8 August 2012

For Snail Mail Writers, and Bloggers

The other day, while browsing the Internet, I discovered some fantastic free fonts and a wonderful collection of free images. Immediately I wanted to use every font and every picture. But how? Should I write every blog post in a different font? Post a different picture every day? Then I had an idea…
My girls love writing letters, the snail mail variety. Emails are all very well, but nothing beats running out to the mailbox and discovering a real letter.
Letters are fun to write and receive… and they are educational. Letter writing is a wonderful way to practise spelling, handwriting, sentence construction, creative writing… It’s real work… unlike writing exercises.
The other morning, I was watching Gemma-Rose writing a letter. I was amazed: I don’t know when she learnt to spell so well, or write so quickly. It seems only a few days ago, I was helping her spell every word, and making suggestions on what she could write. I remember this conversation:
I said to Gemma-Rose, “… how will you learn how to spell?”

“I’ll pick it up as I go along,” she answered confidently.

It seems Gemma-Rose’s prediction was correct.
Sometimes the girls like to handwrite their letters and sometimes they use the computer. There are delights in both methods.
If they write by hand, they usually adorn their letters with stickers and drawings, perhaps a bit of glitter too.
But if they use the computer they can change the fonts, and add photos and clip art, and borders. And they can use all the free images I have just discovered, as well as fonts like these:
This font is called Henny Penny.
And this one’s called Love Ya Like a Sister.
How about The Girl Next Door?
Or Satisfy?
 Maybe you might like Spirax.
Then there’s a font called Scrogglet.
There seems to be an endless variety of fonts. I downloaded these ones from Google Web Fontsonto my computer as zip files. After extracting and installing the fonts, I started playing around with them. I decided to write a couple of letters of my own to some little friends. And then I showed what I’d produced to the girls, and they wanted to have a go too.
We used Microsoft Word to write our letters. We decided to add some images to make our letters look attractive. I clicked ‘insert’, followed by ‘clip art’, and discovered a box saying, Find more (images) at Office.com. Soon we were browsing 1000s of images looking for just the right ones. We couldn’t decide… so many attractive ones to choose from. We will have to write lots and lots of letters to use all our favourites.
So if they are any snail mail letter writers in your family perhaps you’d like to explore Google Web Fonts and Office.com
And don’t forget to add a Freddo frog or a photo or a holy card to your letter to make it extra special.

Something else..
It is possible to add the Google Web fonts to a blog, so they can be used directly for blog headers, post titles, text, posts… You will need to copy a couple of codes and insert them in the right place in your blog’s HTML code. I haven’t yet tried this. It might be a bit fiddly but I’m sure it works.

Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

6 Comments

  1. This is pretty, Sue! It's a good way to make an email look a bit more personal, isn't it?

    I'll take a look and see if it works on the iPad!

    God bless, Sue:-)

    • Vicky,

      Let me know if it does work on your iPad. I just viewed this blog on my Xoom tablet and the fonts aren't visible. All the words are in Arial whereas, on my laptop, the different fonts show up. This will confuse some readers, no doubt! Never mind. I don't know how to solve that problem. At least, the fonts should work for emails and letters, if they are downloaded and used with Word.

      Thanks for your comment!

  2. I sort of have a fascination with different fonts. I just get so bored with the same old boring letters and new fonts are so much fun! I will have to check this out and share it with my kids as well. They also love writing letters (and receiving them) and could have a great time playing around with this. You always find such great new things, thanks for always sharing!

    • Kari,

      We share a fascination! There are so many attractive fonts available. Yes, why use the same one all the time?

      The Internet has opened up so many possibilities as far as learning goes. There's some great things out there. Good to share them with you!

  3. Will you see my comment – a week after your post went up?
    I love fonts, too, and have enjoyed creating (by hand) a few over the years.

    Well, I'm thinking of writing you another letter!

    • Amy,

      It doesn't matter how long a post has been up, I will always see, publish and enjoy a comment…. especially if it's from you!

      Another letter? Wow! That would be lovely. I still have your other ones. I keep everything to add to my journal. When I'm old, I'm going to get them out and remember and enjoy them again.

      I'd love to see your fonts. I find handwriting fascinating. It's just a pity mine is so bad.

      God bless!

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