The Good, the Bad, and a Freebie!

*For those who aren’t interested in an update on my personal life, just scroll through the next few paragraphs to the free stamp and other good stuff down below!

First, the bad news...

Last time I blogged (way too long ago!) the kids and I had just moved in with my mom and dad temporarily and we were expecting to be settled in another house by now.  The house we were living in belonged to my parents but they had moved about 3 hours away and wanted to sell it so we could move closer to where they now live.  I’ve been ready for a change of scenery for quite awhile and so I was looking forward to it.

We finally had a buyer earlier this year.  Long story short, he signed a buy/sell agreement and then didn’t show up for closing after we ran ourselves into the ground getting moved out 2 weeks early at his request.  That’s all I’m going to say about that because I want my blog to be a happy place.  LOL

We have decided to wait and see what summer brings before we get anything out of storage.   Hopefully a move-in-ready house will sell better.  I’m more or less living out of a suitcase and going back and forth between the two places as needed.

I hope you will understand and bear with me as I am not quite as active online as I would like to be.   I have to go into town to the library or McDonald’s for internet access.  However, my oldest daughter, Ruby, is helping me a LOT with this little venture and she DOES have internet at her house so we won’t leave you hanging if you need anything!

Now, the good news…

Since all of my crafty things are in storage, I have been playing with an amazing digital scrapbooking/crafting program on my laptop called Craft Artist Pro 2 by Serif.  I love, love, love it!  I will talk about that more in a future post but I just wanted to mention it now because that is what I used to make the card above!

• The digital paper I used for the land and water were part of a free digikit (Spooktacular) for the Craft Artist Pro 2 software.  (It’s actually the same green paper,  I just altered the color for the water.)
• The paper I used for the sky is a freebie I got from a very lovely little online shop called Star Sunflower Studio. 
• The free font I used  is “Homemade Apple”.
• The duck stamp is “Quackers”. (I’ve added this colored mallard version of the image to the Quackers zip file in my store at no extra charge.) 
• Last but not least, Cattails is a free stamp I made just for this post!  Get it here!

More good news!

One of the goals I have for my stamps is to make more images that are multipurpose.   If you can dress up a stamp a lot of different ways for any occasion, it’s not only more fun but also a great value.  I love layering images.  I have a lot of really fun ideas for add ons to many of my stamps such as scenery, props, hats, seasonal objects, etc.  But one thing I ran into as I was working with these ideas is that when you place line images with transparent backgrounds over each other, it’s a huge, confusing mess! 

After a lot of tedious and frustrating attempts at erasing the unwanted lines in my layered images with a clunky mouse, I decided this layering business was not going to be much fun, or even possible, for most people.  In the past I have done a lot of fussy cutting to layer one image over another and I actually enjoy that kind of thing but it is time consuming and not everyone is even capable of doing really intricate work.  So I had to think of another way so everyone can play!

My solution is illustrated below.  A picture is worth a thousand words, especially MY words, which seemed to be tripping all over each other as I tried to explain what I did.  LOL   



Each Wink Wink Ink image now comes with 4 different transparent PNG file versions.

1. Black line with completely transparent background- Perfect for printing single images or layered over digital papers when you want the pattern  to show through.
2. Black and white image with transparent background- Best for layering with other images. Lines from the background images won’t show through the top image.
3. Light tan and white image with transparent background- For a softer, more painterly effect with no harsh lines. Also works great for layering with other images.
4. Pre-colored image with transparent background- Great for inspiration and quick, easy projects when you don’t want to color.  Also nice for digital cards and scrapbooking.

The free Cattails stamp includes  every kind of  file that a stamp for sale has. Grab it and play with it and see what you think before you buy anything.

Now that you see WHAT I changed, here is another picture to explain WHY I changed it!




That’s all for this time!  Hope you are all having a great Memorial Day weekend.  Special thanks to any veterans who might read this.  I am deeply grateful for your service.
Sincerely,
Melanie