Holiday Lettering Gift Guide (& Wish List)

*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I've been hand lettering for juuuuust about 2 years now. Its something that I have always been interested in learning but never really took the time or initiative to make the commitment to learn. After I unexpectedly lost my Mom, I needed something to help get my creative mojo back and to provide me something to focus on. I took the plunge and signed up for a lettering class with Amanda Arneill and the rest was, as they say, history...

Since I have recently taken my blog back up, I thought it would be fun to share my favorite lettering supplies for those looking for gifts for the hand letterer in their lives (hint, hint). So without further ado, my top choices for letterers.. beginning or experienced!

1. Tracing Paper... as a newbie letterer, you will go through TONS of tracing paper. It is super helpful as you use practice guides and learn to layout quotes or blocks of text. I use Strathmore brand because it is reasonably priced and works great!!

2. Waterbrushes... if you decide to make the transition to watercolor lettering or lettering with ink, water brushes are indispensable. Its good to have a variety of sizes.

3. Rhodia Pads.. Relatively inexpensive, available in a variety of sizes that are blank, dotted or lined, these are great practice pads and the paper is super smooth making them gentle on your favorite pens. My favorite are the dotted pages.

4. Kassa Liquid Chalk Markers.. These are on my own wish list this year. Kassa is known for high quality markers that are great for chalkboard projects, plus they come in a ton of luscious colors!

5. Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pens.. I think in virtually any hand lettering class you take, you will start with these pens. Available in hard or soft tip, these affordable brush pens are the perfect starter pens for hand letterers.

6. Molotow Acrylic Paint Markers... Someone in one of my lettering groups on FB recommended these to me for wood signs and I AM HOOKED!! The white is super white, they write in virtually any surface and are permanent on most of them as well. I love that the tips are replaceable and they are refillable making them a but of an investment up front but TOTALLY worth the $$. So far I have black, white, gold and silver but I am hoping that Santa will put some other colors under the Christmas Tree for me this year.

7. SumoGrip Retractable Eraser... I have a giant rectangle eraser from these guys too but I love this pen grip style. Practicing lettering means lots of erasing and these are easy to hold and erase cleanly.

8. Hand Lettering by Megan Wells... I adore Megan Instagram page and was excited when she released her book. I love her style. This has the basics plus tips for flourishing and developing your own style, plus there are practice sheets and guides making the book truly interactive.

9. iPad Pro... So far I have stuck solely to "analog" lettering but I am thinking I might be ready to venture forth and try my hand at some digital lettering. I understand that the iPad Pro is the way to go. This rose gold model would match my phone Santa! LOL

10. Stanley Laser Level... This might seem weird until you're faced with lettering a bunch of envelops or signs for a wedding. Save yourself a ton of erasing and use the laser line that this level projects on to your project for straight lettering and no mess!

11. iPencil... This is the dust have companion to the iPad for digital lettering. I am dying to try one!!

Is that it? Certainly not! Many letterers would say I am remiss at not including the Tombow Dual Brush Markers to my list. These are great but as a newbie I found them extremely challenging and frustrating. If you have a little more experience under your belt, definitely put these on your wish list too. They come in many beautiful colors and can be blended for fun techniques.

In addition, a great gift idea is classes.. as I mentioned above I started by taking a class from Amanda Arneill but I have also taken online classes from Teela at Every-Tuesday.com. There are great, affordable classes on lettering (and more) through sites like Skillshare or CreativeBug and many of our favorite letters on Instagram have websites and classes available too. 

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