I have kept it no secret that I am head over heels for the foundry Magpie Paper Works. The genius behind the brand Jess is one of my favorite lettering artists.  I love how she has been so prolific and always spot on with the trends on what a designer may be needing but can’t find. Her Vermandois and Saissant are some of the most realistic of the casual/modern hands and she was one of the first to launch with such radically different calligraphy fonts that I feel she opened the gateway for other artists to follow.  Not content to sit back on her previous successes she has launched a gorgeous new font Ahra that will be perfect for both invites and envelopes. It has some truly beautiful contextual alternates & swashes and from the description it reads that she has made it ‘simple & automatic to add end-of-word swashes’. I know Ahra will be as big a success (or bigger) than the ones she has created previously. If you enjoyed my recommendation of the Jacques & Gilles font, I think this has the same feel, but more femme + sophisticated, a great one to add to your collection!

Some others that I think you might like are the newly released Kailey by Molly Jacques, it feels a lot like her own hand that you may have seen pinned everywhere. A bargain font ($5) is the newly released Paris, it has the feel of Strangelove (a hipster staple) but again it is a little more femme.

I have been avoiding writing this for some time now as I always want this spot to be a positive break from all the chaos we seem to collect in our worlds.  One of the most important caveats for writing a blog for me though is to remain authentic and I feel that I have been successful at keeping true to that. I try to paint a very realistic picture of my life, its ups & downs and how I have gotten through it; I do this so others don’t have to take as much time getting to their end goal as it has taken me. I believe in you and I also believe that everyone has the opportunity to be creative even if they don’t think they are, it’s what I hope you take from this blog (oh, and a few great beauty secrets to boot).  You may have noticed that I have gotten a little sporadic around here, it is not my intention to leave my beloved blog high & dry, but I have been very sick for what is going on 4 months. We know what the condition is and we have been treating it but it is kicking my a*!, every day has been a struggle and life has been anything but normal. My normal right now does not include me leaving my sofa, which has made it hard to run my business, but thankfully my husband has been a big help with that. I have small spurts of feeling like I am not going to drop and that’s when I have been able to take pics of the dogs, but I am struggling. Strangely by some devious twist of fate I have had a windfall of opportunity come my way in the last few months, opportunities I could have only dreamed of prior and I have had to pass on almost all of them, which makes me even more heart broken. I am just trying to take this one day at a time and focus as usual on all the great things in my life, I do think staying positive has prevented me from falling into a abyss of self pity.  I just wanted to give you an update, so you know that I am not myself  lately, the posts may not come as frequently, be as creative (or witty) as I would like them to be, but I have high hopes for when I get through this, I do hope you will stick it out with me. Wishing you all a very happy (and healthy) day!