Easy Calligraphy Wrapping Paper

This is one of my favorite ways to wrap a present these days.  It's easy and cheap and beautiful, three words that are music to my ears!

Take a piece of kraft wrapping paper ($1.00 a roll at Dollar Tree) and use markers of any color (including gold or silver ink ones) to write the message of your choice.  This was wrapping paper for a birthday present, so I did a no-brainer message:

The kind of marker I used dries instantly, so the paper is immediately ready for wrapping.

This actually works better if you write the words such that they are staggered on the paper and the lines of words overlap on the package, but this morning I was going for quick and easy.  It's still fun and personal, because you took the time to make it.  You could even add the name of the recipient to make it ultimately personalized.

Have fun with this simple technique!

How About Another Envelope Style?

I ran across this style on the Internet the other day and had to try it out for myself.  You all know I can't resist this kind of envelope decoration.  Kind of plain, but I like it.  It could definitely be cleaned up some, but what do you think?

The Week of Ink, Day 7 (The End): De Atramentis Johannes Brahms

Today's ink is another beautiful De Atramentis ink, named after the famous composer Johannes Brahms.  Many ink manufacturers make inks named after famous people, and most of the time it's not clear (to me at least) what the relationship is between the person and the color.  That holds true for this ink as well.  What relationship is there between Brahms, who composed at the height of the Romantic period, and this reddish/salmonish/melonish colored ink?  Who knows?  However, it's a great color of ink and (like most of the De Atramentis inks) fantastically well-behaved, even if I can't exactly decide what that color is.  Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

One sad note -- this ink appears to be gone from the market now.  Not available from Goulet Pens, certainly -- I must have bought it as a closeout -- and not even listed on the De Atramentis website.  Oh well.  I will enjoy my sample until it is gone, I suppose.

So I was thinking about Brahms, and his music, in connection with this ink.  I am not familiar with very much of Brahms' work, but two of his works -- the German Requiem and his Symphony Number 1 -- are among my all-time favorite pieces of music.  The fourth movement of his German Requiem, "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place," is especially fine.  If you have never heard it, you are missing one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.  So, thanks to the magic of YouTube, I would like to share this with you.

Here we are at the end of the Week of Ink, and I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have.  During this week, I have learned a few valuable things:
1. Always take the plunge and order the bottle of an ink that you like, because there's no guarantee that ink will be available forever.
2. I really like using a different color every day, or at least much more frequently than I am used to.  And it takes just a couple of minutes to flush a pen and switch out inks.  It's not that hard, if you have the right tools.
3. I like using colors, period.  This little experiment has made me much more comfortable using all kinds of colors of ink.  If you are one of my penfriends, there's no telling what color you will see from me in my next letter!

The Week of Ink, Day 6: De Atramentis Magic Druid

Today, a very interesting ink.  "Magic Druid" appears to be part of a "Myth and Magic" series that De Atramentis produced a couple of years back.  These inks are no longer available at Goulet Pens, where I got my sample, but a quick Internet search turns up some bottles still available out there.  However, this is one of the most important lessons I have learned from my Week of Ink -- if you like an ink, you should buy a bottle of it as soon as possible, because most inks eventually go off the market, or get their formulations changed, etc.  So when it comes to ink, carpe diem!

This ink is nice, but really too light for me.  Plus the scent is a little off -- the ink is probably supposed to smell like a deep, dark pine forest where druids are holding their mysterious rituals and doing all kinds of magical deeds.  Unfortunately, the ink scent reminds me of Pine-Sol.  Pleasant, to be sure, but not mysterious and magical.

The Week of Ink, Day 5: Private Reserve Foam Green

So by now we all know I like green ink.  Yep.  Probably at least a quarter to a third of the samples in my ink sample box are greens of one sort or another.  But all greens are NOT created equal!  Exhibit A: this very pretty (but way too light for me) Foam Green ink from Private Reserve.  I like Private Reserve inks a lot -- their Sherwood Green is one of my all-time favorites.  But this ink is definitely a miss for me.  Oh well -- during Ink Week there have to be some inks that don't make the cut!  (Cue dramatic music.)

The Week of Ink, Day 4: Diamine Evergreen

I love green ink.  There.  I said it.  Even though green ink is traditionally associated with slightly unhinged people, I love it.  But it has to be the right shade of green.  I don't want an ink that looks like I smeared a bunch of leaves around on my paper.

Today's ink, Diamine Evergreen, is a perfect dark green ink -- almost a green-black, perhaps, although this photograph does not bring out those qualities.  Definitely a candidate for a bottle purchase!

The Week of Ink, Day 3: De Atramentis Chocolate

Either I have a lot of DeAtramentis scented inks in my ink box, or I need to go play the slot machines or something.  Calm down, we are NOT taking a trip to the casino (at least not today).  A while back I splurged on samples of just about every scented ink DeAtramentis makes (samples purchased from the supreme Goulet Pens, don't you know), and so my ink box is a little skewed in that direction.  But I don't mind!

Today we have a Chocolate ink that really does smell like chocolate.  But only in the bottle.  And even though it is a beautiful ink, it's a little too reddish for my taste.  This is definitely not milk chocolate.  In my book it would do pretty well not as a brown, but as a deep dark red.  It may be just the color for you, however!  Give a shout-out below and tell me what you think.