Digital Stamps

Wow, sorry, it's been ages since I last blogged and although I haven't done much in the way of art/craft lately, hundreds of ideas have been milling around my head.

The last time I made my own Christmas cards was a couple of years back and it was a great photo of our back garden with a snowman.  I felt this year that I would like to get into some serious card making so I have been looking on pinterest and checking out all the wonderful cards on the internet to get inspiration and the cards I like the most are the stamped, vintage looking cards.

So last week I went to a big stamp and card making show and was just shocked at the price of everything.  You know, I do love Tim Holtz's distress ink pads but then it's the sprays and the pens and goodness knows what else and I think is it all necessary!!?  Then there's the nesties and the stamps and the accessories.  Just for a couple of cards, you have to buy a whole shop!

So I decided that I am going to create my own 'digital stamps' and my own background papers.  So as a test I got one of my flower pictures and proceeded to make a birthday card.  I love it!  I wondered whether it would take any of the 'arty-craftiness' out of card making but it required just as much skill to get the mix right, choose the colours and make up the card.  Christmas cards here I come!

This is my original picture:

This is the card I created.  I printed onto some pearlised paper that you can use in your inkjet printing and it gives it a lovely sheen:

Think I might try some black outlines next and colour them in and see how that goes.