Back to school: Hand calligraphy

For some time now I have been repeatedly looking at beautiful handmade return address stamps on Etsy and wishing that my "nice" handwriting had a bit more "oomph". While growing up I distinctively remember having quite a few handwriting styles from the classic 'bubble' writing to only writing in capital letters before I finally settled into my semi joined up, slanted style. That said, in a rush it turns into the most God awful hieroglyphic mess!

Anyway, I decided it was time to put the handwriting envy to good use and home school myself on how to write better with the end goal being able to master some hand calligraphy. Fetch me the quill and ink!

I've started off trying to master a writing technique called 'Cursive' and I *think* this was the standard writing style taught in American schools until recently. Either way, I don't remember learning this way at school in the UK. There are literally hundreds of worksheets you can print out online and, although it's slightly repetitive and you will be learning how to write words like 'caterpillar' over and over again, I have noticed that this writing style is becoming a lot more natural and that alone has improved the look of my writing.

The next step is going to be developing on this technique to add in all the fancy flicks. Once I find some online tutorials (or if you know of any, let me know!) I will post a part 2 of this mission. I am even tempted to take a weekly night class in calligraphy! Below are some clickable photo links and what I hope i'll one day be able to achieve!

Update: Thanks to one of my lovely readers, Vilay, for pointing me in the direction of the Martha Stewart site where she has a quick 'how to' guide and examples of lower and upper case lettering which is super handy! {CLICK ME}