Celtic Digi Stamp Card

I haven't had much time for crafting this past few days  I've been busy gardening but I have managed to make one card tonight

I chose two of the Celtic Digi Stamps from Free Craft Downloads

I used
Celtic008
Celtic010
I also used one of the Celtic backing papers from the site too I thought it would go nice with the stamps
The one I chose was Celtic1 red

I resized the Digi stamps  to 6cm x 6cm  I chose to colour them with glitter pens I used a red one, and a gold one and coloured the spaces with a clear sakura gelly roll pen   It's a bit difficult to see the glittery effect from the picture but when the card catches the light it sparkles quite nicely

I printed the celtic backing paper on to an A4 sheet of white card  then  folded in half (tent fold)  in the middle of the card I added a strip of  brown pearl paper and edged it with gold border peel offs running across the middle I added another gold border peel off.
After colouring the stamps I cut around the edges and used silicone glue to stick them on to the brown pearl paper  to the centre of each celtic stamp  I added a triangular gem  red to the two outer ones and amber to the central one
I haven't' added  a greeting to this card  I think it's better without one  and can be used for a number of  occasions

Back to Digi-stamping

Until recently I wasn't sure what "Digi stamping"  was.
People seem to either like or loathe it.
I've decided to write this in the hope of it helping others who are unsure about Digi Stamps

I spent time looking around on various sites  to see what I could find out about them  and  looking for images Many are available for purchase but you can find free ones too
I just couldn't seem to get past the "colouring book"  thoughts   then I had the problem of the actual colouring of them  I do enjoy "colouring in" it's very relaxing, but when photographing for projects it looks like they have been done by a child.
The main questions I had were  What are digi stamps?  How are they used? What can you colour them with?
After reading a few things about them I found my answers

What are Digi stamps?
They are black and white digital images that are downloaded onto a computer
They can be manipulated before printing out
The images can be resized, flipped (mirror image)
A digital stamp is just the image there is no actual stamp

How do you use them?
Once you have printed them, digital stamps are used in pretty much the same way as traditional stamps.
They can be colored with various mediums and embellished in whichever way you choose to.
The finished images can be cut out and used in/on  your crafts - handmade cards, gift tags, scrapbooks and other papercraft projects.

What can you colour them with?
When digi stamps have been printed from your computer they can be coloured in the same way as traditional stamped images.
They are printed using normal printer ink not specialist stamping inks. so there may be issues with the ink running if a "wet" colouring method is used.
Various types of pens, pencils and paints are all suitable for colouring


As with a lot of other things there are good points and bad points to using Digi stamps
Good points
A lot of them are free
Digi stamps are instantly available for download and there is no P&P charges for delivery
There is no waiting for stamps to be delivered.
Less storage and the ability to resize or flip the image.rotate and angle them.
You can use almost any coloring medium on them
The designs are either free or available at a low cost


Bad Points
There can be trouble with your ink running when you color your image,
The use of digi stamps is limited to items that can be created by using printed paper or card which will fit through your printer
Some techniques are difficult or impossible to use /do  with digi stamps
A computer and printer are necessary, and a basic knowledge of using digital images.

I'm sure there must be more good and bad points to using them

There is now a section on Free Craft Downloads for Digi Stamps  There are only a few at the moment but more will be added
I personally like some of the Celtic images so will be having a go with a couple of them

There is also a new Digi Stamp section on Free Craft Stuff which has sites listed on there where you can get free digi stamps 

I hope this has been a help and of some use to people 
Do you like Digi stamping?
Do you know of more advantages / disadvantages to using them?


Please feel free to leave comments

Teddy card

I quite liked the Teddy suncatcher image on the Glass Painting site 
I reduced it and printed a few of them the other day along with some of the other designs on there to use as Digi stamps  its the same image Megan used in an earlier posting on here
I reduced the size to a 5cm diameter and coloured it using pencils

For the card I printed one of the Teddy Bear backing papers from Free Craft Downloads
The one I chose was teddy_bear003  which I printed on an A5 sheet of white card so when folded made an A6 size card
I cut out the teddy image I had coloured and stuck it to the front of the card near the top and added a gold peel off butterfly to each of the top corners
I used some scraps of paper and gold peel offs  to make the with love topper which I put near the bottom of the card and below that added a gold coloured small ribbon
Another easy card to make

Floral best wishes card

I made this quick and easy card from a topper sheet I added to the Members gallery on Free Craft Downloads

I used a yellow A6 size card as my base card (tent fold)
I cut out and made up the topper which I then added to the left hand side of the card
I added some gold border peel offs around each layer and put a green square gem in each  of the 4 outer corners

To the right side of the card I stuck a vertical strip of fabric flowers and added a vertical Best Wishes gold peel off

Glass Painted Butterfly with Seed Beads and Gems

I haven't done any glass painting in a while so it was really nice to do some again It's very relaxing to do.

I used  Butterfly 3  design from the Glass Painting site  I resized the image so that it would fit inside a (5X7) photo frame I had here and used the glass from the frame to paint the butterfly on

I outlined the image and left it to dry overnight






 I chose the colours I wanted to use Orange, Light blue, Light green, Purple and  Clear (I prefer to  use Rainbow glass solvent based paints)  I used those colours because the frame has oranges and blues on the floral parts of it.
The seed beads I used were mixed shades of blue, and some white, the gems I used were small purple ones, a couple of clear ones  and a couple of amber coloured ones.
I also used a couple of larger beads for the antennae

I painted the middle part first and sprinkled in the seed beads (both blue and white) and added the larger beads to the antennae with some clear paint  so they could start drying while I painted another section of the butterfly 

 On the light green parts I decided to use some small purple gems and put one in the centre of each light green section, these went with the purple sections I painted in alternating with the green,  then I painted in the orange  sections 





When it was all dry I carefully wiped over the glass and put it in the frame.
I used a pale yellow glitter card for a backing on the frame

My original choice was gold mirri card which looked lovely with the frame but when I went to take the photo you could see the reflecion of the camera and me so changed my mind to the glitter card.

Our first attempts

I've decided to be brave and put my first attempt here 
It looked ok when I did it but now I can see the photo  the colours on the wings look too stripy this is the sort of thing I will have to practice more

This design is the Parrot from the suncatcher section on Glasspainting.co.uk site

I resized the parrot to 4cm wide by 6 cm high  and used two of them for this card I made

Megan thinks it's great that these designs can be made so small  sometimes when I print a design for glass painting after I've finished using it she has it to colour in 
She asked me to do a small teddy one for her so I used the Bear design from the suncatcher section  which has a 5cm diameter

Megan coloured it in with her pencils and drew and cut out a stand to put it on 

 I think hers looks much better than mine does

I will keep trying and hopefully improve with practice  

back to it........................

Still trying

I'm still trying to get the hang of digi stamps and more so the colouring of them

Over the weekend I have printed some  and been colouring them  I still can't see past them being  "colouring book" images though.

As I searched around for digi stamps to use I found a lot of them were for sale nothing wrong with that but I thought all the better if I could use free images  so then I thought to try and make it easier on myself I would use some images I am more familiar with - these are images I use quite often in my glass painting and are available here
Even though these are Glass Painting images I think they are suitable for digi stamping as well
The images  are black and white outline images, can be resized,   flipped,  and are of high quality.

To colour them in I have been using chalks, metallic pencils and normal pencils  the next ones I do  I'll have a go with watercolour pencils to see how they turn out

I'll choose a couple of the finished ones and add them on to cards   I may even be brave and put them on here :-)