Free font: Moonshiner

Mattox Shuler has designed a new typeface called Moonshiner. It comes in uppercase regular and italic, with a few alternate characters when you type in lowercase. Find a link to download it for free right here.

I can visualize it on the menus for the new pub you're opening. Where you sell locally-sourced free range chicken and craft beers, and all your customers wear beards and tattoos and skinny jeans. Right?

(Via Pixel Pixel Pixel)

Chocolate and the color orange

Want to hear something I learned over the holiday break? Hot Chocolate Tastes Much Better In an Orange Cup. It's scientifically proven. I suppose one ought to have a brown or blue cup for optimal coffee drinking, but that goes into my orange cup, too.

Thank you to the folks who sent me this interesting article! From now on, I will only eat my strawberry mousse off of white plates.

Printable New Year's gift tags for bottles

As 2012 draws to a close, I wish everyone a happy new year! Thanks so much for reading, commenting, and sharing ideas with me this year.

If you'll be heading to a party, you might make use of these printable gift tags I whipped up. Download, print, trim, and fill out the "to" space to make a bottle of wine or champagne a little more festive.

Download the PDF here (2.4 MB)

On a related note, I used a gift certificate from Moo.com, the printing company, to make some matching greeting cards. I'm always on the lookout for good printers in my line of work, so I was eager to give them a try. Opening the box I got in the mail was like Christmas, since it had fun stickers and graphics printed inside. I've never seen a commercial printer put so much thought and care into their packaging. The cards and envelopes were snuggled in their compartments securely, and they were flawless. Vibrant colors and thick paper stock. And the cool thing about Moo is that I could have put a different design on every single card in the pack if I'd wanted to, all included in the price. I'm impressed. Put Moo in your rolodex for future reference.

And with that, I'm signing off for now! I'll resume posting the second week of January, after a holiday break full of traveling and hosting visitors. Happy 2013!

Cheap, homemade Christmas ornaments

Our Christmas tree has a few purchased ornaments on it, but most are paper things I've made. For a recap of the tutorials:

Modular balls
Flowers
Teardrops
Snowflakes
Ice cream cones
Striped bulbs
Retro foam ornaments
Origami garland (not on the tree at the moment, since it's in the process of getting longer.)

Merry Christmas, everyone!

DIY paper teardrop ornaments

I made a few more ornaments for my mostly paper-decorated tree. It's been super gloomy outside, so the corner of the living room with the tree is too dark for picture taking. Imagine these on a silver Christmas tree, instead of hanging from the wooden skewer I taped temporarily to the window sill to obtain maximum natural light. Ha!

To make these paper teardrops, download the template and print it on colored paper.

Cut out the drops, then fold them in half lengthwise with the printed side facing out. Cut out the hole in the middle.

Align the sides of two pieces and glue them together. Keep gluing in more pieces until the ornament is as full as you like. I used 16 pieces for these, but you could add even more. Then string the ornaments on thread.

Generate mini typographic posters

If you've got a favorite quote, you can visit recitethis.com and turn it into a graphic for display on websites and blogs. If you don't have a favorite quote, you can pick from a big library of phrases. Generated images are low resolution (about 2" wide at 300 dpi, standard print res) but they're amply sized for the web. Have fun creating and sharing!

(Thanks, Tania!)

Make an origami penguin

I folded this little origami penguin by following the step-by-step video tutorial from Jo Nakashima. All the pre-creasing went well, but the wings and tail had me scratching my head a little while. Fortunately it turned into a penguin and not a crumpled paper ball in my garbage can. I will not be making a penguin army, but I think somebody should.

A roundup of holiday wallpaper freebies

If your desktop, phone, or tablet could use a dash of festivity, download these free Christmas wallpapers in assorted sizes.

Above, wallpaper from Ampersand Design Studio with a matching gift tag download

From Wordpress, in blue and red versions

From Ciera Designs

From West Elm, an assortment of choices

From The Henry Ford (scroll down a bit when you get there)

From Eleanor Grosch, a variety of options

From ModCloth, various designs