Whether you’re shopping for Christmas or just for fun, I’m going to walk you through my top 10 calligraphy and lettering gifts!
BONUS shhh…there are actually 11. I’m making an announcement of a super special product that I am releasing soon, and I can’t wait to share it with you!
Let the countdown begin! ???
The links below may be affiliate links where appropriate. This means that your purchase through these links may result in a few cents in payment to me, to support creating further resources like this one! That being said, I will never suggest supplies that I do not personally use and fully recommend.
Prefer watching over reading? Feel free to skip right to the video and see these in real-time! ??
Number 10: Ecoline Liquid Watercolour
These liquid watercolours are my favorite for blending your lettering! (I’ve got a couple of videos on that here).
Because they’re so saturated, they blend wonderfully together, and they’re also not the most expensive liquid watercolours – not super cheap but also not the top of the line. I find that they’re perfect for as a medium-priced option and just really beautiful to blend with.
Number 9: Princeton Snap Brushes
Along the same line as the liquid watercolors, are these paintbrushes. You’ll notice on the stem they say round – this is great for watercolour as well as for lettering. These are my very favorite to do any lettering with. The tip stays nice and round.
They can occasionally get discolored from normal wear and tear, but they’ll never mess up your paint colors. These are also not super expensive brushes because they’re synthetic. They’re perfect for what they are made for and I absolutely love them!
Number 8: Bistro Chalk Markers
These chalk markers are what I use for guidelines because they’re not super permanent. I also use them for lettering on windows, mirrors, and chalkboards. Because they’re chalk markers, they come off pretty easily. I’ve got tons of tutorials on all that stuff that you can check out.
Bistro is my favorite brand that comes in this chisel or bullet tip in lots of different sizes, depending on what you want to use more.
I usually buy these at Michael’s, but you can also find them on Amazon.
Number 7: Molotow Acrylic Markers
These are acrylic paint markers! You can tell that I always am doodling on my cutting plasticky surfaces, and packs of Molotow markers are really great for this. I find that these paint pens come with the most versatile colors – not just the basic super bright red, blue, or yellow kinds of colors. They’re all really nice and muted.
There are a ton of different sizes, too. These ones shown above actually have two ends on it. I find this really helpful when I’m working on a job where I can have one tool with two different sizes combined.
The other great thing that I really love about Molotow markers is that they’re refillable! You just twist the top off and you can actually buy different refills of whatever color you need, squeeze it into the bottle, and refill. It’s a little bit more environmentally friendly than throwing out markers every time you need a new one. Alternatively, you can buy empty ones and fill them with whatever color you want. You can also just buy tip replacements. Environmentally friendly + really beautiful colors = win, win!
Number 6: Uniball Signo Pen
This is a gel pen, but it’s one of the most opaque white gel pens you’ll find. It’s really nice for adding embellishments to your work and working on darker papers. It’s one of the only ones I’ve ever found that is actually not going to get duller on a dark background – it sits really nicely on top of paper, staying a really nice and bright white. It also works really beautifully on top of other ink.
This is definitely my favorite white pen!
Number 5: Pigma Micron Pens
So micron pens are not brush pens (though there is one brush pen version of it, but I don’t recommend it!). They come in tons of different sizes and colors (I usually just use black) – 0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, and I’ve also been really enjoying the size 1 lately too. It’s a much thicker one (best for bolder lines) that I really enjoy.
They’re also archival so if you use them on things that you want to last for a long time, they’re not going to fade, and they work really nicely underneath any water. If you’re going to mix watercolour with your micron pens, they’re not going to bleed everywhere.
Number 4: Marker Paper
This specific marker paper is by Canson, but you can really use whatever marker paper you like. I just love to recommend marker paper in general for working with brush pens or even just with watercolour. It’s just a really nice, smooth paper that’s semi-transparent, which is great to put over the top of guidelines when you’re practicing. I always like to use guidelines in all of my lettering.
So if you don’t want to have to draw it on or use a laser level, this is a really, really great type of paper to have.
Number 3: Rhodia Paper
You want to always use nice and smooth paper when you’re working with fresh pens (or even pointed pens, watercolour, etc.), and Rhodia paper is great for this. I recommend this paper for any type of lettering or calligraphy work.
Number 2: Tombow Dual Brush Pens
Getting close to my number one…it’s everyone’s favorite, Tombow Dual Brush Pens! These come in a million (k, not a million, but many) different colors!
You can actually buy this set with a pretty stand that’ll hold them all in one place. You don’t have to buy them like this – you can buy them in packs of 12, or you can buy them individually. There are so many different options.
Dual brush pens are really good for big work, for example, if you want to write bigger, or if you want to do any blending with your lettering. These pens blend really nicely together. And the cool thing about them is that there are two ends – one end is a brush tip. It’s nice and flexible and will give you some big juicy lettering. The other end is just a felt tip brush/pen and can be used for embellishments and fun little techniques, not for brush lettering.
Number 1: Tombow Fudenosuke Pen
If you’ve been following me for a while, this will be no big surprise! This pen has two different sizes and is my absolute favourite small tip brush pen. They’re just black ink, but the two barrels of the pens are slightly different colours. The blue one is a Fudenosuke hard tip. It’s a little bit easier to use as a beginner. The greenish-grey one is a soft tip, and it’s just slightly softer than the smaller one, which can be harder to use as a beginner.
It’s really hard to tell a difference in these if you don’t know what you’re looking for and so either of them is great for beginners. I recommend just buying both and seeing which one you like better. In any case, these are definitely what I use 99% of the time on my own work!
And that’s it!
…just kidding!
I promised you one more bonus one and here it is…
Bonus! The Happy Ever Crafter brush pens!
Last year, I launched my very own branded Zebra Brush Pens (the ones on the right in that photo above!).
If you’ve been around a while, you might remember that last time I put these on my website they sold out within three hours, which is insane!
The good news is that I have them back in stock, and I’m also launching a BRAND NEW HOLIDAY SET!
I’ve created another set with Zebra that has silver, gold, red, green and black pens. These are great for decorating cards and other holiday projects.
Both of these packs are going to be available on my website on Black Friday.
Sign up here to be notified as soon as they’re available!
If you’re looking at this before Black Friday, you can go and be on the list, and I’ll email you as soon as they’re available so you have first dibs on them!
For more on supplies, click here for my free 50-page guide!
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