Woke up today with a tear in my eyes, I had a very bad dream! I can still recall what had occurred in the dream and I keep on reminding myself that everything is but a dream!

It's a new morning, new start, brand new chances and new life to begin with.

Plus! It's the most loved day throughout the year because its the hearts' day today!

Opened my journal and of course I had to add something today, anything about love!

Let me share to you how I made this hand lettering page from the start to finish. Plus a time lapse video of the entire creation process!

But first, let me talk about love in the context of the quote written in my journal today.

"LOVE" is a profound word. It can be used in expressing emotions, it can also be an adjective, an act and even a selfless attitude. With love, everything becomes possible.

Humans as we are, we have a great tendency of giving our all in love. And when I say all, I mean a good one. Giving our all out of love is not only a humanely thing, God even gave His all because of all. We are only manifesting the attitude that God as well has as an ultimate being.

So, back to the quote:

DO ALL THINGS WITH GREAT LOVE

This simply means we have to exert everything we have in doing things, even the little ones. When we give our all, our best foot forward and providing more than what is expected, we express our love.

At work, when given a task, although it is a small one, when we exert the best version of our output, we will surely be given the appreciation it deserves.

This can be applied even at school and even inside our own households, the very basic unit of the society. Of course this can be a habit and a habit becomes an attitude if practiced firstly at home.

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Back to the process...

I used several pens to finish this page, the above photo shows most of them. I don't normally plan on what color to use at the start, it will eventually show itself during the process so I had taken a photo of them after finishing the page.

Here are the materials used:

• Journal blank page •

• Ruler •

• Faber Castell Econ 0.7 Mechanical Pencil •

• Kuretake Brush Pen Lavender Shade •

• AihAo X Series 3.8mm Twin Highligher in Sky Blue and Pink •

• Crystak Water Base Pen 0.4 •

• Dong-A Hexaplus Fineliner 0.4mm No.19 •

• Stabilo Point 88 Fine 0.4 Marking Pen •

• Monami Jell Line 0.4 Pink •

• M&G Signme Aquarelle Brush Pens colors Peach and Light Gray •

With the help of the ruler and the mechanical pen, I start to create a draft. Most of the times, I would just love to see it in its draft state. I even have a lot of drafts in my other journals and notebooks and I would just leave them as is.

Anyway, since it is a special day and I want to be consistent in this journal, I decided to just color it, perhaps it would look better!

The most frustrating procedure is to find the best color. Colors are everything, it will make or break the piece so I have to select the proper ones for this.

I opted for blue, thinking it should match the journal's February month color theme. See the edges of the journal, it got blue color!

And then since my favorite color purple, I selected this for the emphasized words: HUGE LOVE!

This is an outline, but I don't really care about having mistakes. Mistakes make us stronger! So, don't be afraid, in the first place, this page is for my own benefit only.

Above is a different angle. I really love the black cat's eyes in here. Heart heart heart!

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By the way, do you have any date for today? Where are you going for dinner? Or perhaps for lunch? My husband and I are not going anywhere today but we will be traveling to Negros tomorrow until the weekend. Hopefully, the storm Basyang leaves the country by today so the weather would be perfect tomorrow as we travel.

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So, after outlining, I added shadows! I love adding shadows because it gives an additional beauty to the piece. However, it is also challenging, am not an expert with lettering but I just follow what I think would be the spot where the shadow drops if there's a light on the opposite side.

I would normally imagine myself, where does the shadow be if the light is on my right or on my left?

I added some accent to the shadow, there are darker and lighter shades, just to beautify it a bit. Anyways, I thought of adding that but the Kuratake brush fades as soon as it dries so I have to apply it couple of times.

And the same application was done to the rest of the letters in this page, I used pink and blue as I like everything light and vibrant!

Also, I added one more shadow, I am not sure if its obvious from the photo but there's a light gray shadow applied on all the letters. I guess I have increased the exposure a little bit which is why it isn't that obvious.

Anyways, I hope you'll have a great day today as we celebrate LOVE. Be sure to tell your loved ones how you feel about them as well. It would be better if you could give your spouses hugs and kisses too! Gifts are just material things, if you can afford, give but if you can't be practical.

After all, love isn't about the material things alone. Love has to be pure and true. There are different languages of love, make sure that you have understood your own language and also learn how to speak the same language your partner speaks.

Again, don't forget:

DO SMALL THINGS WITH GREAT LOVE!

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Watch the me doing it on this time lapse video below:

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Check out my other journal entries below:

• Fight The Good Fight

• A Mandala on My Journal!

• You Are The Sticky To My Notes

• How's Your January So Far?

• You Are A Child of God

• Great Heroes Don't Always Win Battles

• I Can Do All Things

• Make Way for 2018

• Calendar of Family Birthdays and Events

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