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I've started. I can't say I have mastered hand-lettering, but I can say that I am learning. That is a success.

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It turns out a little better when I attempt bouncing letters. This is a word that I felt like I needed to make my own. Having a guide to learn from is great. It has been very helpful. However, this is my hand-lettering. It is okay to put my own spin on it. One of the things Cory shares when she is teaching you to write a new letter is what that letter looks like in her natural hand writing. So that's what I did. I thought about how I naturally print the letter u and I'm trying to use that to guide how I hand-letter it.

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It didn't take me long to get bored of writing my name. If I go slow and take my time, I am pretty pleased with how that turns out. I am going to continue practicing, but I decided to add a new word. Being in grad school, I write the word due in my planner weekly. It made sense that that would be my next word. The letter u might be the end of my hand-lettering journey. It is tough! I started trying to copy the way my Instagram teacher does it. But it wasn't working for me.

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I won't share all of my pages with you, but several in my notebook look like this one. I was feeling pretty good about my work because I kept saying, " That's actually not terrible." At one point, my husband looked at me and asked how many times I was going to say that. The more I felt they weren't looking terrible, the more I wanted to practice. I wanted to keep going until I wrote it perfectly.

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This one-letter-at-a-time thing might be the best practice, but it is not for me. Just let me practice a word. Tonight, I moved on to my entire name. I did several sheets of practice with my name. Writing my name got me excited about hand-lettering. I felt like I was making progress and actually getting somewhere.

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Frustrated with a letter? Why not add more to it. I'm not sure why I thought an a would be easier if I wrote an el first. It did make them less frustrating, but I can see that connecting my letters seamlessly is going to be a struggle.

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I quickly became frustrated with my letter a. It was difficult. As you can see, I only wrote one that I really liked. This letter is clearly going to take some practice. A feels less natural than the e and l did. It feels like I'm trying to completely change my handwriting.

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It's been a little over a month since I last practiced. As you can see I only wrote el a few times before I decided I was ready to move on. Maybe it was because I felt like they were looking pretty good tonight, but it was more than likely my impatience.

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I told you I struggle with patience. I didn't make very many L's at all before I was ready to start combining letters. It did not start off well at all, but it did improve rather quickly. I need to work on making my connections smoother.

It definitely helps making the two letters different heights.

I know this isn't much, but I am proud of myself for practicing.

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Moving on to the second letter in my name. These all look the same as E's. I struggle with patience. I need to slow down and focus on finding a style I like and then consistently making them in that style.

I'm not sure what to do to make my e's and my l's look different. I'm hoping when I combine the two letters I will be able to see what I need to do differently.

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Another day, another page of E's. It's hard to practice because when you make enough of them, they all look weird and not at all like E's.

I didn't feel in as many of the letters today to thicken them. I was working today on figuring out which style was more natural to me.

I'm hoping they will look more like the letter e to me when I connect them with other letters.

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I've officially started. This little page of e's is exciting. It's the beginning of my journey.

Cory shows two different styles based on the letter that comes before e. Since E is the first letter of my name, I can choose whichever style I prefer. I like the second style better. After writing only a few of these, they all started looking weird. From my strand of Es on the bottom of the paper, I will have to work on consistency with the height of my letters. I also need to work on slowing down and making my letters look smooth.

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There are so many resources out there for learning hand-lettering. I used to spend hours watching Cory's hand-lettering on Instagram. I found her method easy to follow, plus she sells practice sheets on Etsy. This felt like a good place to start.

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Today, I purchased a spiral notebook for this hand lettering project. I covered the front with motivational stickers. It's time to stop putting this adventure off. Today is the day I begin learning to hand-letter.

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Choosing hand lettering was easy. It is something I've always wanted to do. I struggle to have the patience to learn this skill so I am hoping this project will help hold me accountable.