More doodling to share with everyone, is it a sun or a flower? I was just playing around and also practiced more pattern making as well…

The days are getting really hot and we have a nice little family of geckos or some type of lizard living outside our house on the walls.  They supposedly eat mosquitos, so I guess that’s a good thing?  Maybe it’s the heat getting to me or perhaps because I have a lot more time to actually ponder things these days, allowing me to question what I’m doing and what I should be doing.  I love my country life here in Italy, but I know I’ve got to do more as well.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my life and where I am headed creatively…lots to decide and even more to do.

I should also give a shout out to Lindsay from The Frugal Crafter blog as she mentioned me in her latest post – thanks for the link!

Posted on May 27, 2009 at 4:49 pm | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 1 comment

Another doodle in digital, here’s a hen image for digital stamping.  I was thinking about hens because my husband said I’m like a chicken in terms of sleeping when it’s dark and waking up when the light shines.  Seriously, if I were to be locked up in a dark room I would just keep sleeping thinking it’s still night!

I also tried creating a pattern from this hen image, playing around with slight variations and how to do patterns…

Posted on May 25, 2009 at 5:41 pm | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 3 comments

I’ve been playing around with illustrating on the computer and transforming doodles into digital stamps.  Here is what I created today, a cute little owlie.  Hopefully you’ll find it useful, if you click on the image you’ll find the full 300dpi PNG to download.

I’m not sure where all this will take me in the end as I have so many ideas.  I also used this owlie to create a new desktop wallpaper for myself – trying to help motivate myself to just do it – stop over analyzing why or what will it all mean.

I also created a pattern out of the owlie to see how that would work out.  I didn’t create any variations though, I think that would probably work better if there were variations of the owlie with other elements and not just a simple repeated image…not sure about how to approach this yet, but I’ve always loved pattern design.  It can be so mesmerizing.

I hope all this exploration will take me somewhere as I am trying to find my place creatively in this big world.  All the life changes and time to contemplate has shook me up a bit and left me restless, I suppose.  Some days are lovely and others are frustrating, but I guess I have to listen to my own motivation – just do it! (Even though Nike said it first…ahha!)  Well, enough rambling   Thanks for looking as always!

Posted on May 25, 2009 at 11:47 am | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 5 comments

I am so honored to have won the giveaway on Up Up Creative’s blog recently…and finally last night I got around to choosing the items I wanted from the shop on Etsy.

Since I am located here in Italy and wanted instant gratification, I chose a few printable items from the shop.  Delivery by email is way faster in my current situation!  I realized that the postal service here is a bit wonky…receiving mail seems to take forever because the mail sorters have issues (or something like that).  Imagine receiving a bill you have to pay, after the due date?  Yeah.  It happens.  Sending mail out seems to work in normal timeframes though – bizarre!

Julie Green is the graphic designer behind the paper goods and designs at Up Up Creative and her printable files were waiting for me this morning in my inbox!  I have been printing out goodies on different types of paper – the results are oh so lovely!  Here’s a little peek as I just wanted to share with everyone – go check out the shop…I have to go write to people with this lovely stationery now!  Ciao!

Posted on May 22, 2009 at 4:22 pm | Shops and Blogs | No comments

I finally got around to using my own digital stamps and designs (check out my freebies) as well as some of the freebies from Funky Fairy Inspirations.  It’s exciting to be able to create my own designs and using them to realize some type of project.  So much to explore…just need time to do it all!  Here’s what I created today…

Please let me know if you have ideas or requests in the realm of designed papers and digital stamps.  Thanks!

Posted on May 20, 2009 at 3:45 pm | Greeting Card Verses, Showcase | 1 comment

I came across a new site for me that offers a kick ass challenge with great prizes as well.  It’s called the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge – go check out the latest challenge #2.  It’s definitely a sketch with lots of elements, which is a new way of creating cards for me.  Lots of layering, inking edges and using coordinating papers in earth tones…check my card out…

Posted on May 20, 2009 at 3:40 pm | Showcase | 5 comments

The latest Digital Tuesday Challenge presented has the theme of tags.  We have to include somehow, one way or another a tag in our project.  I decided to just simply create a tag bookmark.  I used a lot of inks on the papers and a digital image of a child reading as well as my own handwriting onto it.  Check it out

Posted on May 20, 2009 at 3:34 pm | Showcase | 5 comments

Today I have been doodling a lot with the shape of the heart and came up with a few digital stamps to share with everyone.  I printed my designs out on white paper to color them in, but I realized it would be interesting to print on pink paper or something textured for a different effect.  Definitely something to try out with digital stamps.  You can right click on the thumbnail below to download the PDF file for your personal use!

There’s still so much to explore with digital stamping, but I have to say I love creating them…just drawing here and there, but then seeing all the wonderful creations that come of it in the end is so satisfying and fun.  Let me know if you have comments on sizing and structure.  I am thinking there must be some set sizes when it comes to stamping, so perhaps I should be working with certain size templates in mind?

Also, the digital stamps I have seen are large images, so I assume folks resize them before printing at home.  Is that the standard for digital stamps?  I suppose PDFs are only for specific page layouts – and of course I am using A4 size here in Italy as opposed to letter-size in the USA.  Would be great to hear from you and get your thoughts on the subject.  Thanks in advance!

Posted on May 19, 2009 at 5:08 pm | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 18 comments

The Sweet Stop challenge blog is still going strong and we are up to sketch #4 – which definitely was something new with the spin of the rectangular papers.  I enjoyed working on this sketch and coloring the little stamped flowers.  I am also in the habit of inking the edges of all my papers now…just because I like that look more than the clean cut.  Or perhaps because I still can’t cut straight?  This will be sent out as a thank card for an Italian friend

Posted on May 19, 2009 at 11:37 am | Showcase | No comments

StampTV has multiple weekly challenges and I decided to participate especially in the scraps challenge.  So often I have millions of little patterned papers from other projects lying around.  I am too frugal to toss them, but find it difficult to use sometimes as well.  The challenges help to force you to use scraps!  Here are my cards…

Posted on May 19, 2009 at 11:33 am | Showcase | No comments