Stamp n Scrap Saturday

No project to share today, just some links to my favorite places to get digital stamps. I love my rubber & clear stamps, but having digital stamps...they're just so versatile! In the right photo editing program you can change their outline color, color them in, change their size to suit your needs. Heck, you can even design a repeating pattern to make your own custom background paper to coordinate with your main image.

And storing them? No boxes, no binders, no shelves...the only space they take is on your hard drive & if you burn them to a CD or DVD, then you've got YEARS of enjoyment from your digital stamps!

The following list is a mixture of freebies and vendors that you can purchase digital images from. I have made friends with a lot of these amazing artists over the last few years & can't wait to share their talent with you.

Bugaboo Stamps - stamps to purchase & a new freebie every Friday for you to play with.

Squigglefly - always adding new artwork AND new artists...be sure to check out their freebies tab!

Sugar Nellies - not only can you buy rubber from these wonderful folks, they have an AMAZING collection of digital artwork to purchase by artists like the talented Diane Duda.

Leanne Ellis - a very sweet & talented lady from Swansea, South Wales. I've been fortunate enough for her to allow me to use some of her artwork here on the blog before (I have a section dedicated just to her in my LABELS at the bottom of the page).

Mo's Digital Pencil - Maurie "Mo" Manning has some whimsical lovelies for you to purchase & play with

Stretch n Bubbles - one of my first dalliances into the world of digi stamps...something for everyone

Phindys Place - darling digital stamps

Sassy Cheryl's Digis - whimsical artwork by Cheryl Alger

Cheryl Seslar Designs - features colored AND black/white artwork for your enjoyment

Softpencil Studios - I'm giving you the link to her new shop, scheduled to open 7August2011

Beccy's Place - cute freebies

Digital Two for Tuesday - freebies every week, mostly vintage artwork

Free Digital Stamps - a DAILY listing of freebies found all over the WWW

If you snag any of the free images, PLEASE leave the artist that gave you the gift some love. A simple "thank you" really can go a long way. These folks give their time and talent away, so it's nice for them to know that their hard work is appreciated.

Also, be sure to read each artist's TOU (terms of use) for their artwork - most will specify if the art is for personal use or if you can resell. These pieces ARE bound by international copyright & we all need to respect that!

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

Some cards from yesterday's tags

Thought I'd share these with you before the rest of the day gets away from me. It's been perfect here for making cards: cloudy, rainy, windy....COLD. Great excuse to stay inside and craft. I should be packing for the move, but I just can't bring myself to do it just yet.

Background paper from K&Co.

I colored this one with my COPIC markers before antiquing and mounting onto the card. Background paper from My Mind's Eye. Felt ribbon from Kaiser Craft.

I love this crow from Making Memories (set was called Spellbound). Wicked tag is from Studio G. Background paper is My Mind's Eye.

Stamp on this tag is from Studio G. Background paper is the same sheet from My Mind's Eye. Maybe I'll get to craft a bit more before bedtime...
Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

KISS & a couple of challenges

Sorry friends! If Indianapolis hadn't started playing football so darned well in the last half hour, I would have posted this sooner! *LOL* It's halftime right now, so I'm gonna do this, then go scream at Peyton Manning to THROW the ball & keep it off the ground (they are NOT having a good running game against Arizona)! *ROFL* Today, I have your K.I.S.S. card and two challenges.

First, your KISS card - I've taken a pre-made A2 card base, some fabric tape and a sticker from Michael's dollar bins. The result...simple, clean, and pretty for any occasion.


I'm a day late getting this one done, but I thought I'd share it with you anyway. It's from the CPS Challenge Blog (#134) & the layout was supposed to look like this:Actually, this could have qualified for KISS...IF I hadn't used a Tilda colored with COPIC markers & OMS/colored pencils. *LOL* I'm in Halloween mode & I can't decorate, since we'll be moving soon (fingers crossed), so I'm putting it all into my cards. Here's what I ended up with:

The paper is DCWV's "Autumn Mat Stack", some Prima flowers in lilac & orange, a couple of orange brads, & this precious little Tilda (thanks Vicki!).
Isn't she darling?!? One of these days, when I have money to spend on something besides necessities again, I'm buying some Tildas!

This last challenge is for a new Yahoo! group that I joined this last week, called Hearts in Touch (hi ladies!). They are such a sweet & welcoming group of gals that when Dee issued the challenge, I just could NOT refuse. I used a really cool stamp that Vicki from Stamped Smiles sent to me a couple of months ago (waving at ya, GF!!). I took a 5x7 black pre-made base, some K&Co double-sided papers, this stamp (I call him "Happy Jack"), some chipboard photo corners colored with 100 Black COPIC marker & some Studio G inks (2 shades of orange, a touch of plum, & burgundy-brown). I think he turned out pretty cool.

I'm hoping to be able to share more with you tomorrow, like an entry for COPIC Colour Challenge, but don't hold it against me if you don't see me for a day or two - the boys have a short week of school & I'll be doing my usual - cramming in all of my errands before Thursday & Friday arrive. Be sure to check out my shopping links (right sidebar) & hop over to Hearts in Touch - Frances has some really neat stamps that you might enjoy adding to your collection.

Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

One down, two to go!

Good morning! Is everyone looking forward to the weekend as much as I am? We're supposed to have temps in the 80s & plenty of sun, so I think I'm sunning my pale, pasty self this weekend. I need some color! *LOL*

I made a card yesterday that I wanted to share with you. I need to make two more for Father's Day then I'm good to go. I wanted this one to be clean & simple...no fuss, just like the man I'm sending it to.
This is a 4.5x6.5 pre-made card base with distressed green paper from My Mind's Eye; distressed Striped paper also from My Mind's Eye; "Love You" stamp is from Studio G; chipboard, colored with YR04 COPIC marker is from Best Occasions by WalMart. Inside, I used a leftover strip of green stamped with the "Love You" stamp & punched down one side with the scalloped border punch from SU.
Had a bit of the striped paper left, so I used it on the envelope flap. This card is going to my "dad by heart" - Daddy Carl means the world to me & even though I didn't marry one of his sons as he'd hoped, he doesn't hold that against me. *LOL* He still loves me, calls me every month, & I always feel like I'm part of the family. He's the best & I'm a lucky girl to have him in my life!Well, it's early out day for my boys & I've got to get these other cards made, along with the laundry that comes from raising males, so that translates to tons of things to do & NO TIME to do it in! *LOL* Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

Mother's Day Cards

I know I said I'd post these on Sunday, but by the time I finished with the last one, I couldn't bring myself to sit down at the computer to do more than turn it off, I was so tired. It's gonna be one of those crazy weeks, with DH leaving town AGAIN Tuesday through Friday (he just got back from a long weekend of riding on his Harley). Only stamped ONE card - the one in black & white - the rest have been done with brads, flowers, the Bug, punches, paper doilies, lace, and rub-ons.
Now to get them addressed and run by the Post Office. Thanks for stopping by & have a great rest of your day!!

ink testing

This is a lengthy post, and I apologize up front if it bores you to tears, but for me, this was rather important. I have accumulated quite the collection of stamps since this past Spring. I have a photo storage box nearly full to the brim of woodmounted rubber stamps. If you're like me, you love your woodmounted stamps, but have one major issue with them...they take up too much space!!!I also have a new collection by Inque Boutique (recently bought out by Darice Craft Corporation) called SeeDs that I purchased off of eBay last month. They're rubber stamps, but they're not mounted on wood blocks, which is nice for storage - most of the larger sets come in their own clear plastic storage boxes with labels and the smaller sets can actually fit inside CD jewel boxes. Down side - they have these black foam mats that come with every set you purchase and only the larger boxes have space to accommodate the mats, so 9 times out of 10, you end up with the smaller mats just laying around in boxes. The mats are an integral part to the SeeDs collection - they're designed to go under the paper or cardstock that you're stamping, you put the stamp on an acrylic block & it gives a nice crisp design. They have TONS of detail & are definitely the UP side of rubber stamps. Now, my clear stamp collection...those are my big passion lately! It's amazing that they can get almost as much detail in those now that they do in the rubber stamps...AND you can put GOBS of them into a photo storage box (IMPORTANT TIP: don't leave them exposed to light for too long - something in their chemical makeup causes them to harden and yellow over time after prolonged light exposure). I am, however, tired of digging through my box looking for stamps, and the little singles or mini sets are always slopping around in the box.

I recently ordered 2 leather-look embossed binders designed by Tim Holtz (the design KING & driving force of Ranger Inks) that will hold not only my clear stamps, but unmounted rubber stamps, too. The storage system is the best out of those that I've found (I've been looking at different ones all summer) and the price is reasonable ($22-29 for the binder depending on the retailer). Each binder comes with 3 storage pages to get you started. The pages let you put the stamps on the outside of the page and there's a center insert in each page for you to drop in some cardstock with the stamped images to line the stamps up against (or store rub-ons & stickers if you'd like - my stickers & rub-ons have their own photo storage box so I doubt that option will work for me - that's another post altogther). The inside front of the binder has specially designed pockets for your acrylic blocks, and when the book is unzipped, it lays completely flat on the table, giving you total access to all of your stamps. It's really money well spent, when it comes down to storage investments. The extra pages for the binders come 5 to a pack for $3-5, so the options for expansion of your stamp storage depends on your bookshelf space for holding all of your funky, fun Tim Holtz binders! (LOL) As soon as my binders arrive & I get my stamps in them, I'll show you how they turn out.

For now, I'd like to show you some recent additions to my clear stamp collection, so if you haven't considered these before, maybe now you will. The details are, like I said, just as good as the rubber, without the issue of the wood blocks chewing up space.

Now here's the basic & biggest problem to having all of these different types of stamps: not all of my inks work on all of my stamps. Naturally, the rubber stamps aren't really an issue, since most inks take to them very well. It's the CLEAR STAMPS that inks don't want to play nice with. I have found that most inks bead up on the clear stamps. I have a LOT of ink already (2 boxes full), but eventually as some of these pads dry up & go away, I'd like to have one basic line of inks that I'll reach for.

As you can see, I have one box of nothing but Stampin Up! brand inks - until a couple of days ago, all I had were the Classic inks & re-inkers. I'm now collecting the Craft version of their colors & I'll explain WHY toward the end of this posting. The other box holds my Ranger Distress inks, Ranger Adirondak variegated color pad, Color Box brush pigments (the little cat's eye ink pads), VersaMark, StazOn, VersaColor (the little 1" squares), VersaCraft (for fabric stamping), Studio G, & Stampology.

I love, love, LOVE my Ranger Distress inks & will never get rid of them - they're wonderful for antiquing papers and the brayer works well with them for all-over coverage. The VersaCraft is for paper, wood, & fabric, which is nice, but it's very limited when it comes to color range. The Studio G is a recent purchase - my friend at BenFranklin turned me on to them (thanks Wade!) - they only have out autumn colors right now, but for $1 per pad they're great (and talk about JUICY - lots of ink in them). I picked up the Stampology ink pad last week at WalMart ($2) because it said that it's specifically designed for clear stamps and guaranteed to not bead up or bleed. Well, let me show you my test results:


Studio G ink with a clear stamp - little to no bleeding
StazOn gave the crispest "black" image - no beading on the clear stamp.
Stampology ink - they're right. It does NOT bead up or bleed with the clear stamps, BUT this is onyx (the only color it comes in, as far as I know) & as you can see it's not a very dark ink. That's the part I don't like...if I'm using black, I want it to be BLACK.
Ranger Adirondack ink - beads slightly & does bleed, but it's GREAT for using with brayers for an ombre color across papers.
Color Box brush pigment (black) - no beading up on the clear stamps, but not good color saturation, either.
Ranger Distress inks & other Studio G inks - beading up on the clear stamps.

Stampin Up! Classic inks on clear stamps - lots of beading.

Stampin Up! Craft inks - no beading, the best color saturation. Down side - takes FOREVER to dry!

Another Color box brush pigment test - can't tell the difference between silver & black till you get them in the sunlight.

So after all of this, when it comes to working with my clear stamps, I think I'll end up with a nice collection of the Stampin Up! Craft ink "color spots" - little 1" pads of ink, 12 to each collection for about $26. I'll just have to keep a hair dryer on hand to speed up the drying time. I've already been playing with some of them & will show you how they finish up in tomorrow's post. I've typed enough for one day...now I'm gonna go play!

Thanks for looking & have a great rest of your weekend!