Trying to be open-minded

I have been fairly resistant to the idea of digistamps, which may amuse those of you who know about my digital design work, and others of you who know that I have used clipart on my cards since long before digital stamps were a common item. However, so many of my peers have extolled the virtues digital stamps, I thought I should give them another try.

Paper Popsicles has started a new thing, giving out a free digital stamp every Friday on their company blog, so I thought I would give it a try. It is a very lovely thing for them to do, and I am happy to send you all to their site to check them out. However, I had trouble with the image they sent. Perhaps it is all my fault, because I am cheap, I do not want to run an entire sheet of cardstock through my printer just to snag one image (this is my main complaint with Ten Two Studios, too). I want to be able to print out several at once, resize as necessary, even reverse and combine my digital stamps. Unfortunately, the image files come as PDFs, and I can't do any of that with my software, and I happen to think I have some pretty good software. However, my software will let me do a screen capture, so that is what I was reduced to doing - magnifying the image on my computer and doing a screen capture in order to render it in a format I could manipulate to my desire.

Anyway, once I got it printed out, I colored the image with marker watercoloring, Stargazers for shimmer, a little bit of direct marker coloring for the tiny bits, and highlighting with Stardust pens. The sentiment is handwritten with gold metallic gel pen and highlighted with the Stardust pen.



I chose to make a night sky to comply with the Saturday Spotlight Challenge to use a non-Halloween image to make a Halloween card, and I sparkled it up for the Sunflowers and Dragonflies challenge to Sparkle and Shine. The layout is Card Patterns 35. That makes 4 challenges in one card!

Juliet Arrighi

17 comments:

Beth Norman-Roberts said...

Love this card. I really like how you added the flourishes. I'm a big fan of them. Really wish I had access to some good chipboard (already painted). I still haven't done any digis. Must give it a go. I'll go check out the link. Thank you for playing in our challenge. It is always nice to see new faces.

Darlene said...

This is fantastic!! Your night scene was the perfect "not halloween" idea! After all it's always dark when those cute little candy grabber come to my door, tee hee! Thanks so much for joining us at Saturday Spotlight! I look forward to seeing more of your creations in the upcoming weeks!
BTW ... I agree with you ... the digis should be .jpg images ... NOT .pdf!

Maria Matter said...

Oh this is fabulous Juliet, I love the flourish here....great idea to do a night scene! this is a wonderful halloween not card!!!
I'm so glad you could play along with us at Saturday Spotlight!
Blessings, Maria

checkout the Fred She Said blog....lovely freebies throughout! some are pre sized with a few on a sheet!

Anonymous said...

Oh my!!! Juliet....this is SO FABULOUS hun!!! I love your idea, those flourishes really make it gorgeous!!! I'm SO glad you at least tried a digi, it takes some getting used to, but I always print out at least four images on a sheet when I do mine...so I don't feel that I'm wasting any paper. Resize them how you'd like before you print them out and before you color your image...MAKE SURE that you heat set really well and you should be able to use any medium that you like to color with. (I just save the other images for future use and keep them in folder.)

Thanks for the info about the free digi and thank you SO MUCH for playing along in our first Saturday Spotlight challenge!!! I would love to see more of your work!! :) HUGS

papertrails leaver said...

Hey cool digi image! I love that Paper Popsicles is doing this on Fridays again! Very nice card!

Denise Clark said...

Great take on the challenge. Love your house!

whoistracy said...

This is fab Juliet! And I agree- I hate "wasting" an entire sheet of CS just to get one digital image to print. Ugh!

Tricia said...

cool job on your card with our image! Love it! Also enjoy that you put some other elements on the card!

Jennifer E. said...

What a beautiful card! I love the focal piece, and I agree the flourishes are a wonderful accent! Thanks for playing in the Sunflowers & Dragonflies Sparkle & Shine Challenge--Good Luck!

Lora Oliver said...

Wow, Juliet, that is really neat. I love the night sky and the embellishments you added around it are wonderful! Thanks for playing at the Paper Popsicles. Don't forget, there will be another freebie this Friday and we would love to see more of your incredible creations!

Chris Olsen, Glowbug said...

Isn't it amazing how the right colors and coloring can change the appearance and theme of an image. perfect job on creating a halloween but not card. Thanks for playing along with us at the Sat. Spotlight.

She's a Color Queen said...

Great idea to make it a night sceen!

Jessica G. said...

The dark sky really adds a spooky element to this card, perfect for Halloween! Thanks for playing along in our first Spotlight challenge!!

Crystal said...

This is a fabulous Halloween creation!!! Thanks so much for joining us at Saturday Spotlight!

Dawn B. said...

This is a beautiful scene.. I love your coloring.. Really nice job.. Thanks for joining us at Saturday Spotlight.

stampingtink said...

Great card! Love the image and great colors. Thanks so much for joining us at Saturday Spotlight!

Chris said...

I'm finally getting to visit everyone who played along with the CardPatterns sketch! Love this card Juliet...those swirls and leaves make it extra interesting! :)