Clearly Delightful

Pre-colored digital images - basic info

Good morning!

I went out on a limb this weekend and have dabbled just a tiny bit in creating some Doodle Pantry digi stamps into pre-colored digital images. 

Scroll down to see some basics and some pictures of how they look when printed on regular copy paper versus nice cardstock, as well as some other tips.

Not sure what kind of demand there is for these, but they sure make for quick card making.

Below is Birdie on a Wire by Doodle Pantry, in color version, set of 3 images, colored as a yellow warbler, northern cardinal, and bluebird.

It was funny when I was test printing the first batch, my 4 year old told me the cardinal looked scary and she didn't want to look at him... she asked me to cut him off the sheet I gave her, LOL.  So, I tweaked and tweaked the cardinal and finally, the one pictured below passed my 4 year old's vision test.

 

CARDS I MADE WITH BIRDIE ON A WIRE COLOR DIGI'S

I made all these 3 cards in less than an hour!   Normally, the watercoloring would take me 20 minutes for each small bird like this, but these cards were a snap to create.   My materials are listed below.

• Images: Pre-colored Birdie on a wire
• CS/PAPER: Neenah solar white 90 lb, CDS turquoise gem, CDS tickled pink, black, red, SU marina mist, basic grey urban prairie DP (yellow warbler card), basic grey marrakech DP (bluebird card), Jillibean soup DP (cardinal card)
• INK: none
• ACCENTS/TOOLS: color printer, spellbinders ovals, pinking circles, border punches, prima flowers, CDS turquoise satin, SU marina mist taffeta riboon, black gingham, pearls, basic grey button, linen thread, gems, sewing machine, glue dots
• SPECIAL: Used pre-colored digital images laser printed at high quality on smooth lightweight cardstock

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TIPS and FAQS on Pre-colored digi's

1. You REALLY need a GOOD color printer that can print photos
2. You need to use the highest quality photo printing setting for color
3. You would be wise to use a nice smooth lightweight cardstock, and not copy paper
4. SOME programs and/or printers don't process PNG's the same way as JPG's... you will need to try each file type to see which one will print the best for your software/print combo

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PAPER COMPARISON:  I used Neenah Solar white 90 lb. cardstock for the cards above, but see below for comparisons of the Neenah and copy paper.

LEFT: plain copy paper            RIGHT: Neenah solar white 90 lb. cardstock

You can see that the colors on each paper were both pretty nice, but the Neenah cardstock definitely held the color better, and made it a tad brighter.

 

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FILETYPE COMPARISON:  I use Microsoft Word to print my images... I simply insert the files into my Word document, and arrange them around to fill the sheet, and then print my Word document.

My particular laser printer, Dell 3010CN, did NOT like the fading out feature on the background colors... it printed them all blotchy even at the highest print setting... BUT the JPG's were absolutely PERFECT.    See below.

NOTE:  Some of my Design Team have told me they had same good results with both JPG and PNG, so it really does depend on your software, printer and print settings, AND choice of paper.

TOP ROW: PNG's                                 BOTTOM ROW: JPG's

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IMAGE RESIZING COMPARISON:  These birdies pull into your document at approximately 1.5" x 2.25" in size.  As you can see below, I enlarged them by about 45%.  There was NO loss of detail due to sizing them up at that rate.

TOP ROW:  image enlarged 45%                  BOTTOM ROW: original size

FINAL NOTE: Experimenting will have to be expected, until you discover the right combo for you to print color dig's to your satisfaction.  As you can see by my example photos, they DO work, as long as you have the right equipment and settings.  They are similar to printing a photo... if you can't print photos with success, you likely will not be able to print color digi's with success.

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WANT TO TRY A COLOR DIGI FOR FREE??

You can download him for free by CLICKING HERE, if you want to test out using color digi's.  Froggie pulls into your program pretty small, about 1-1/8"x2-1/8", but as you can see from my printout below, I enlarged him to 1-1/2" x 3".

I did the background gradient differently on him than the birdie's, and both the PNG and JPG printed the same, and perfectly, on my Neenah solar white cardstock.

Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope you enjoyed learning a little on color digi's.  Enjoy creating!

Watercolor Pencil review and tutorial

Howdy folks!  I bought these Faber-Castell watercolor pencils over the weekend since I had no other watercoloring alternative to dye inks, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to use and with the results, so I decided to share this with you.

They were regularly priced at $25 for a tin of 24 colors, and then I bought 16 more priced at $1.50 each.  But Hobby Lobby had them on sale for 30% off, so for 40 colors that can be blended to make many more, my investment was about $35, and pencils last a good long while.  When I use up a color, my replacement investment is only $1.50.

My review is purely my own opinion based on my actual experience using these pencils.  I am not a spokesperson for Faber-Castell or any affiliated company.  I also have not compared these pencils to any other watercolor pencil or marker on the market .

External features:

The pencil shaft is triangular shaped with rounded corners and with little raised up dots for gripping the pencil.  The grip dots are a fabulous feature for me, since my stamp loft is pretty warm and my palms and fingers sometime get clammy and tend to make slick pencils slide through my fingers.  Even if you don't have a problem with clammy hands, these grip dots help you to hold the pencils firmly with less hand pressure, which help reduce and/or eliminate hand cramps with prolonged use.

The pencil colors are marked by using numbers, and placed at the end of the pencil shaft.

Very little pressure is needed to lay down a good solid color, and I managed to get a vibrant color each time.  The lighter pressure you give only lays down less color, but does not give a less vibrant color, in my opinion.  When you blend less color using water, you get a more transparent look, and when you blend more color using water, you get a more opaque look.

I suggest using these pencils on watercolor paper and with a waterbrush to blend, for best results.  I used Canson 90 lb. watercolor paper for my project below.

I liked being able to lay down ALL my color on my images prior to applying my waterbush to finish. Whereas when I watercolor using dye inks, I can only use one color at a time.

How to use:

First, stamp your images using a waterproof ink.  I used Brilliance graphite black.

The stamp set I used is called Under the Sea and is available at CDStamps.

 

I laid down 2 different greens and a dusty navy color onto the seaweed images, see below.  The pencil colors I used here are 166, 167, and 153.  I did not fully cover the image space as you can see.  I left some spaces white so that I could pick up the color with my waterbrush and blend the two colors together.

 

Using your wet, but not drenched, waterbrush, lightly touch the tip of the brush to your lighter color and blend using a gentle and continuously moving back and forth stroke, moving the brush toward the other color.

 

Gently swipe the brush off a couple times onto a dry paper towel to remove the excess color from the brush.  Start again on the darker color and blend toward the lighter color. 

This does take a few practice runs!  You will see how the two colors become blended together with little effort, provided you are working relatively quickly so as not to allow the first color to dry before starting the second color.

 

Above:  Watercolored seaweed scene.  Colors used on the shells are 115, 118, 131, 132, 151.

 

Above:  A close up of how I colored the fish with the pencils. Colors used: 109, 115, 137, 139

Below: Watercolored fish.

 

To finish my project, I sponged baja breeze dye ink over the seaweed images to get a light ocean background color.  I dabbed a small amount of soft suede ink across the bottom for the ocean floor.

 

Below is my assembled and completed card.

 

SUPPLIES:

• ALL CDSTAMPS USED: Under the Sea
• CS & PAPERS: watercolor, baja breeze, green galore, lavender lace, pumpkin pie
• INK: Brilliance black, baja breeze, soft suede, green galore
• EMBELLISHMENTS & TOOLS: sewing machine, cuttlebug embossing folders swiss dots & divine swirl, sponge, waterbrush, faber-castelle watercolor pencils, thin organza ribbon from CDStamps.com, Basic Grey bling, SU dimensionals, stickles in several colors
• COLORING MEDIUM:  watercolor pencils on watercolor paper

I hope you find this review and tutorial useful, and remember that this post is merely my personal opinion on a product I purchased for myself.  You may or may not agree, and may or may not find the same satisfactory results as I have.  I just wanted to share my experience and hope that it is useful to you.

Thanks for stopping in today, and my next post will be saturday morning at 9 am!  Charlie has something sweet planned this Saturday, and I hope you will be stopping by again!

Happy stamping and may you be blessed ths week!

Laurie

Ribbon Rings have organized my by-the-yard ribbon stash!

I just had to share my experience for re-organizing THIS MESS!

Yep, that WAS my ribbon by the yard stash... VERY difficult to find what I needed, much less really know what I even had in there!
In the bottom of the cardboard box was just a pile of unwound twill in various colors...

So I spent a couple of hours threading each length of ribbon (after untangling it, of course, LOL!)
I ended up using all 90 ribbon tags that was in my kit.   I didn't group ribbons onto the same tag, I used a separate tag for each ribbon. 

And.... here is my ribbon NOW!

OK, so I didn't group them by color... that's not how I work for ribbon... I group mine by type of ribbon.
I have satin/silk/organza on one ring, twill and grosgrain on another, velvet on another, and specialty styles on the last one.
I even group my ribbon spools that I keep in SU ribbon keepers by ribbon type, except for PTI ribbon, those are by color group.

So, of course since now all my tags are used, I must buy more!
I like that CDStamps sells them in quantities of 3 or 4 tags (depending on size of tag)... much more affordable that way since I already have my entire stash hanging, and I only need a few new tags at a time for when I acquire new ribbons. 

So if you were on the fence about getting these tags, I must tell you that they ARE worth getting!  I freed up about 2 feet of table space by eliminating those boxes of tangled ribbons.
And now I can easily hold different ribbons up to my project to see which one works best, without even taking them off the tags or rings!

Now all I have to figure out is how to keep the cat from grabbing and playing with the ribbons.....

CARD:

Another thing I did today was a card for the CDS Weekend Color Challenge.  The colors are Mustard, Olive and Chocolate.
Yes, this one I kept pretty simple because I want to mail it snail mail.  I just got that Basic Grey mellow paper this weekend and I love it!

I watercolored the squirrel on watercolor paper and used my Nestabilities for that panel.
I used SU oval punches for the sentiment.

SUPPLIES:

• ALL CDSTAMPS USED:  Just Nutty, sentiment is from Designer Garden
• CS and PAPERS: Basic Grey Mellow, watercolor, chocolate chip, more mustard, old olive
• INK: Brilliance black, chocolate chip, more mustard, old olive, bashful blue, cameo coral, creamy caramel
• ACCESSORIES:  CTMH bitty brads, PTI ribbon, sewing machine, Su punches, nestabilities, Su dimensionals, waterbrush, sponge, white gel pen for highlights on pupils

Thanks for stopping in today!
I will be back in about a week with some blog candy!

Wishing you blessings and happy stamping!
Laurie