Everywhere you look, there is beautiful brush lettering- quotes on canvases, on cards, and stickers. So what do you do when you have just the right title for your scrapbook layout, but your Silhouette Cameo is barricaded in your craft room due to a renovation? You make your own!

Now, I’m by no means a hand lettering expert. I took the Easy Hand Lettering Class by Tracie Claiborne and another one on Big Picture Classes called Lettering with Watercolor by Amanda Arneill.  I haven’t practiced as much as I would have liked, but I’m getting better. Slowly, but surely. This wasn’t the first time I used brush lettering in one of my scrapbooks. I used it in one of my Project Life layouts here and really liked the way it turned out. So when I was making another layout based on a sketch and needed a quick title, I got out the watercolors and my Pentel Aquash Water Brush.

The sketch used three long strips of paper to frame the photos and journaling, but I was just about to fall asleep the other night and the idea to use acrylic paint popped into my mind. I got these acrylic paints by Ali Edwards when I went to the Studio Calico Warehouse Sale a couple of months ago and I’ve been using them on all sorts of projects. I love the colors and how easy they are to use!

While the paint was drying on the patterned paper, I painted the word heart with black watercolor paint on some mixed media paper by Strathmore. There are all sorts of techniques and styles you can use with your brush lettering, but the simplest way to break it down is this: light, thin upstrokes and thick, heavy downstrokes. I painted the word several times before I did one I liked and, once it dried, I fussy cut it.

It isn’t perfect, but it has the handmade look that I was going for. Sometimes you just have to let go of perfection and value what you have created. I added a heart die cut from Elle’s Studio and pink square letter stickers from My Mind’s Eye. The mix of colors and fonts add interest to the title and tie it in with the other embellishment clusters.

This the first time I saw my niece with her new glasses. Isn’t she cute? Seeing her in them reminded me of the first time I wore my glasses to class in the fourth grade. My teacher, Sister Perpetua, (I went to a Catholic elementary school) made me stand up at my desk and announced that I had new glasses and told my fellow classmates “how pretty I was”. It was awful! I know she meant well, but I was terribly self-conscious and the last thing I wanted was to draw attention. Fortunately, Gabby is happy and confident about her glasses. I thought the Memories wood piece was a good tie between her new glasses and my memory.

I have to admit, I struggled to find the right embellishments for this cluster. It’s a common problem I seem to be having lately, so I forced myself to find something and move on. I had a pretty busy weekend and my craft time was super limited. The last thing I wanted to do was spend hours obsessing over each and every die and sticker I have trying to find the perfect combination. Stick it down and move on!

This little rocket ship right here was the starting point for my product choice on this layout. It and the patterned paper is from Shimelle’s True Stories collection and I loved it the moment I laid eyes on it. The colors are happy and versatile and the die cuts are just too cute. I loved the rocket ship, but wasn’t sure when I’d have the chance to use it. Enter this photo of me and my nephew. The fact that I had acrylic paint to match was just a bonus!

Do you remember when those tear strips on 12×12 scrapbook papers were just the UPC codes? I love that more and more companies have gone to making the strip out of coordinating papers. I made the gray banner out of the strip I trimmed off the top of the patterned background paper. The pink banner was made out of a piece of pink scrap paper I had on hand. The Good Stuff puffy sticker is from Elle’s Studio and, even though the color is not an identical match, I like the way the circle breaks up all the straight lines  of the banners and typewriter.

So, there you have it. My latest scrapbook layout with a brush lettered title. Have you been bitten by the brush lettering craze? What ways do you incorporate it into your scrapbook pages?

Related Posts: How to Prep Your Vacation Scrapbook, A Return to the 12×12 Layout