My first serious Calligraphy project.

I recently put myself down to participate in an online swap.  We had to make something using a newly learned skill, or an old skill that we hadn't done for a while.  I decided to write out a quotation in calligraphic lettering, and laminate it, to send to my swap partner in France.
I chose a quote by a French writer, and for the background I used one of the sheets I'd coloured in water colour when I did the CSV workshop back in February.  It is at the top of the first photo on that post.
Here is my quotation.  I did all the preparation, but messed up the second line when I forgot that the 'm' needed more space than the other letters, so I squashed it in, thinking I would run out of room at the end of the line, but I wouldn't have.  To me it spoils the whole thing, but everyone I've shown it to think it is wonderful!   (But they are not calligraphers, lol)

I had fun with the embellished 'F'.  I copied the letter from one of my books, and filled it in with gold leaf.  Then I copied another idea - a vine leaf to wind around the letter, and painted it with acrylic paint so it would cover the watercolour background and the gold leaf where the vine goes over it.
I glued pale pink lace around the edge of the paper before laminating it, to give it a nice girl finish.