on the top and
bottom
and then you're going to add a really
really simple sort of wreath
to finish this off so you can do this in
lots of different ways you can add
florals however you want and you can do
it in pencil first if you want to
but i like to just jump right in so
essentially i'm just going to start at
this one corner here
above my b and i'm going to start adding
some
flowers and stems
so you want them all to be coming off of
that main pencil line that you drew
and you can add little buds
that look like little flowers or you can
just add leaves you can do this however
you want to i'm going to do a
sort of a combination of all of those
things so
i'll have some leaves and some buds
and you're basically just going to keep
building up
around that original line that you drew
you can feel free to copy exactly the
flowers that i'm drawing here or you can
come up with your own
and you can bring them as far into that
circle or
leave them as far away from the center
of the circle as you like i like to put
a couple pieces in to kind of fill it up
so here i might even
add another little bud in here so that
it goes more into the center of the
circle
and just keep filling it up
now when you get down to the bottom edge
some people like to totally flip it over
what i will say is that i like to flip
because
a lot of people find it tempting to
finish the top and then come down
towards the bottom and switch the
direction
but you want your whole wreath to be
opening up in that same direction so you
want them all to be pointing
down this way and i find it easier to do
that while it's upside down
so don't feel like you can't flip it as
you're working
you just want to make sure that if
you're using a pen like this one
sometimes it's a little bit wet so give
it a little bit of time before you put
your hand over top of it
and then just jump in and do the exact
same thing on this side too
alrighty and that's it so now my
birthday card is complete it looks
really fancy but it really wasn't
actually all that hard
it's guaranteed to wow your friends that
sounds like
infomercial guaranteed to wow your
friends
anyway i hope you enjoyed this and had
fun with it i hope your friends
like their birthday cards and if you
create one i'd love to see it so share
it on instagram
tag me at the happy evercrafter and if
you like videos like this
i also have one that will help you
decorate the envelope that this would go
in
so you can watch that one here and i'll
see you over there
[Music]
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