Craft -- Merlins Tower

Free Sample of Various Handwriting Font Styles Print and Italic

Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, Art, Communication, Craft, Firefox, Freeware, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office.

1 comment.

Free Handwriting Practice Paper

Posted on January 16th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Craft, Freeware, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Tutorial, Web Service.

Handwriting Practice Worksheets - Free Download Greetings Everyone - a loyal reader Dave was kind enough to send this tip for to me to share with the rest of the readers. It is where to get a PDF of handwriting practice paper. It is designed for children but can be quite useful when you want to practice your new found love of cursive or italic handwriting. Note if your printer can do it print it 2 per sheet to allow you a smaller line for more adult sized writing ** Great Tip Dave - THANKS**

The Paper is available here - just save out the PDF file to your computer and you will be good to go. (Sounds like a Taco Bell Commercial)

Now I didn't print this our for myself by upon inspection this paper is similar to that is included in the back of the write now book. I can see using this when I get a new fountain pen and just want to play with how the nib works and writes without scribbling in my journal.

Technorati Tags: Fountain+Pen, Fountain, pen, Ink, writing, free, worksheet, pdf, print, practice, help, guide, cursive, handwriting, writing

1 comment.

Pen and Ink - Online Fountain Pen

Posted on January 13th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, Communication, Craft, Journaling, Web Service.

Thought I had to share a site that I came across today. It is a site that you can use your mouse to write with a broad italic style nib for a calligraphy writing. It was just fun playing around with. I did the drawing below on a laptop with only a travel mouse. You can do much better if you have a pen tablet to really get that fountain pen feel. Funny thing is that the Fountain Pen looks like a stick. You do get two choices of ink colors a nice Black and a bright red. You do get to draw and write on a nice piece of parchment paper on the screen. There is no easy way to save what you draw - The only way I saw you can do it is to screen capture the whole screen and paste it into a graphic editor and crop down to what you want to save.

Sorry for not posting the link to Pen and Ink

Technorati Tags: Fountain, Pen, Fountain+Pen, Online, Service, Art, Ink

2 comments.

Lego Move Over - We Now have PixelBlocks

Posted on January 4th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Craft, Gadgets, Web Service, Weird Stuff.

I enjoy looking at catalogs, and I love the Gadget sites (ie. Levengers, Hammacher Schlemmer, Think Geek, CompGeek, Cyberguys etc…) While I was drinking my morning coffee and just finished my morning run thru of my email - I took a look at FireBox.com - And their PixelBlocks Caught my eye. This really is a cool toy - I can see it almost replacing Lego's well for at least in the art department. Vision, Dream, and Fantasy - Those are the names of the sets of PixelBlocks available (550, 870 and 2000 Pieces) With any of these sets you can really make some impressive looking deisgns. Such at this nice looking Dog done all in Pixel Blocks.

But you wonder how are you going to make your own design to play with all of these different Pixel Blocks - Don't Fear - PixelBlock.com is here to the rescue.

On their Website you can upload your own photo and have it converted into your own pattern that you can follow This Free service is called Digital Stained Glass. Besides just making pictures with this interesting toy you can also build some interesting designs because these blocks allow you to connect them three different ways (Slide, Half Slide and Peg Connect) and comes in a wide array of colors. I think this would be a great mind expanding toy to play with or to at least play with your kid?

TAGS:PixelBlocks Pixel+Blocks Lego Bricks Pixel Art Stained Glass Stained+Glass 2d 3d

0 comments.

The Ink Free Writing Instrument!

Posted on January 2nd, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Anything Else, Art, Communication, Craft, Gadgets, Journaling, Sketching.

1 comment.

Fountain Pen Care and Feeding: Handwriting Improvement

Posted on December 26th, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Craft, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking.

Fountain Pen Handwriting So, you received a fountain pen from Santa for Christmas and now you realize the reason you mostly use email for all of your communications as even you can not read your own handwriting even 5 mins after you wrote it down? Well in the continuation of the Fountain Pen Care and Feeding Series - Todays topic is how to use your fountain pen for the greater good or how to improve your handwriting. Bad Handwriting can be extremely bad for all (Check out this Article on how much damage bad handwriting does to the medical industry - Via CNN Or This article)

I personally have used and like what I have learned from The Write-Now Course on Handwriting - Here is one of the many reviews on Amazon about this handwriting course:

It's Never Too Late to Change Your Handwriting, Reviewer: A reader
Like so many others, I learned the standard "ball and stick" print style of handwriting and progressed to the "looped" cursive style when I was in grade school–and I got very high marks in penmanship. By high school I could write fastest in cursive, but I was taking notes so fast it became illegible. Somehow I made it through graduate school taking notes fast and figuring out what I wrote later. Ever since then, I've chosen the computer over handwriting as much as possible. (Not to mention the "looped" cursive isn't very masculine.)

Enter "Write Now". What a great book! "Write Now" teaches a style of handwriting called Italic (meaning "from Italy"). My first thought was that this was some "new" style and couldn't be as good as the "basics" I was taught. Turns out, what I was taught is the "new" style (19th century) and Italic is the more traditional (16th century). It is the style that was used by Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo.

Italic focuses on efficiency, ergonomics, legibility, and speed. It easily transitions from print to cursive to calligraphy with little change in the way you write the characters. "Write Now" is broken into three sections: 1) Basic Italic (print) 2) Cursive Italic and 3) Edged Pen Italic (calligraphy). With good explanations and illustrations, it is a pleasure to learn a new style of handwriting.

"Write Now" is geared towards adults (or teens) and presents a "cartoon's guide" to the history of handwriting throughout–a good reference even if you don't want to improve your handwriting. The author's are veteran educators and have produced an entire series of books on Italic handwriting to take kids from kindergarten through grade school. They are also in very high demand for in-house hospital seminars to those who most desparately need handwriting help–doctors. :-)

I recommend this book highly. My handwriting has already improved. I actually look for reasons throughout the day to use my new skills. If you're like me, don't pass this one up.

But if you are not looking to purchase a book on how to improve your handwriting you can get some tips from the following websites such as the article "Handwriting Tips" on PaperPenalia.
Most of the other sites I found on Handwriting are usually geared towards youth such as "Draw Your World" Page on Handwriting. But still you can get some good information from it as well.

Calligraphy Example But perhaps you thought a fountain pen was going to "Make you write Fancy" well that fancy handwriting has a name - Calligraphy - and actually requires a special nib or ink pen for Calligraphy Writing called an italic nib and comes in various styles. Yes, you can still use a regular pen or fountain pen and follow the instructions for italic handwriting (I again like the directions in the Write Now Book) But if you would like some additional instructions on Calligraphic Writing check out the PDF located at the bottom of Handwriting for Kids Page Or you can check out the Italic Handwriting Page from Studio Arts Page. But to learn more about Calligraphy and explore more web pages with Calligraphy (Which BTW Means Beautiful Handwriting) would be the 42 Explore Page.

TAGS: Handwriting Italic Penmanship calligraphy fountain pen fountain+pen writing free course info

3 comments.

Colfer Imperial Inks - Concentrated - Variable Intensity Fountain Pen Inks

Posted on December 15th, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Communication, Craft, Journaling.

There is a new fountain pen ink company just starting up. It is the Colfer Imperial Inks - But this company is very different from any of the other ink companies out there. As Colfer Sells his inks in Concentrated Form and you get to mix them yourself with distilled water. This is called the worlds only adjustable ink. Which means you get to select how much color you use. The inks can be made in a ratio of 4:1 to 6:1 (That is 4 parts water to one part ink concentrate - This gives you the stongest color) The 6:1 will be the lightest color. I like this Idea as I get to control the color and not the manufacture / producer of the ink.

Colfer Imperial Ink Color Chart - Links to Fountain Pen Network Page

Using these inks from what I read there are just a few rules to follow - First only use after mixing them with distilled water and second only mix the colors after mixing them with distilled water. Yes you can play chemist and mix the colors to make your own trademark color for your favorite fountain pen. I really like the colors that are available and I think it would be nice to have an economical ink that works as well as it is described. (I am going to have to save my pennies up and purchase a few of this inks) From the charts my favorites are Signat Red - Cotes de Nuits - New York Central Jade - Blue Spruce and Soveriegn Blue.

BTW - once I do get my hands on some of this ink I will be writing out a full review for all to read.

Addtional Notes - You can purchase these pre mixed or in several various options from small EZTrav vial or the EZUze or the complete kit 1oz of concentrate and a 2oz mixing bottle.

I have to admit I love trains and I just love Colfer's Logo: Wow one Great Train: The Pennslyvania T1 Steam Engine Streamlined.

Link to Order Inks from Colfer's Page