Let's Get Digital with Just Us Girls

Its time for Just Us Girls - this week it's a technique challenge and I am the hostess. I decided it was time to really have us all try some digital stuff! Digital stamps and digital scrapbooking are becoming quite popular.  Lauren Meader from My Time Made Easy is sponsoring us and she will be giving away a DIGITAL STAMP SET plus a pack of DIGITAL PAPER to one lucky participant this week. SO it would be good to play along...

Here's my project for the week.  I realize the layout is really, really simple but I'll explain all the digi action in a bit.

The card itself is mounted on Gina K 120lb pure luxury CS (love this CS) layered with Spring Rain and another layer of white.  The white layer behind the house has been embossed with the woodgrain embossing plate from PTI. It really adds some cool texture! I used my Scor-Pal to do some simple scoring on the blue layer and on the CS base layer. If you click the picture to enlarge it you will see what I mean.

Here's a closer look at the main image:

I have not played a whole lot with digital images (I really prefer "real stamping") but I've been exposed to enough of them to think it was worth doing some exploration. SO I started with one of Lauren's images (the house) from the digital set called Just For You. First thing I did was enlarge the image to almost 3". It was just a transparent house when I first started...

Then I began to play with the image in Photoshop. I wondered if I could "paper piece" a digital image. I discovered that I could, indeed do some creative paper piecing - so I used some of my favorite papers from MTME and "pieced" my little house... I also "painted" the scalloped edge of the roofline, too. Hmmm this was kind of fun (although it took me about 45 min to get this far - I had to learn as I proceeded). I will tell you that each digital paper was on a separate layer so if I messed up I didn't ruin the whole image :-)

After that I added some flowers from the same Just For You set, painted them (in Photoshop) with kind of fun colors - oh I decided I needed the bird, too.  I was now to here:

Each flower is on its own layer as is the bird. I ended up with 10 layers total in my Photoshop file!! If you look closely you will see that I added a DROP SHADOW to each flower and the bird to give them more depth and dimension and to appear "popped up".  Last thing I did to the image was to add my sentiment text right on the house since I wasn't sure if there would be room on the card when I was done.  I simply added a text layer in PS and typed the words Welcome Home and placed the text just above the door - I used the arched text tool to make the words arc slightly over the door.  Ok - I finally had my image complete. It was very rewarding to be able to figure out all the steps along the way and yet to have a card that LOOKS like lots of layering that's not at all. Once I printed my image, I cut out the house, colored the windows with a soft yellow to look like a light shining in the window,  then mounted it to the rest of my card with some dimensionals.

You will notice from my screen shots above that the color on my screen was more "teal" than the card - that's the color change that happened between what I saw on my SCREEN and what printed on my PRINTER! (ACK!) I didn't have time to do any color tweaking but I could have if I really needed to.

SO - I spent about 2 hours playing with digital images and layers and Photoshop - You could do the same things with Gimp which is FREE photo editing software.  It took me way longer than a "normal" card would have BUT I learned a LOT along the way. I will surely visit digital "stuff" more often after this -

I HOPE you will all TRY some digital image stuff - it CAN be frustrating if you don't know what to do but really, it's a lot easier than you might think - Even if you just use a digi image and RESIZE it you'll find some real value in that ability.

Be sure to pop over to the rest of the team and see their creations - their cards and layouts are WAY better than this simple layout - I devoted most of my time this week to learning more about digital and left too little time for a fancy layout.

Now - before I go I must bid a FOND FAREWELL to my teammate and fellow JUGS gal, Mona. This will be Mona's last JUGS challenge as a DT girl - she is already way committed with other things on her plate and she will also be exploring new options and avenues. I will miss her dearly - I love her shabby chic vintage style and she was SO good about commenting and leaving a little love - be sure to stop be her blog and leave her a few good wishes. All the best to you Mona, my friend! :-(

Thanks for stopping by and putting up with all my blabbering on :-0 Tomorrow is the next wedding dress fitting - it's getting closer now - I need to have my own Mother of the Bride dress altered too - better get on that.

Have a lovely weekend.
Hugs n Smiles.

An Angel for a Special Cause

By now I am sure that many of you in the stamping community have heard of the tragic loss that a fellow stamper has suffered recently. Sarah Anderson's 3 year old son, Henry,  passed away from a virus on November 2. It has been devastating for the family. In an effort to help raise money for a memorial tree at the local Zoo in Henry's honor (he loved the zoo),  Paper Makeup Stamps has designed a special stamp as a tribute to Henry.

Just Us Girls is conducting a special challenge to all of you out there who want to help this cause. Please purchase the Henry the Snow Angel Fairy digital stamp (it's only $3.00), then make a card with it and post it to the Mr. Linky on the "Just Us Girls" blog (be sure you are on the right Mr. Linky since we have one on each challenge.) We will randomly choose one participant from our Mr. Linky to receive a $15 gift certificate to Paper Makeup Stamps when the week is over. You have one week to do this special challenge. The "Henry Challenge" will be running concurrently with our regular challenge for part of the week since we will have a brand new Just Us Girls technique challenge on Saturday hosted this week by Tracey.

Here is my card made with this digi stamp:

I worked with Gina K's Cranberry Tart and PTI's Kraft and Spring Rain papers. I had printed off Henry onto my GKD Pure Luxury CS then set out to color him with copics. Finally, I added some 3D snow effects with my new Glistening Snow Writer pen (JoAnn's) and a light dusting of glitter. The sentiment is from Papertrey's Snowfall Additions set.

 
If you want to help further, you might also pop over to Pink Cat Studio website. Sarah is a Design Team member for them. Pink Cat Studio has also created a digital stamp set to help raise money for Henry's family. You can find out more about it here.

Thank you all for supporting this worthy cause. My heartfelt prayers go out to the Anderson family.

Introducing... The Weiman Wranglers

By now those of you who follow my blog will know the heartbreaking news of the recent passing of 4 year old Ethan Weiman. His mom, Alicia, is also a member of the My Time to Create Design Team. I posted a blog article about it recently which you can read here. Well - in an effort to support the Weiman family and in memory of Ethan and in honor of his younger sister Ava, Melissa from Pink Cat Studio has designed a new digital stamp set called the Weiman Wranglers. Each of these ADORABLE images (Ethan and Ava) can be downloaded for $4 each or you can get both for only $6. Each image also includes the sentiments "You're Amazing" and "Howdy." All proceeds from the sale of these digi stamps will go to the Illinois chapter of the Make a Wish Foundation as per the wishes of Ethan's parents, Alicia and Dave. You can read more about Ethan on Alicia's blog and on Ethan Weiman's Caring Bridge site. One of our My Time to Create Design Team members is also preparing a tutorial on how to use digital stamp images.


Here's a simple card I put together with the set. I printed the image onto Gina K Designs' Pure Luxury white card stock then colored the image with copics. I sponged some Creamy Caramel and More Mustard inks around the image for some depth. I used some of the awesome leather paper from PaperTemptress for the card itself, then layered with Gina K Designs' Rocket Red and Chocolate Kiss cardstocks. I gave Cowboy Ethan a red bandana (with a little white gel pen accent to look like a read bandana) and a bright silver belt buckle! I'll be using the Weiman Wranglers again later this week so stay tuned... Thank you to all of you who contributed to the Weiman family per the request we posted recently. Our thoughts and prayers and with the Weiman's at this difficult time.

Design Team members also have been busy working with the Weiman Wranglers for you. Check them out below:

Lauren Meader
Lisa Kind
Odette
Jen Tapler
Tracey Cuccia
Maria Levine
Dawn Easton
MacKenzie Bruckler
Kristen
Tamara Harder
Kendra
Dana