Hi folks!  This lovely Saturday I wanted to share two cards I made, using two different digital stamp designs from other designers. It’s so fun to connect with others and swap stamps to play with! First up I used Lindsay’s Carousel Horse Montage – you can also check out her blog the frugal crafter.

As soon as I saw that lovely carousel image I knew what I wanted to create.  The montage version of it would make a perfect panel for a gatefold card.  I colored it with markers, distress inks and added white gel pen dots to certain spots. Then I embossed with clear sparkling powder over the whole image to make it a glossy sparkly panel. The rest is just random papers I had lying around a cute coordinating ribbon. I am so happy with this card and love that the design is front and center, so all the writing can be inside. You should definitely check out Lindsay’s blog and all her stamps in various shops.

Moving on to Tiffany’s Doodles Tea Time stamp set - totally cute design! I decided to go with a simple no sentiment layout again, to emphasize the image.

I used the teapot image and colored it digitally, then printed and cut it out.  Using a cute pink button and white ribbon to suspend it on the card on top of pretty shabby chic papers. Pretty cool, huh?  You can also check out Tiffany’s Garden which is her blog to link to so many other great work she has created.  Hope you have enjoyed the cards I shared today and the two lovely designers offering a wide array of digital stamps. I can’t wait to see what they have created with some of my stamps as well. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Posted on March 13, 2010 at 1:21 pm | Shops and Blogs, Showcase | 4 comments

Hi folks! This week, I decided to go through the process of making a card from scratch using digital and real elements. I suppose you would call it hybrid and since I’m really looking forward to Spring weather, I decided to use the Tuscany landscape I live in for inspiration. Although I feel like all cardmaking is hybrid, given that someone printed pattern papers or those embellishments you are using…I guess you can say that it is all mixed media. You do and use whatever needed to achieve the look you want, right? Here’s the finish card and I also incorporated a bit of paper piercing given the current digital tuesday challenge.

I started by sketching out a design for my card with simple pencil and paper.  Once I decided roughly what I wanted, I went onto the computer and drew the hills and printed on watercolor paper, then drew the sunflower and clouds and printed them on cardstock. I actually wanted to print everything out in color, but I ran out of yellow ink…so I had to improvise. The hills were actually watercolored in but the clouds already had blue when printed. I also added some sparkle via heat embossing to the clouds. The rest is regular cardstock, stamping and embellishing.  Although I also spent a whole lot of time cutting a slice of cork and gluing the string to it! I could have added some faux stitching with a pen, but this time around added the paper piercing for the border to add a different look.  I think it’s pretty cool to be able to create a card from scratch and that enables you to really match up the colors and elements. I love digital cardmaking, whether all digital or hybrid, because it gives me to the power to create what I need.  A digital stamp image, a background or some embellishments maybe?  I can print things out in color to match perfectly as well…the possiblities are endless.  I hope you will try hybrid card making as well.  If you want to use my images, feel free to download below…although that sunflower is pretty tedious to cut out, I must admit!

Posted on March 9, 2010 at 11:49 am | Free-Template-Tutorial-Links, Showcase | 11 comments

I decided to do a quick digital card decide for the Everything but the Kitchen Sink Sketch challenge.  Using my Happy Cat digital stamp I created this simple layout…so nice to be able to have straight lines digitally, because if I had to cut this out, I wouldn’t be able to cut straight ever!  Haha… hope you like this happy cat…I think it’s a great card for kids and cat lovers.

Posted on February 21, 2010 at 11:26 pm | Showcase | 6 comments

I was so excited to finally receive my order from Simon Says Stamp – it takes a while for mail to arrive from USA to Italy. Part of the reason is that packages must go through customs and they open everything…because I guess stamping and cardmaking tools look suspicious!?  Finally I can get back to more handmade cardmaking instead of going all digital… I was so happy to have the Hero Arts Silhouette Grass Design Block…ooo…I love it!  Something so simple, but so cool. I love it with natural colors, makes me think of serene fields of grass in the summertime.  I made this card using some inspiration from the Hero Arts blog for the ribbon flower… totally netural and simple.  Woohoo!

Posted on February 20, 2010 at 11:37 am | Showcase | 1 comment

The latest Sweet Stop Sketch challenge inspired me to use my heart lollipops digital stamp image.  I went totally Valentine’s, using all reds and pinks…monochromatic goodness!  I hope you like the card…

Posted on February 5, 2010 at 1:04 pm | Showcase | No comments

I created this birthday card for the latest Digital-Ink Co Challenge, because I was intrigued by the use of so many bold colors together.  I tried my best, but definitely find it difficult to balance all the bright colors.

Posted on February 5, 2010 at 12:33 pm | Showcase | 10 comments

Lately I’ve been trying to find online communities I can join to learn more about digital layouts and paper crafting…really connect with folks who like to do what I do.  In joining splitcoaststampers I noticed there’s a color challenge on tuesdays, so decided to join in.  There’s so much to learn about color and I’m always game for palettes to work off of…  Here’s my card for CC254 using bashful blue, soft suede and ruby red with a creamy ivory as my neutral color.

I used my yarn love heart digital stamp image and created it all digitally in Adobe Illustrator.  Thanks for stopping by!

Posted on January 19, 2010 at 11:42 am | Showcase | 5 comments

Wow, I found the coolest challenge over at Crafty Creations and their current prompt is to use textures.  Since I’ve been experimenting so much with digital textures I thought this would be a fabulous challenge to participate in.  I am also using the funny rat stamp from Digital Ink Co with the only funny sentiment I could find for the funny sentiment challenge in the ning group – and boy was it quite a challenge to match up a funny sentiment with the image!  Here’s my card design:

I created all the “papers” with textured graphics or photos, even the coloring of the rat is a textured color mix.  Pretty interesting to play with these real-world textures for digital layouts!

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 4:41 pm | Showcase | 6 comments

Experimenting a bit more with textures and overlays for my digital card designs, I decided to participate in the latest sweet stop sketch challenge.  We can only use a sentiment, so I went with the valentine theme for the central message, but used lots of texture on the various graphic backgrounds.  It’s pretty fun to play with these textures…although I am still experimenting!

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 3:31 pm | Showcase | 1 comment

Seems like I’m really on a roll today, as there are so many challenges out there and I am excited experimenting with different ways to digitally color and lay out card designs.  I happened upon the latest Everything but the Kitchen Sink sketch challenge and created this happy butterfly card.

It’s an all digital card using my heart butterfly digital stamp image and I’m working Adobe Illustrator, experimenting with texture and pattern instead of just flat color!

Posted on January 18, 2010 at 12:55 pm | Showcase | 6 comments