Designing a card with Digital Images - Puddin'

 

Designing a card front  with Digital Images - 

From Sweet November Stamps

I love using digital images to design a card front, and the adorable images from Sweet November Stamps are just perfect for that . 

So firstly, I have visited their website and purchased the images that I want to work with and saved them in my files. 

Here is where I just want to take 2 seconds and talk a bit about digital stamps - I absolutely love them for several reasons. First of all, they are instant. You see an image you like, add it to your card, pay for it and poof you can work with it just seconds later. Next would be super easy storage!! The digital images just sit on a shelf in your computer, taking up very little space. They fit in anyone's craft space! Even if you don't have much hard drive space on your computer you can store them on google drive or something similar and access them from your phone, tablet, or desktop computer! 

The idea of working with a digital images for card making might be a bit daunting to you - you might be worried that you can't figure out how to do it, but I promise you it is really quite simple. If I figured it out, anyone can! 

I use a large amount of Adobe programs for my photography and included in some of their great software is Adobe Express which is a free program that will allow you to design a card front that you will love using your saved digital images. 

Adobe Express allows you to place images, move them forward or backward, resize them, flip the image, or even rotate the image to several different positions.  

Once I have my design just how I want it, I save the image and then open it with Fast Stone Image Viewer which is another free program that I have used for many years.  I quickly resize the image in this program to be sure it is going to print at 4 1/4 x 5 1/2. 

I place a piece of white card stock paper in my printer and a piece of just copy paper beneath it and I print the image twice. Printing on the copy paper will allow me to have a copy of the image that I can use for any masking that I want to do on a paper thin enough for masking.  

I use these masks in partner with Scotch repositionable tape. 

I use this combo for masking in most cases. 

 I downloaded the Puddin' reindeer image from Sweet November Stamps.

Along with any other digital images for background building from the same website. 

You will see them all there, just have a look around and purchase the images you like.

Alright, back to the card front - in the first photo you can see I have place the masks that I want to use on the card stock layer. For this card I also cut a 3 inch circle to use as a mask so that I could create a large winter moon. 

I blended around the moon mask with just a touch of Lemon Lilly ink. Then came in with some CP On the Lake ink around the moon. I used Orchid Oasis and blended out from they to the edges of the card where the sky would be. I went over the outside edges blending in Starry Sky where the sky would be the darkest in the card front. 

I have now removed the masks for the first stage of blending and I switch them to mask off the trees, Puddin’, and the North Pole sign.  I’ll now attempt to blend in a snowy sky. 

Blending with a light grey ink I put down a layer of color on the hillside under the houses, and around the area where Puddin’ is sitting as well as where the North Pole sign would be sticking out of the snow.  I went over these same areas with a Fresh Freesia Ink leaving patches of white with no blending to create a billowy snow look. We’ll do some more with that snow later into the card. 

Now we are going to remove the bottom masks to reveal our snow and see if it even looks like snow!?  

Here’s hoping! 

In this photo you can see I was a little heavy handed with that grey snow blending in that back right section, hopefully I can fix that up later. For now I used a white pigment ink and a finger dauber to pounce some white inked snow around on the snowy sections of the card. This makes a really cute snow effect. We will wait for that to dry and move on with the coloring of the images. 

The images have now been coloured using Copic markers. I used muted tones for the houses and trees in the background to keep them from overtaking the focal image. 

Now to add some finishing touches to this magical winters scene…

Is this cute or what?! 

I added a snow using an acrylic white paint with a few drops of water and splattered it on the card front while trying to avoid to much landing on the sentiment. 

I also used a splatter of silver sparkles which is really hard to see in the photos but in real life adds so much sparkle, shine and texture. 

This card front feels like a snowy winter evening without the freezing factor! 

I did create this post in real time - so as I created a step and paused to blog about it, in hopes to make the directions as simple as possible to follow. 

If you have any questions about creating this card or in regards to digital images, please feel free to contact me. 

*** I am in no way affiliated with either of the computer programs that I suggested in this post. They do not pay me to recommend them, I just like their programs. Nor am I affiliated with Sweet November Stamps nor do I make any profit from their images ( not that I wouldn't love to ). I just love their products whether material or digital. Their illustrations are absolutely awesome! Sweet November Stamps has definitely been an amazing find in this new stage of my card creating adventures! 

I hope you loved today's card and that it has left you with some creative inspiration...

Happy Crafting...