Have you ever thought it might be fun to have your very own handwriting as a font on your computer?  Well I just learned of a way to do that …… kind of.  While I discovered that this particular process unfortunately won't work for script handwriting, with some patience and repeated tweaking I was able to get a fairly decent resemblance to my own printing.  I'm not immediately sure what I'll DO with this font now that I have it, but perhaps someday it'll find its way into some journaling or something.

Ok, so if you're intrigued, here's the site to work with.  (And lucky YOU, 'cuz it's even free!) The overall process is actually pretty straightforward:  you'll download and print a special PDF form (I'll call it a worksheet), and then handwrite a sampling of each letter it prompts for.  Then that completed worksheet is scanned back in, and then the scanned image is uploaded to the fontcapture.com website.  Moments later your custom font has been created and it's ready to download and install into your font folder!

If you'd like to give this a try, I recommend allowing yourself at least an hour or two to play with it.  I found that the first several attempts I made did not really look like my handwriting at all.  One sample I submitted was my handwriting in script.  NOT good; each individual letter ended up printing independently with its little serif connectors taking up space and then looking really goofy when the letters don't connect anyway.  So I gave up on that idea quickly and decided to stick to printing.  Here are a few tips I can share based on my experience:

• You'll need to use a fine-point Sharpie-type marker on your worksheet.  A regular pen will be too fine, but a regular Sharpie is too fat.
• When you download the worksheet upon which you will write your letters, go ahead and print off a half-dozen or more copies right at the outset.  You'll probably end up using at least most of them anyway, and it's a frustration to have to go print yet another sheet each time you need one.  (Plus, you lose your writing rhythm and have to practice all over again before starting again.)
• Once you've scanned in your completed worksheet, crop it close to the edge of the printed part before uploading your scanned image.  My scanner left borders of white that were too wide, so the program couldn't orient itself until I cropped in close.  I kept getting error messages before I figured out what was wrong.
• Practice writing each letter individually on scratch paper immediately before writing it on the worksheet.  I found that my letters looked too "forced" the first several times through, so I discovered that by practice-writing a letter several times first, I was able to get my hand to relax and yield a more realistic result.  
• If you include too many flourishes with your writing, your letters will be spaced too widely apart when using your font.  I found that by using Stampin' Up!'s white gel pen over the excess flourishes I could narrow each letter, which yielded better spacing and easier readability of my text. 
• Be prepared to submit several writing samples before getting one you like.   I found that each one I submitted looked a little better (a little more like my real writing) than the previous ones.
• If you get a sample that is *mostly* ok, but with only a few letters you don't like, rewrite those specific letters on those extra worksheets, cut out those specific squares and adhere exactly in place on top of the "mostly ok" worksheet.  And then re-scan it and resubmit.  I had to do this several times, but it proved the biggest key to eventual success.  This method is better than re-writing everything in the hopes of improving one or two letters.  If you attempt to rewrite everything you're likely to mess up something that was once just fine.
• Be sure you type plenty of trial samples with every letter before you consider your font complete and accept it.  If you find there seems to be a certain letter that's just got goofy spacing (esp. too wide to be appropriate within a word), look for a possible tiny stray dot on your worksheet.  I found a couple of cases where there were such almost imperceptible spots on my worksheet; my eye could barely detect them, yet the software was picking these dots up from the scan and considering them part of the formed letter, which messed up that letter's spacing in relation to other letters in a word.  To resolve that, all I had to do was mark out those stray spots with that white gel pen again and re-scan.
• There are many more letters or symbols on the worksheet than most of us will every use.  Some I'm sure I have never written in my entire life!  But I discovered that if you're sure you'll never write that particular symbol in your own handwriting you can just leave it blank on the worksheet.

So have fun creating your own custom font, and then I invite you to leave a comment here and share what you will be doing with your new font!