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.

LATCH WRAP BOX

Good Tuesday Tutorial Morning to you. Lisa here.  Happy New Year.

Today I will show you how to make this

LATCH WRAP BOX

Using the adorable digis designed by Laurie Wilson

LOVING CRITTERS COLOR

(for the color image)

  LOVING CRITTERS 

(for the sentiment)



Start with your piece of cardstock 8 5/8 x 2 3/8 +1/16 I printed digi paper from the digi LOVING CRITTERS COLOR  onto white cardstock. 

Now Score and fold from left to right on the long side at 1 3/4, 2 1/2+1/16, 6 1/16, 6 7/8, 8 5/8

Place 2 glue dots on the bottom of the box and two on the top of the box (these will adhere but can also be pulled up without leaving much damage to the wrap) then wrap the paper wrap all around to the front. 

Now we are ready to make our latch. 

I printed out my image (I made sure it would fit in my 1 1/2" circle.......as you can see I cut out just part of it to fill the circle and see it better).  I then cut it out using the second from the smallest circle die in the Spellbinders large circles (not grands).  I then embossed it on the cuttlebug too!

To Make the Outter ring.......I just used the 3rd scallop circle from the smallest and the 2nd circle nestability from the smallest (spellbinders dies) put them inside each other and ran them through my cuttlebug then embosssed just the circle in the center. 

After cutting out your ring...flip it over and place dimensional tape pieces only on the top half!

Center the ring on the front and adhere. The dimensional tape should only be on the top half so it will open.

Take your small circle, flip over and place dimensional tape only on the bottom of the circle.

FRONT

LATCH OPENING

INSIDE

This is a Valentine Latch Wrap Box but you can do this technique with any small box for any occasion. 

Using Java Minute Digi

Hi, Lisa here. This is just a mini tutorial today. I just wanted to show you ways to use one of my most recent digis

JAVA MINUTE

I made this digi to be versatile.  So you could do more with it.  So today I'll show you a few things this digi can do.........of course your imagination is the limit.

Overlay on silhouettes

There is an outline clear overlay in this set. You can place it directly over the silhouette or off to the side a little or a lot.  I just arranged the order to make my overlay in front of the silhouette.

Silhouette/Sentiment

You can put the sentiment over the silhouette in black or a darker tone of the silhouette.



Layering

You can layer like I did here...I used a color image, sentiment and border (twice). I just arranged the order on each image to place it in front or behind.

I made this set of cards using the clear outline overlay and the silhouette images.

Here's a closer look.

Here is the inside.

 Here's some Design Team samples using this set.

Sarah Taylor made this shape gift card holder. I love her paper piecing.

 

She tucked the gift card on the inside.



 Cassie Trask worked her magic with an outline image in this beauty.

Lori Ulrich used the border brilliantly here and I love the black silhouette shadow behind her color image.

I hope this tutorial inspired you and shed some light on the many ways this set can be used.



BABY JESUS NUGGET AND MANGER TUTORIAL

Welcome to today's TUESDAY TUTORIAL.  Lisa here with you today.  Its been awhile. Hope you all that celebrated Thanksgiving had a blessed time with family making memories. Personally I cooked my first Turkey in 24 years and destroyed it. Hee. I am now determined to learn how to cook a good turkey.

Getting back to today's Tutorial, I am going to walk you through, step by step, making the adorable manger and nuggets using the new digi Lori McCroskey designed

BABY JESUS NUGGETS

Here is Lori's example.  She printed out the brown colored manger pieces onto white cardstock and assembled.  In my tutorial I will be showing you another way to make it...printing onto colored cardstock (Kraft) and printed out the pieces that are uncolored for the manger.

Here you can see I filled up my 8 1/2 x 11 piece of Kraft cardstock with enough pieces to make 5 mangers. I put them side by side.  I will cut them apart where they touch using my paper trimmer to get a straight cut. I used the png images and arranged them in Microsoft Publisher. You just need to make sure you leave at least 1/4" from the edges because the computer will cut that much off when it prints.

Now score along the four outter tabs and in the center from the side edges.

Now fold along the score lines. I folded so the score lines of the manger will be on the bottom of this piece and the little tabs are folded so the tape will go against the printed lines....they'll get hidden when assembled.

This is optional.....I embossed the manger pieces using my Cuttlebug and Cuttlebug Embossing Folder Distressed Stripes.

After I embossed the pieces I sponged all the edges (front and back)....again this is optional. I am just giving you options. I want this to be special.

I printed out a colored manger side to use as a guide for assembling my side pieces.

I placed two strips of Score Tape to adhere the top piece.

I adhered the sides and punched holes in the one on the left to show you that I inserted gold mini brads.

Here's the backs of them to show you how I bent my brads inward so they won't show outside of the manger.

I cut my score tape in half length wise to fit my tabs.

You will find the edges of the manger match up with the side edges just right.

Here is our manger. Ready to add a filler (if you like).

I printed out my colored baby Jesus nugget wrappers onto a light weight white cardstock. You can even use copy paper.  Again I arranged them in Microsoft Publisher using the png images. I made them touch each other so I can cut them apart at one swipe with my paper trimmer on each row.

I sponged the edges of the nugget wrapper to match the sponged edges of the manger.  I also cut out another baby Jesus and sponged him.

Just place  a piece of score tape at each end on the back of the nugget wrapper.

Wrap the wrapper around your Hershey Nugget and adhere. I placed a small piece of dimensional tape on the back of my cut out Baby Jesus.

I placed some filler in my manger and topped with my Baby Jesus Nugget. This is the cutest project made so easy with Lori's digital image.  I hope you found this tutorial helpful and have fun making your own gifts for friends, family, teachers, party favors etc.

Enjoy each and every day of this blessed holiday season. 

QUESTIONS FROM COMMENTS:

One more question ... Is there a way to print out the Jesus nugget wrappers on the Avery mailing labels usually used for these types of projects instead of printing on cardstock and manually cutting out?

Yes!  In Word, you simply go to the Mailing tab, labels, choose label Avery 8160, create page, Insert/Picture, choose the nugget label and then fill your page by repeating the insert function or copy and paste!  So simple!