Digital Download Challenge!

The Angel Company has started releasing digital downloads each month. You have no idea how excited I am about this and I hope it's a sign of things to come. Although I have been a paper crafter forever, the last few years I have been nearly 100% digital. My scrapbook pages, cards, crafts, I was doing it all on the computer.

The flexibility that comes through digital art is probably the biggest plus to the craft, not to mention there's no mess--you don't want to see my stamp table right now. Most computers have basic photo editing software, but I happen to really like Photoshop. Photoshop Elements is very reasonable in price and quite a powerful program too. It comes with a lot of different computer hardware too, so you may even have it already. If not, Adobe does offer a free, 30 day trial.

With the current downloads, I completed three completely different projects: a card, candy wrapper and a scrapbook page.

Celebrate

For this card, I used the digital paper as is. I printed on HP Everyday Matte Photopaper. This is my crafting paper of choice when printing digital papers. It's not as thick as traditional photo paper, but not as thin as typing paper. It takes color beautifully too.

Little Cupcake R-2038

Black, White and Red cardstock

Ribbon

Black ink

Black & White Paper Download

Love

Here, I took my paper and recolored it in Photoshop using a gradient map. I then resized and cropped it to 12x12, my usual scrapping size. I also downloaded the newest Angelee™ & Natalee™ Coordinating Tags, "cut" one out in Photoshop and again recolored using the same blue as the paper. This project was a bit more challenging in that I used a double layer of the background paper, using one as my base and the second above my photo. I then erased that which was on my photo except for the swirls, which I wanted to look like had been "stamped" on my picture. To finish off the page, I used some digital staples to adhere my tag.

Sweets for My SweetThis final project was very easy. I opened my file in Photoshop and recolored the paper to orange and printed. I measured my paper to fit my candy bar, cut, folded and sealed. I then added my sentiment.

Little Cupcake

Black and White Cardstock

Black and Orange ink

Versamark

Happy Holidays

This one was fun! I used the darkest green from the Bazzill monochromatics. I wanted my digital paper to match, so I went to the Bazzill site and saved a swatch copy of the same green. Opened it in Photoshop to take a color sample from, then colored the paper with the gradient. I also printed the paper smaller than original, getting it as close to 4.25" as I could. I used my tag punch to cut the tag, then cut it smaller and stamped it with Tag Tidbits.

For those who have never tried digital it can be a bit scary, but I think once you try, you'll become just as addicted to the computer as you are to your stamps and paper! I would like to challenge you to try some hybrid projects with TAC's digital downloads. Link me up in your comments and have fun!