Store Grand Re-Opening & Tuesday Tutorial!

 Hi Friends,

Thanks for visiting. We have a lot to share with you today!

Grand Re-Opening of Clearly Digi Stamps

Our new store is finally ready to reopen -- hooray!!! Thank you very much for your patience as we ironed out the bugs. We hope you're going to love the new store. It is truly designed for digis, with the fun features that you asked for, including a digi download page, and the ability to pay with Paypal! We invite you to VISIT US today.

If you do experience any glitches when shopping, we ask that you please send a sweet email to Lori at lori@cleardollarstamps.com, and she will get things fixed up for you straight away. Also, please remember that you must create a new customer account to shop at the new store, as we were unable to transfer the old customer data.

Free Digis to Celebrate Our New Store

You will want to visit our store each Thursday and Sunday for the next month as we celebrate the opening of our new store, because we will be giving away some FREE DIGIS!  Some will be free to everyone, and others will be free-with-purchase. Either way, you are sure to love them all!

As the free digis release, they will only be free for 3-4 days each, and then they will move to the priced section of the store. Right now we are offering these two digis for free:

"Otterly Thankful"

"Choo Choo"

These two digis will be free until Thursday, June 6 at 10:00 am Central. Then we will have a new free digi for you to enjoy!

Tuesday Tutorial: Heat-Embossing Digis

One of my favorite techniques to use when stamping is heat-embossing. It gives the images such an elegant look! Did you know that you can heat-emboss digis, too? Read on for directions! :-)

A. Materials

* Non-porous cardstock, such as vellum or glossy cardstock, sized appropriately for your printer's paper tray

DESIGN NOTE: Glossy photo paper will not usually work with this technique.

* Printer

* Digi(s) of your choice (I used the "Loving Hands" set for this tutorial)

* Heat embossing powder

* Heat Tool

B. Get Your Materials Ready

There are two main tricks to successfully heat embossing digis: using the right kind of paper, and embossing the digis as soon as they finish printing.

First, you will want to use a non-porous cardstock, such as vellum or glossy cardstock. Using this kind of paper allows the printed ink to remain on the surface of the cardstock for a short time, rather than soaking into the cardstock. You need the printed ink to act in place of using embossing ink, so the slicker the surface, the better it should work.

Please note that glossy photo paper usually will not work with this technique, as it is chemically treated so that the printed ink will dry quickly.

Aside from using a certain kind of cardstock, you need to have your embossing powder and heating tool ready to use immediately after printing the digis. Have your heat tool plugged in and reachable, the cap already off of the embossing powder, and whatever you use to catch stray embossing powder already laid down before printing. Ideally, you should have these materials set up right near your printer, so you can grab the printed sheet of digis as soon as the printer spits it out and then emboss them right away.

C. Print and Heat-Emboss Your Digis

1. Select the digis that you wish to heat emboss, and ready them for printing.  If you are new to using digis, and are not sure how to do this, please read our Digi Stamps 101 tutorial, which covers this and many other basics of using digis.

DESIGN NOTE: I reccommend using the outline version of any digi you wish to heat-emboss. If you use the colored version of a digi, the embossing powder will stick to the entire image, and not give you the elegant look you want.

2. Insert a sheet of non-porous cardstock into your printer's paper tray, making sure that it is positioned so that the slick side of the cardstock (if applicable) is the one on which the digis will print.

3. If possible, adjust the settings for your printer to print to "Best" quality, and set the paper type to "Glossy" or "Glossy Photo" (or whatever the equivalent setting is for your particular printer).

4. Print the digis. Because you are using non-porous paper on which to print them, the ink will be wet and sitting on the surface of the paper after printing, so be careful not to smudge the image.



5. As soon as the digis have finished printing, apply the heat embossing powder to the images. I generally just dump a generous amount all over the images, to be sure that all of the ink is covered.

6. Gently shake off the excess embossing powder. If necessary, use a soft brush to carefully remove stray bits of powder from the cardstock.

7. Heat the embossing powder until properly melted, as you would with any stamped image. When finished, you should have a beautifully heat-embossed digi that you can then use on a card or other project.

That's all there is to it! As mentioned, the keys to success are using the right kind of paper, and embossing the digis as quickly as possible after printing. It might take you a couple of tries to get the timing right, but once you have it down, this is a fun and easy way to add a little something extra to your digi crafts.

If you have any questions about this technique, please ask in the Comments section of this post. If you would like a direct reply, please be sure to include your email address.