Free Desktop Wallpapers? Yes, Please!

Hi everyone! I’m quite busy preparing a calligraphy post today – a new service I’m very excited to offer! I’m still up to my neck with lettering and logo projects and I can’t wait to show you the latest ones.

I did take a break, though. One moment I was working on Illustrator… the next moment I’m on Pinterest. Well, we all need a bit of eye candy, don’t you think? I desperately want a new desktop wallpaper so I scoured lovely blogs and could not decide between these two.

Patti Murphy Designs Free Desktop

Breanna Rose Free Desktop

Aren’t they fabulous? You can download yours here and here.

P.S.
I hope you’ll check back in the next couple of days for a new calligraphy service I’ll be offering!

Postal Travels Magazine – A Pen Pal’s Best Friend

I remember having a pen pal when I was about 10. Her name’s Tara and she was from the UK. That’s all I remember about her now, but I have an amusing recollection of how excited I always was whenever my Mom hands me something from the mail. Oh, I guess old habits die hard. Until now I still love to write. And still get very much thrilled when I have something waiting for me in the mail box!

Postal Travels Magazine via Happy Hands Project

With the resurgence of snail mail and pen pal writing, while doing some research, I have stumbled upon Postal Travels Magazine. Tee and Karina are the ladies behind this online publication, and I must say they are very enthusiastic about the art of snail mail. The magazine features DIY crafts, stationeries, letter-writing, pen pal ads and stories, interviews, and my favorite – giveaways!

I am still beaming (slightly on the outside, but mostly on the inside) because they featured the Happy Hands Project. Yup, I have an interview in the Postal Travels June issue, so I hope that’s another reason for you to check it out.

They currently have this Traveling Notebook project which I think is a fantastic idea. It will be passed on to different people from different places, and each person gets to write something creative on a page or two. Then the notebook will be sent to another place again. How exciting! I am definitely signing up. If you need to know more, flip to pages 18 and 19 of the June issue.

If you haven’t gotten into the pen pal writing thing yet, Postal Travels might just be the inspiration you need to get started.

 

Happy Art: ‘Love Is Spoken Here’ Print

LoveIsSpokenHere-HappyHandsProject-1

Often times, I am amazed by the generosity of artists who share their works online. What’s more amazing is when these artists make such an effort to help someone in need.

I came across this print at P.S. I Adore You as a collective effort to give financial support to cancer patient Brielle. The site is not just your average ‘daily deals’ source – these Moms do showcase wonderful products for great prices everyday but it’s also their way to educate people about chidhood cancer. I purchased a digital file from Hillary Henslee of The Painted Arrow, and it’s now printed, framed and displayed in our living room.

LoveIsSpokenHere-HappyHandsProject-2

Don’t you just love how beautiful this painting is? I am swooning over the colors, and the message is such a joy to see. The fund-raising drive has long been over, but make sure you check out The Painted Arrow for DIY tutorials and free downloadable goodies. While waiting for her shop launch, you can reach Hillary through her blog’s contact page if you’d like to get your hands on the ‘Love Is Spoken Here’ print.

Free Printable Mother’s Day Card

 

We will all be celebrating motherhood soon! Even though I am miles away from my Mom, I’m sending a card out to her today. I’m looking forward to celebrate with her when we see each other three weeks from now! I’m super excited with our upcoming trip… but I have to stop myself because that’s another story.

MothersDayCard-HappyHandsProject-1

I was trying to check the spelling for Mother’s Day earlier. Should it be spelled as ‘Mother’s’ or ‘Mothers’? Well, Anna Jarvis, the founder of the holiday, specifically noted that “Mother’s” should “be a singular possessive, for each family to honour their mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world.”

Can’t argue with Miss Jarvis on that, so here’s a printable card to commemorate the wonderful existence of our own Moms. I’ve been having fun with brush lettering lately, and this was originally done in watercolor. Download yours here! Let her know how awesome she is.

MothersDayCard-HappyHandsProject-2

The 80’s and Milli Vanilli

 

Yes, I totally understand that by using the title above somehow gives my age away. And yes, I’m one of those people who was born in the 80’s. I’m either too old or you’re too young, though for obvious reasons I’d prefer the latter. Oh, what an amazing time it was – I get these really cool Michael Jackson and Madonna vinyls! The Sesame Street soundtrack on cassette! I get to dance whenever I want!

When I was on third grade I joined the Dance Club. In school we were supposed to participate in at least one school organization, and at that age I couldn’t think of any other club I’d rather be in. I guess it’s quite obvious now that at a young age all I wanted to do was dance (that’s my husband’s cue to cringe). So anyway, the big performance came and my group decided to dance to Milli Vanilli‘s ‘Blame It On The Rain‘. In tight cycling shorts, because that was really hip then.

My lovely parents saw me perform and it was one of my proudest moments ever. Luckily I didn’t have any major boo-boos, except for that one time when I lost count and failed to switch to the next move. I was assured that nobody hardly noticed.

Blame It On The Rain Print {Happy Hands Project}

I’m always racking my brain for what to write for my lettering, and this funny memory suddenly came to mind. It’s silly, I know, but ‘Blame It On The Rain’ has got to be one of my favorite songs then. For the record, I wasn’t ware of the lip-synching scandal at the time. It’s even sillier that I’m considering uploading this as a digital wall art on my shop! Well, you’ll never know, there might actually be somebody who would love to be reminded of how cool growing up in the 80’s was. Like dancing to Milli Vanilli in cycling shorts.

Creativity Is Contagious. Pass It On.

 

For some weird reason, I remembered a college professor of mine who blatantly told me that I was not ‘a true artist’. All because the pencil that she borrowed from me was not sharp enough. That classroom was packed with aspiring creative professionals, each with his own strength, his own goal, and hanging on to every word an accomplished Arts Professor said. And she just said it out loud for the entire class to hear –  ‘You are not a true artist’.

If I was such a weakling then, I would have run out the room, bawling. Worse, I might have pursued a different career path. Luckily, neither of those happened, and I’m still happily writing, designing and drawing. I’m still making art. I still have this creative mojo going on.

I guess what I’m just trying to say is, the sharpness of a pencil does not define an artist. I mean, seriously?

Creativity Is Contagious Wall Art {Happy Hands Project}

Anyhow, I have some digital wall art on my Etsy shop to share – an Albert Einstein quote that I’ve written last week: Creativity Is Contagious. Pass It On. Artistic ability may not be innate to every one of us, but creativity is. Every person can use her imagination to make things. To create. The best part? Being around creative, artistic people is extremely infectious. And you can just immerse yourself in all that creativity around you.

I hope this quote inspires you to make things and share that contagious creativity of yours. And don’t worry about your pencils not being deadly sharp. It doesn’t matter anyway. Spread the love!

 

Inspirational Hand-Lettered Wall Art + Freebie

 

I have never watched Japanese anime until I met my husband. I just didn’t like the animation itself, and that alone was a reason big enough to turn me off. The Animax channel was something I can easily live without. I grew up watching Disney – Minnie Mouse was my best friend.

Well, my husband changed all that. A few years into the marriage and I can proudly say I’ve seen two full length anime films and a few series that made me laugh and cry. I have to wonder how the Japanese can be brilliant in so many ways. Currently we are watching Space Brothers (Uchuu Kyoudai), and I have learned a lot about space flight and the rigorous tests aspiring astronauts have to go through to qualify. Set in 2015, it’s about two brothers who are as different as night and day, but share one dream – to become astronauts.

So before this turns into a geeky blabbery of something that will most likely bore my dear readers, here’s something I came up with last night.

Hand-lettering-HappyHandsProject

Well, I got so into it so I made it into digital wall art and posted them on my Etsy shop.

Chalkboard Wall Art - HappyHandsProject

Then I got even more into it so I made it into an iPhone wallpaper. I was exploring royalty-free vintage photos (taking the cue from How About Orange) and thought, hey, I can use these Astronomy images along with my lettering!

Of course you can download your very own inspirational iPhone wallpaper here. Even if you don’t watch anime, I hope my little artwork here would motivate us all to always look up, hold our heads high, and reach for the stars.

And if I may add, Space Brothers is really that good. You, non-anime viewer, should check it out.

Hand-lettered iPhone Wallpaper-HappyHandsProject

Bloglovin’ and Free Watercolor Photoshop Brushes

This is usually how my morning goes. I launch Firefox and go through my bookmarks – which mostly covers fun, lighthearted blogs from all over. I go through each of them so I end up with about eight tabs on my Firefox window. And it wasn’t even 9am yet! So anyway, I found out that my morning browsing will be considerably organized if I just signed up with Bloglovin’. After a few days of reading other users’ reviews, I took the plunge and signed up. Claimed my blog, even. I was surprised at how easy it is now to read all my favorite blogs (I know, I sound like a celebrity endorser but no, I didn’t get paid for this. And I’m no celebrity!). Click on the image below to go to my Bloglovin’ page so you can follow the Happy Hands Project.

Bloglovin Watercolor Follow Poster via Happy Hands Project

As you can see, I even made an art work just to announce my new discovery. To think that I’m pretty late to the party on this one. I was experimenting with Photoshop brushes today and ended up making three watercolor circles that can be used, well, anywhere, actually! These are high resolution, good quality brushes! Here are just some of my ideas as to where I can end up using them:

  • A personalized notecard
  • A desktop wallpaper
  • Stickers in different colors
  • Gift tags
Free Watercolor Brushes from HappyHandsProject

My advise is this – go crazy with your brushes! Experiment with colors, play with different layer styles. Just make sure you use different layers in Photoshop for every click of that brush. Just layer it. You can thank me later. If you need help on where to save the file onto Photoshop, this is helpful. For more lovely (and free!) brushes, plus how-to videos, check out this post on Creature Comforts. These are probably just about everything you need to get started.

Now it’s time to download the Happy Hands Project watercolor brush pack!

As always, for everything that’s on the house, these brushes are for personal use only and cannot be sold or re-distributed. I would appreciate linking back to my post if you would feature this on your blog, and not host them on your own server. Whew! I just had to get that out. Thanks for reading!

Etsy Shop for Digital Wall Art

 

I have finally opened my Etsy shop! Finally! I will be selling digital files of my letterings that I have prepared as wall art. I still have quite a few that I have yet to convert to vector but it’s no easy task – so I have just uploaded one with four color variations.

Do What You Love Digital Print-Black Green

I’m quite happy with this accomplishment, as I’ve been so busy with work and mommyhood. I thought it would actually take forever before I launch this shop. I just realized baby steps are all I need. Hey, if other artists can do it, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot, too, right?

You can find my shop here: www.happyhandsproject.etsy.com.

Spread the love!