For the past few years I've been looking for ways to save money on card making. Not only because many products can be quite pricy, but also the postage is quite high, especially if you are shopping abroad. Therefore if I can avoid shopping I will do that. I already made a video about ways to make budget friendly cards and you can watch it here. And now I want to go into each option in more detail, with specific examples, starting with digital stamps. SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE VIDEO WHAT ARE DIGITAL STAMPS?If you have never heard of digital stamps and wonder what they are. They are pretty much any outline images that you can download and print. I guess the term is just use for the crafting and specifically card making niche, but any outline image can be used as a digital stamp. After you print them out you can do the same as you would do with a stamped image. NOTE: Of course you can download all kinds of images you find online, but be careful about the copy right. You don’t want to get into trouble. The good thing even the paid digital stamps, are way cheaper than normal stamps, you don't have to pay postage and that’s what makes them budget friendly. You might argue because you need a printer, which will add to the price, but I assume that many people already have a printer or at least have an access to one. WHERE YOU CAN GET DIGITAL STAMPS?While there are places where you can get free images, in this blog post and video I want to concentrate on images that are labeled as digital stamps that you can purchase. The best is to google and type in digital stamps or digi stamps, which is also a term and check out the results. I also added cardmaking, to get more specific results. You will get quite a few result and you can check them all and decide for yourself. I am going to talk about two of them, that I'm familiar with. First Shop The first is Etsy. While I knew that you can get digital stamps on Etsy, I didn't have a deeper look. When I was looking through for this blog post, I was surprised how many really good stamps you can get and the prices are really great. These are a few that caught my eye:
Second Shop The next place where you can get digital stamps, I actually knew about for some time, is Gerda Steiner Designs. That's where I got the the digital stamp for this blog post and video. You can find the store here. They sell mainly normal stamps, but have a small selection of digital stamps as well. The prices do not differ much form their physical stamps, but they also have a few stamps that you can download for free, which is great option if you are just starting and want to try it out. There are of course other places and if you find other that you like share it with us in the comments. DOWNLOADING DIGITAL STAMPSAfter you find your stamp and go through the purchase process. I got the stamps from the free section and still had to go through the purchase as well. While every website is different, most often the download process is very similar. You can download it right after the purchase. There should be a download button. Or you will get an email with a link that will transfer you to a download page. Click on the download button, select the location where the file should be downloaded and press save. IMPORTANT: Once you download your image, make sure you save it and create a backup. Many websites offer re-download, but it is not guaranteed. Extracting a Zip-File Your image will be probably downloaded as a Zip-file, it will end with .zip and you will need to extract the files. To do so, go to the location where you saved it. On a Mac just double click on the file, on an iPad or iPhone tap on the folder icon. I don't have a Windows computer, but try right-clicking on the folder and there should be an option Extract all. BEFORE PRINTING - DESIGNING CARDYou can print your image directly, or what you can do is to place it in a document and design your card or print multiple images. I personally do not like to print on a full sheet of paper, mainly due to clogging, but also I usually make one or two cards at a time. You can of course try it out, I prefer to use the size of my card and that is A6. You can use any software you prefer and you are comfortable using. Word, PowerPoint, Pages, Keynote, Photoshop etc. In the video I used Google Slides. In general I follow these steps:
PRINT THE DIGITAL IMAGETo print out the digital stamp, select File > Print. If you are using online software, you might need to download the image first. PRINTING SETTINGS TO ADJUSTThis might differ from printer to printer and operating system, but in general I look for these settings: Paper Size I make sure it's the same size as the document. Media & Quality Section Feed From: I use automatic, but you might have to select the manual feed. Media Type: I select Heavyweight. If not available, try something similar. Quality: I pick Best. If there are any other setting you would pick, let me know. Otherwise you can now print. WHICH PRINTER TO LOOK FORThere are plenty printers on the market and every printer is different. While I'm not an expert on printers, there are a few things you should be looking for. Ability to print on a heavyweight card stock You are probably using card stock like Neenah Solar White, Bistol Card Stock or Canson XL, this is a quite thick card stock. Therefore you need a printer that can print on a thicker card stock. When you are choosing a printer, you want to be looking for a printer thant has the capability to print on a such card stock. You want to be looking for words like heavyweight, thick or 300gsm (140lb in the US). If you already have a printer, check if in your printer settings if you have the option to select Media Type and if you have a choice of selecting Heavyweight or similar. Waterproof Ink (Ink Jet Printers Only) If you are using wet media such as alcohol markers or watercolours and watercolour markers, you don't want an ink that smudges. Therefore you want to check, if you can get ink cartrages for your printer that are waterproof. As far as I know this applies to ink jet printers, laser printers should be waterproof. If you would like to know what printer I have, my printer is the Brother MFC-L2710DW. It's a mono printer, it only prints in black. Also I checked the website and it should only print on 230gsm card stock, but I was able to print on 300gsm Canson XL. WHICH CARD STOCK IS GOODThis is something you need to test yourself as every printer is different. Sometimes the ink and the card stock do not work together, so don't give up. I tested six different types of card stock and not only tested if it prints, but also if there is any smudging. Despite I am using a laser printer, smudging is still possible. Neenah Solar White, Canson Bristol and my recent purchase House Of Cards worked without any problems. The image printed very nice and there was no smudging. I also coloured the images on two of the card stocks, on the Neenah I used alcohol markers and on the Bristol I used watercolour markers and there was no smudging. Next I tested a few types of watercolour card stock, two that are 300gsm. I tested Florence by Vaessen, watercolour paper from Flying Tiger and Canson XL. My first test didn't go well. While all of the images printed well, all the images smudged, when I went through them with my finger. However, I did a little bit of research and realized that I didn't select the option - Heavyweight. I didn't know such option was there. Then I remembered reading about laser printers, there is a heat element that sets the ink. I thought why not to try a laminator and set the ink that way. I run the card stock through the laminator before and after printing, after printing is probably enough, I just thought I will make the card stock warmer. Kind of prep it. The result? The ink did not smudge! This is exciting. Not just that I can print on a watercolour card stock, but also the disovery of digital stamps on Etsy. I haven't been doing much of colouring on my blog and YouTube channel, because most of the time I'm using an older stamps set that is no longer available. Those videos do not get many views. Maybe if I use digital stamps, I might have a better luck. Make sure you check out my video on YouTube and give it a Like as well. The list of product is down below, where you can also find a few blog posts that I think you might enjoy. And if you have any questions, just drop me a line. VIDEO TUTORIALWatch the video below or on my YouTube Channel. YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKECards where I used digital stamps PIN MEDid you like the card? I would love, if you pinned it to your board on Pinterest!
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