Because I was writing so much, my brother and sister-in-law decided to give me my own font for Christmas. They gave me the paperwork. I completed a hand-writing sample and sent it all in. To Sweden. A few weeks later, I received an e-mail with my very own font! It’s called Deanna’s Hand. I was thrilled. I’m still thrilled!
A few years ago, as I was window shopping in Blowing Rock, I suddenly stopped in my tracks. My handwriting was in the window!!! Toms, the shoe company, had chosen Deanna’s Hand for its handwriting font in one, small window cling campaign!!! Seeing my handwriting in the window for all of Blowing Rock to see prompted me figure out how Toms had gotten my font. Well. It’s a free download. Anyone can get it. Just do a search. You can get it, too…along with tons of other free fonts that people have created.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I have a small classroom library that my students can access during class. I had the idea to create the library during one of our Book Fairs and started my collection with a 2-book donation from a parent. In the annual post-Christmas book sale at Books-A-Million, I grew the collection with a bunch of animal, dinosaur, and interesting fact books that kids love. Then, during a classroom library workshop at school, I grew the library even more with donations from the school.
A handful of students expectedly wandered to the library and happily read its books during class. My philosophy is that if the kids are reading, staying out of trouble, and not distracting other students, all the while subconsciously hearing the music lesson, then it’s a win-win for everyone. What I didn’t expect, however, was that that same handful of kids would want to take the books home. At first that was fine. But then classmates started to realize what was happening and they wanted to take books home, too.
So one Thursday afternoon while being bombarded with students wanting to take home books, I just said yes, yes, yes, so that they would stop asking! While one of those students stood with me to wait for the teacher, he first grossed me out by turning to a page on how a tribe in one part of Africa drinks cow’s blood during the drought season. I literally gagged and almost threw up, but then he turned the page and I gasped! MY FONT! My font was in the book! An entire two page spread was written in Deanna’s Hand!
I started babbling and trying to find the words to explain to the kids that it was a font that I had created but they didn’t quite understand and thought I meant that I had literally written out the pages but I was so excited that they were so excited so by the time the teacher got there we were all just in an excited state of font-appearance amazement!
I stayed that way for a few days. And clearly I am still excited. Not because I get paid. Not because I will be famous. But because it’s neat to see your handwriting in print…and to think that out of the fonts in the whole wide world, someone thought my font cool enough to use in a book.
When I wrote my brother and sister-in-law to tell them my exciting news, they were excited, too! I shared with the rest of my family, too. And then we all celebrated. And shared in thanksgiving for the gift that keeps on giving.
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