Michelle and I are enjoying our summer (and I hope you are too). I suppose if you are on the other side of the globe than keeping cozy with your winter (hard to envision winter when it’s 90 + out). We are doing a ‘best of besotted’ this week. These are the posts that you found the most interesting or shared with others (we thank you). Hopefully some of these posts will be new to you and just as exciting as it was for others. Enjoy!

I re-designed this blog with the intention of it becoming a creative resource destination, I had this grand idea that I would create a series called ‘Good to know’. My idea was that I would present information and/or products to you that would be equal parts ‘aha!’ and ‘I am so happy to know that’. Being that I have been on this earth much longer than most of the visitors here I have aggregated quite a storehouse of info in my little brain. Most of the time I think, ‘this is lame everyone knows about this already, don’t they?’ After being told time and time again from people that they were so excited by the tid bits I shared in my personal life, I thought what the heck? If even one or two of you are excited than I am pleased, but secretly I am hoping that more of you are all like ‘whoa, no way’. To that I would counter–‘way’. I wasn’t planning on sharing my first ‘Good to know’ on my Lettering Love post, but it fit and I like order, you? There’s a current chalk typography frenzy that has blown through the blogosphere like polyester on fire, I don’t know about you, but traditional chalk and myself are not compatible. I have tried and tried, I have even followed a Pinterest suggestion of taking a traditional chalk stick and using a large pencil sharpener to create a point. I know, this sounds like genius, but it’s stupid, don’t try it, it’s messy and still looks like you wrote out your typographical masterpiece in chalk (but bad chalk). Lately, I have been teaching myself to draw (I will go more into that soon) and was buying some pencils with soft lead when I spied the white charcoal pencils or chalk pencils; yes, the angels indeed started singing and beams of bright light shone (shined?) down from the heavens above. Chalk pencils are exactly what I needed (and perhaps you too?) to create beautiful and legible chalk art. I love that I can get extra thin strokes, yet I can still get a nice thick stroke as well. This is brilliant folks! The best part is that they are very inexpensive and there doesn’t seem to be a difference between brands. I bought both The General’s Charcoal White and Giocanda’s White Chalk (you can can find them in singles as well) and felt that there wasn’t much quality differential (within the parameters I am using them for). So, if you were planning on using chalkboard art for your next event or even home decor, I hope I saved you from pulling out all your hair or committing hari-kiri--you are welcome.

P.S. The background is a faux chalkboard d.i.y. by Jenny of Hank & Hunt (a fave).