September Chalk N Stock Challenge

Hi friends,

Have you ever used a digital stamp? There are a lot out there and price ranges from free to $$. Digital Stamps aren't for everyone. When I first started scrapbooking and card making, I had to have a rubber or acrylic stamp or nothing at all. I felt they looked more "homey" when making my projects. After collecting boxes and boxes of stamps and putting them here, there and everywhere and then pulling the boxes out just to find a few and the boxes weren't light either, I decided to try digital stamping. It took me awhile to get the hang of it and feel comfortable with it but now most of my stuff is done that way.

If you want to do some fancy heat embossing, you're probably going to want to keep a few rubber/acrylic stamps on hand but for the most part to make a simple card, digital stamps are the way to go! I have eliminated at least 2/3 of my rubber/acrylic stamp collection and have more room now for other crafting supplies

One of my favorite places to get digital stamps is Bugaboo Stamps. They have every imaginable kind of digital stamp you can think of and a freebie every Friday. The freebie is a great way to start digital stamping to see if you like it.

There are many other digital stamping sites out there to find different designs and some freebies too. Just do a search for digital stamps.

I should add that the difference between a kids coloring page and a digital stamp is the quality of the digital stamp. Digital stamps are saved at a higher resolution usually so it won't lose it's crisp lines when you resize it.

There's a plus of a digital stamp I forgot to mention; you can resize them. You're stuck with rubber/acrylic stamps and only get the size you buy.

Now that I've given you some reasoning behind buying and using digital stamps, I want to share two cards I made for the Chalk N Stock September Challenge. I used Bugaboo Stamps on each card and chalk ink for the edging of the card. I also like to color in images using chalk because it gives your digital stamped design a soft glow but that's for next month's challenge.

Card #1

I printed out the digital stamp and then hand cut around it and then hand cut a little bit bigger circle to go on the back of the stamp. I have circle punches in many different size but I wanted something more simple looking and decided I liked the hand cut look for this card. I used alcohol markers for coloring the flower but I used chalk ink for the edge of the digital stamp circle and again in a different color on the outer circle. I also used regular chalk to color the background of the flower. It's a simple but sweet card.

Card #2

Another adorable Bugaboo digital stamp just to say hello. Again the image is colored with alcohol ink but the edges are done in chalk ink.

Don't forget to join our September challenge at Chalk N Stock and check out Bugaboo stamps.

April Showers May Flowers and Chalk N Stock Challenge

April showers bring May flowers at least here in Texas with all the rain we've had. We went from a severe drought to too much rain in some parts and just enough to get lake levels back up to where they're suppose to be in other parts. This also means an abundance of wildflowers in every color of the rainbow which gave me inspiration for these three cards.

All three digital stamps come from Bugaboo Stamps. I like the design of each stamp and had fun finding different ways to color each one to make thank you cards. Today I'll be going over what I used to color the digital stamps. 

This first card I used Pebbles Cream Chalks to color the flowers and regular chalk to add a touch of color to the background. The background color is very light and that's why it doesn't really show up in this picture. 

I like using chalks because they give a soft color to your stamps and are easy to add shadows. I find cream chalks are darker than regular chalks so regular chalks were nicely for background coloring.

This flower and background I colored using color pencils. I like using colored pencils over alcohol markers because I have better control of blending. The biggest thing with alcohol markers and colored pencils is getting the proper paper to blend on. There are special papers out there for both but you can use regular card stock. You'll notice the colors will have a different appearance depending on what paper type you use. I would search the web for the proper paper types and where to get the best prices if you want to go that way. I just use regular white card stock for mine.

Finally, I used shimmer watercolors. Yes, they do make watercolors that have shimmer or very fine glitter added to them. This makes the whole card shimmer like you've added a glimmer mist but the nice thing is that you get to add the gimmer in the color you want to just the areas you want. The downside is that it's hard to get those shadow effects that are popular in chalk, colored pencil, and alcohol coloring. I picked up the shimmer watercolors at Michaels a year or so ago so I can't remember how much they were but I know not that much and I probably had a coupon to make them even cheaper or I wouldn't have gotten them to try.

I hope I have inspired you to try something new with your stamping and coloring and if you use chalk or decide to use chalk this month, please enter the May challenge at Chalk N Stock.

If you have any comments, I would love to hear them. 

Thanks for stopping by today.