It hadn’t occurred to me that many folks might actually  not know what digital stamps are…or how to use them.  There were some folks that asked me after I had listed them in my Etsy shop…perhaps I will have to help freshen up the descriptions to properly explain.  Digital stamps are used just like traditional rubber stamps, just that you have the illustrations in digital format, JPG or PNG images files on your computer that you can print out.  You can print out as many copies as you like, in whatever size you need and even digitally color them or mix them into digital layouts before printing.  Do you know of a better way to explain?  I’m definitely still a newbie, but I know that I love illustrating and creating digital stamps.

In my constant quest to use my graphic design skills with my love of paper crafting, I decided to scan in a bunch of stuff to use in digital layouts.  I realized how cool the look is…something seemingly tactile and real against digitally created graphics and illustrations. Of course, it’s not that easy to scan things in and prep for use in layouts.  Not only does it have to be high resolution, not all things lie flat to be scanned.  I’m still experimenting at this point. I created the card above using my girl with pigtails digital stamp image and a bunch of scanned item lying around.  Brown wrapping paper, twine, metallic ribbon/gems and clothing tags from gifts – all in the theme of recycling proposed by Lindsay in the What’s Digital Stamping Yahoo group.  Now I’m going to start collecting things to scan in!

Posted on December 29, 2009 at 6:41 pm | Showcase | 7 comments

I have been doing a lot of digital card designs, but today I decided to add some realistic flair to my design by using scanned in items and distressing the edges of graphics. Starting with my girl in a winter pea coat digital stamp image, I followed the sweet stop sketch and challenge from digital-ink co to create this Happy New Year card layout.

I like creating cards digitally because you can play around with it a lot without wasting any paper or materials, but I do like the additional of real-looking items, not all pristine graphics.  This seems like a pretty good experiment…I think I’ll have to go dig through my real supplies and start scanning now! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great New Year!

Posted on December 28, 2009 at 6:03 pm | Showcase | 8 comments

Last minute digital card design, because the current Digital tuesday challenge passes me by!  The current theme is to include snowflakes in your design, so I decided to incorporate my cute girl ice skater digital stamp image with some snowflake designs for my card.  Let me know what you think!

Posted on December 28, 2009 at 4:57 pm | Showcase | No comments

Fabulous news – I have just joined The Special 50/50 as a digital designer!  It all starts in 2010 and I am so excited to share my digital stamp designs to the crafters in the community.  I’m so honored to have been invited and looking forward to creating original designs for the the group.  It’s a special member only group with 50 digital designers and 50 crafters…where the designers offer at least one free stamp design a month to the crafters.  Crafters can download as many images as they want and use for projects to share with the community.

You should definitely check out the list of great designers that are participating.  Check out the special 50/50 blog for more updates and information on how to join as a crafter as well.  Woohoo!

Posted on December 21, 2009 at 11:00 pm | Shops and Blogs | No comments

The days before Christmas day are always filled with a rush of last minute everythings.  No different this year as I’m completely behind and going for the option of gifting money – better than a random gift!  I decided to use The Sweet Stop’s current sketch challenge to create some kind of money or gift card holder – at least I can make that part of the gift.  There’s a challenge going on at the Hero Arts blog as well, both sites offering lovely examples from the design teams and cool tips and tricks for getting really creative with incorporating money or holders into cards.  I decided to go with a straightforward approach of creating simply a pocket using the Hero Arts Snowman Stamp digital kit.  I put everything together digitally, but the idea is to print out the background, then print out the snowman image separately to put on top as a pocket.  I’m thinking of holding money because gift cards aren’t that common in Italy.  Pretty cute winter scene, right?

Thanks for visiting my blog and hope you are having a fabulous holiday season!  Also, if you want digital freebies, be sure to sign-up for my tortagialla newsletter where I am starting up my little creative company and sending out free digital stamps and goodies with it.  Thanks a bunch!

Posted on December 21, 2009 at 6:52 pm | Showcase | No comments

Hi folks!  As I continue to work on my little creative career over at tortagialla.com I realized that a huge part of what I do is creating digital stamp images and graphics.  I’ve been adding to my Etsy store slowly and been thinking about how I can combine all my work and share with the community.  Suddenly, I had this idea to include a free digital stamp image – a unique one – in every tortagialla newsletter.  Isn’t that a fun idea?

It’s a bit like subscribing to other digistamp creators newsletters, as they usually always offer freebies and inspiration to their fans.  So go on and sign-up for my tortagialla newsletter to start getting your free digital stamps – or even digikits!  I’m taking requests if you want certain designs as well, because I’ll be doing something custom and different for each newsletter…I’m thinking once a month to not overload people’s inboxes.  At some point if this all grows bigger, perhaps I can have multiple newsletters.  But I can’t put the cart before the horse…haha!  Hope you’ll join in the fun.  Thanks for stopping by as well – Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 19, 2009 at 2:07 am | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 1 comment

I’m a big fan of digital card designs, especially for last minute gifts as you can print them out quickly and duplicate as necessary.  Even a slight change in color or style can be done if you want each one to be personalized.  I decided to use my cute little girl in a winter dress digital stamp to create a last minute christmas card design…adding a smile to her face to make it cheery!

It’s super simple with a lovely sentiment, perfect for last minute folks like me… hee hee!  I’m entering this for the Dare U 2 digi stamp challenge…all about last minute cards!

Posted on December 18, 2009 at 12:47 pm | Showcase | 5 comments

Trying to learn more about digital scrapbooking, so I’m joining in on The Digi Dares challenge blog.  They have a prompt for December regarding 2009 in news, how we feel about it and what images go along with it.  My layout is below after reflecting on the matter…news is always so depressing for me.  I hope I can take it all in without being brought down…

Posted on December 18, 2009 at 12:16 pm | Showcase | 1 comment

After the Xmas tree graphic tag I decided to do a birthday one as well.  Just so happens I’m wrapping up gifts for a friend’s birthday as well as xmas!  I created a simple graphic in Adobe Illustrator as shown below.  Feel free to click to see full-size and download for your personal projects.  I printed it out on cardstock, punched a hole and used it as a tag decoration on the gift.  Simple and easy!  I realized there is a birthday theme on the Digital Tuesday challenge blog, so I’m entering this cutie!

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 8:14 pm | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links | 2 comments

In a last minute holiday rush, I love to create little designs to print out for decorations and tags on gifts.  The nice thing about digital is the ease of printing them out and the ability to duplicate as many as you need for the holiday season.  Today I whipped up a little xmas tree graphic.  It’s a quick design I created in Adobe Illustrator with some simple shapes and matching holiday colors.

I printed the image on some nice cardstock, punched a hole on the top and strung it onto a wrapped gift for decoration.  It also serves as a tag on the opposite side, where I wrote the to and from names.  Super easy!

Feel free to download the design your personal use – just click to see the full size high quality JPG.  I am entering this into the Digital Ink Co Challenge regarding a last minute project.  This is a perfect match for the challenge!  Happy holidays to all and thanks for visiting!

Posted on December 17, 2009 at 7:44 pm | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links, Showcase | No comments