It finally happened I successfully hosted and completed my first Instagram giveaway. The odds were pretty great, I had a total of 5 participants. If you are math inclined then you know that chances of winning were…pretty great! I also utilized the opportunity to see which was the most popular out of the 6 valentine designs. I’m proud to say “To the Moon & Back” was the popular vote, which is fine with me I love how adorable this moon turned out.

So I’ve designed a FREE card for you and it can be downloaded here! If you have a Michael’s near you, don’t mind ordering from their online shop, or even if you want to cut some paper to size; the design measures 5.5″ x 8″. If you didn’t participate don’t feel too bad I have another project in the works that will end with another giveaway. I plan on doing multiple throughout this year. I’m not sure when but I will be announcing it soon. Probably next week.

Ne was this week’s practice and here I was under the impression that I’d graduated from single letters and pairs into full blown words, boy was I wrong. Eh, what c’ha gonna’ do? All practice is good practice and come to think of it the only way to improve. At this point in the practice book it states “study carefully every part of every letter—every Principle engaged in its production”. I love this because if you didn’t know calligraphy is an art best executed many times slower than your regular handwriting. Since each Spencerian minuscule letter is formed using a combination of the first 4 Spencerian principles, it is best to memorize them by number. Which is why I usually add a note about the stroke count as that is how I execute each letter.

The ne letter combo puts the first 3 Spencerian principles to work with a stroke count of. 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3, 2. I always find myself picking up the pace towards the end of each page as a challenge to see how fast I can execute each pair. Turns out that like most practice, by the end my arm is mostly fatigued but able to power through and execute the exercise with good form. Oh and in case you were still wondering ne is a french word more or less meaning born. Until next week—Happy practicing!