Punch Up Your Holiday Cards with Caligraphy

This year, skip on that same holiday photo card of you and the kids and design your own. Seaworthi owner and designer Farin Blackburn gives us a quick how-to on using calligraphy to craft cards worthy of the season.

The goods
Blackburn suggests picking up a Speedball brand starter calligraphy set — which includes a pen holder, nib (the actual pen point), ink and more — at a craft store. But she says spring for better ink such as Yasutomo sumi ink. “It doesn’t dry fast, but it’s very black,” she says. “It goes on really smoothly.”

The hold
Dip the nib into the ink and stop when it reaches halfway up the small oval opening. Hold the pen at a 45-degree angle and let it softly glide across the paper. “You’re barely pressing on the pen,” Blackburn says. “It’s like if someone’s running fingers across your skin very softly.”

The word
Before jumping ahead to “Happy Holidays,” try something simple at first such as “Hello.” “That’s the best word to write, because it’s literally just loops,” Blackburn says. Start with a loop at the top of the H and follow through with loops in the E, both L’s and finally the O.