Free Photoshop Brushes For Halloween

Free Halloween Photoshop Brushes via Happy Hands Project

Halloween is coming! Here’s a free download for you, my lovely readers—5 wicked Photoshop brushes for Halloween, plus 2 bonus ones to make your artwork more interesting. These are hand-lettered words converted into high quality Photoshop brushes.

Free Halloween Photoshop Brushes via Happy Hands Project

You can use these brushes as overlays for your digital photos. You can use these on your blog post and Instagram photos, Halloween party invites, Halloween greeting cards, or as gift tags to go along with some hostess gifts. Calligraphy and lettering makes everything look more personal, so how about adding these hand-lettered brushes onto your design?

Free Halloween Photoshop Brushes via Happy Hands Project

Installing the Photoshop brushes in your computer is easy-peasy. On a Mac, I just double click the .abr file or drag it into Photoshop, and it’s installed. More detailed instructions can be found on this post on Creative Market.

Free Halloween Photoshop Brushes via Happy Hands Project

Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with! As with everything that’s on the house, this Photoshop brush set is free for personal use and may not be distributed or sold. If you’d wish to share these goodies (thank you!), just link back to this blog post.

Happy Halloween in advance everyone! Booo!

 

Freebie: Brush Lettering Desktop Wallpaper

Eat Slay Love Free Desktop Wallpaper via Happy Hands Project

I have a free download for all you hustlers out there. I haven’t done a desktop wallpaper freebie in a while, and I think it’s high time to give one away! It’s time to give our desktops a makeover and at the same time have a reminder in plain sight to slay the day. Oh, and eat and love too, of course.

This lettering piece was written with my trusty Pentel brush sign pen, one of my favourites. Download and share the love!

Eat Slay Love Free Desktop Wallpaper via Happy Hands Project

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The Calligraphy Oblique Holder Year-end Giveaway

Oblique Holder Set Giveaway | Happy Hands Project

Woot woot! Time for a year-end giveaway! 2016 is coming to a close, and I have to say that this year is indeed a very special one. I have so much to be thankful for, despite the ups and downs that almost made me feel like I was riding a year-long roller coaster. So who wants to win for herself (or himself!) a custom-made wooden oblique holder set?

This year our little family had another addition. The Happy Hour Workshops continued to be extremely in-demand, and I have grown so much just by teaching the craft I loved most. I had my first online workshop (or more appropriately, speaking engagement) over at Modern Thrive. I continued having classes at my favourite studio, The Untitled Space, and said goodbye to it last November. I’ve had lots of amazing memories in that place, but now I am on the lookout for new workshop venues. That in itself, is another adventure. I adore the wedding invitation suites that I designed this year — thanks to brides who were never short of creative ideas!

Most importantly, my dream of having a Happy Hands Project calligraphy oblique holder came true!

So guys, to give thanks to everyone of you who stuck around Happy Hands Project and continued following this humble blog of mine, I’m giving away a set of the Happy Hands Project oblique holder set, crafted in collaboration with woodworker Mr Keiichi Sato in Japan.

Join in! The set consists of an oblique holder for right-handed writers, an ink jar holder with 2 ink bottles included, and a pen rest. I will ship the set to anywhere in the world via Singpost registered mail. One winner will be randomly chosen on 1 January 2017 and will be announced thereafter. The giveaway opens 14 December 2016, and closes on 31 December 2016.

 

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FREE PRINTABLE MODERN CALLIGRAPHY ALPHABET

Modern Calligraphy Exemplar via Happy Hands Project

I was messing around with my guidelines and tracing paper, thinking of writing in another freehand style of modern calligraphy. Since I’ve become comfortable with my own style, it’s become difficult for me to try to come up with an entirely different way of writing the alphabet.

After a few tries, I came up with an entrance stroke that was pretty simple but all new to me. I wrote the uppercase letters in a similar style, but did not use my usual slant. Instead, I wrote this in a slightly upright manner, and that is how I came up with The Eloise Exemplar.

Modern Calligraphy Exemplar via Happy Hands Project

So why did I explore this other style? Well, I’m not planning on using this type of freehand in any of my calligraphy pieces, but it was a good exercise. I am very comfortable with my own calligraphy handwriting so coming up with a different way of writing letters (and eventually an entire alphabet!) was a challenge. But I’m telling ya, it was super fun.

So how about if I share this exemplar to my lovely readers? Yes? Modern calligraphy beginners, this will serve as a good alphabet guide that you can print out and copy. Having an alphabet guide in front of you while practicing will help you familiarise yourselves with the letter forms. This will also show you which stroke should be an upstroke (thin) and which should be a downstroke (thick). Once you are comfortable with writing each letter, then you can explore different styles and eventually come up with your own. How cool is that?

So get your dotted pad, ink, holder and Nikko G nib ready and print this exemplar on an A4 sized card stock. Happy writing! And remember — practice makes pretty!

 

Freebie: Printable To-Do List

Free Printable To-Do List via Happy Hands Project

I was inspired to design this printable to-do list because I feel that writing down our goals for the day (or week) is better than typing it on our smart phone calendars. You can post it on your wall, and it’s easier to see. It makes the list more ‘real’, and it personally helped me manage my time better.

Free Printable To-Do List via Happy Hands Project

The past few months were filled with wedding invitation designs and calligraphy addressing, plus a few commission works here and there. I had to list my deadlines, and make sure I stick to them.

So here’s something to help us stop the procrastination and actually do something! Coz you know what? I love the feeling of ticking one task and proceeding to the next one. The feeling of satisfaction is priceless. I hope you like the freebie for the day!

Download the to-do list printable here.

FONT FANCY: MASTER OF BREAK

Girl Power Print via Happy Hands Project

This font right here is a gem. It’s quite rare to find a well-made font that’s actually free (for personal use, that is. But still), so I really have to share this one. If you want to design a quote or greeting card that needs a hand-lettered feel, Master of Break might be the font you’re looking for.

Contrary to the usual hand-lettered fonts out there, this is not very feminine. But add some girly colours and you’ll get a feminine feel instantly. Use it against a textured black background and you can have a masculine-looking piece. StereoType is the font foundry offering this awesome font, along with other great ones, so it’s worth dropping by their website.

Oh, and you can print the Girl Power artwork above and be reminded to unleash some yourself everyday!

 

Free Brush Lettering Photoshop Brushes

Brush Lettering Photoshop Brushes via Happy Hands Project

I’m back with free Photoshop brushes! The last time I gave away some was 2 years ago, I cannot believe this. This is a fun brush lettering  set that you can use for note cards and greeting cards. I saved it in a very raw setting — meaning it’s organic, and the different colour hues have been retained for a realistic hand-lettered look.

Here’s a quick way to load your Photoshop brushes. According to this tutorial :

Put the brush presets you have downloaded into the folder Photoshop\Presets\Brushes in the Adobe folder in Program Files if you use Windows or in Applications if you use Macintosh. The original brush presets that come with Adobe Photoshop are kept in this folder. The brush presets should have an .abr ending.

When you open a new file in Photoshop, select the brush tool and you will be able to view the new brushes from the fly-out panel. Just a tip on using these lettering brushes — the opacity is a bit light. One click of the brush and you’ll get a pretty translucent effect. If you want a richer, bolder colour, click 2-3 times to reach 100% opacity. That’s what I did in the sample above.

Download your brush lettering pack here and start creating! Looking for calligraphy brushes to add to your collection? The ‘hello’ set can be downloaded here.

Freebie: Printable Holiday Confetti Gift Tags

Confetti Gift Tags via Happy Hands Project

The holidays are coming! I’m very excited for this year’s Christmas because my family’s coming and right now I’m busy putting together our Christmas menu. I have 3 types of dessert on my list now, nothing else.

I know we’re all busy with Christmas shopping, but we should not neglect the art of gift wrapping! I’ve put together some gift tags for you to download and print on card stock. I’ll be using these myself and will be pairing the with some kraft paper-covered gifts. I felt like sprinkling confetti all around me because of the excitement, so here are some confetti-inspired tags to complete your presents. These will look great on gold wrapping paper, too, if you’re into some glam!

You can get your free printable gift tags here. Share the love!

Font Fancy: Saissant by Magpie Paper Works

I’ve always had a soft spot for fonts from Magpie Paper Works. Today I’m sharing one of my favourite handmade fonts, Saissant. I just love its organic feel, and how natural each letter looked. Its style is way too different than my own handwriting, which probably explains why I am simply in love with it!

I just discovered another thing that goes well with this handwritten font – vintage botanical illustrations! So here’s a printable with all the lovely things you can think of– organic letters, botanicals, and Audrey Hepburn. You can download and print this in 2 sizes (they’re free for personal use, of course, but you know that already!).

Download your A4 printable here

Download your letter size printable here