I have been doing a good bit of work with Speedball Art Products, mainly doing metal leafed calligraphy and my “Everyday Calligraphy.” I want to show different techniques from time to time and thought I would start with this one. My daughter, Jennifer kindly agreed to be my hand model. The first photo shows a C1 nib in a dip pen holder loaded with a 60/40 mix of Mona Lisa Extra Thick Leafing adhesive and water that is tinted with Burnt Umber ink just so you can see it when you letter. This is lettered on laser vellum from Staples but any heavyweight vellum will work. You need a nonporous surface so the adhesive sits on top of the surface and does not sink down into the surface because then there is nothing to adhere the leafing.

Now we have finished, adhesived lettering that has dried for about 20 minutes to the tacky stage and the Gold Simple Leaf that will be used for the leafing. The difference in Simple Leaf and regular leafing is that the Simple Leaf is attached to a waxed sheet and it stays on the sheet until you adhere it to adhesive. Not nearly so much mess!

Place the leafing sheet, shiny side down over the lettering and rub with your fingers, applying a good bit of pressure, until the leafing sheet breaks free from the lettering. That will save the sheet of leafing for future use as only the lettered area comes off. If you just rub lightly a whole lot of the leafing pulls off.

This is what you want to see when you lift off the sheet of leafing.

Now fold up a piece of soft cloth or a soft paper towel into a pad and “gently” rub over the lettering to remove the excess leafing.

Isn’t that just “too cool!” The Simple Leaf also comes in Silver and Copper and soon will be available in variagated colors. Can’t wait for that!

Now let’s make a card out of the gold metal leafed lettering. Here is the piece of lettered vellum being given a deckle edge by pulling up the large side along the edge of a specialty ruler that has some decorative edges. Slow and steady is the way to pull!

Now we have the lettered vellum, a piece of pretty paper measuring 4″ x 6″ and a blank greeting card that measures 5″ x 7″

Use vellum adhesive to attach the vellum to the pretty paper and double stick tape to attach the pretty paper to the card. Voila! A lovely handmade card.

When I am doing metal leafed calligraphy I usually do a whole page of words in different colors of leafing so I have them all ready for the next time I need a card. Here you can see some other words done in other colors with other papers. When I store my extra words I place waxed paper over them to protect the leafing. I also show the calligraphy framed as artwork instead of card. So much framed artwork in stores right now are words. Try it, you’ll like it!