I am pleased to say that I’m now part of the Get Creative Challenges Blog Design Team. It is an interesting blog, all about promoting the use of digital stamps. There is even a monthly challenge that anybody can join in, no matter what their skill level is.

My first digital stamp to play with was the Winter Frost Dragon by Colour of Love. I was so happy to get this design, as I love fantasy and am quite fond of dragons. The first thing I did was print off the dragon in different sizes to inspire me.

I had recently bought a Mica Magic set, after watching a demonstration by John Lockwood at Inspirations. I thought that the shimmer of the mica would look magical with the dragon.

I then decided to experiment with my Chameleon Fine Liner pens to colour in a smaller dragon. I used lines to colour it in, that gives it a slightly modern look.

Finally, I wanted to make the image look like it had come from an ancient book. So I carefully tore around the image and ink blended over it with some Distress inks. I then sprayed it with water to give a more aged look.

I decided to create cards with all 3 images, as they all had a distinct look. First off, the large dragon. I die cut a square and added a layer using Hunkdory Moonstone dies. I thought the background needed a bit of texture, so I used a Do Crafts embossing folder. I then used a combination of Mica Magic and ink blending to make the embossed design stand out.

The next card was using the Chameleon Fine Liner coloured image. This had a more Christmassy feel, so I decided to turn it into a Christmas card. I first die cut the image and a dark blue layer using Arch Sizzix dies.

I chose 2 different shades of blue card and embossed them with a Do Crafts embossing folder. Due to the folder only being a small one I had to repeat emboss with it to create the background. I then ink blended over it to give a touch of green. Finally, I stamped a sentiment and layered it with the lighter colour of the embossed card.

The next card I really wanted to achieve a certain look with strong colours that had a medieval/fantasy feel. I found some leather effect card in my stash that I ink blended with some Distress Inks to highlight the leather effect. I embossed some grey card with a Do Crafts embossing folder. I then used the same inks to ink blend the pattern. Finally, I sprayed it with Altenew Antique Silver ink spray.

Next was the sentiment, I wanted to create it the same way as the main dragon image. After one failure where I stamped before ink blending with Distress Inks. (The sentiment ink ran really badly.) I ink blended and sprayed water before stamping the sentiment. The sentiment was from Rare Earth and I thought it went really well with the fantasy image.

It just goes to show that digital stamps can be very versatile and that you can get completely different looks from the same image. It does help when the image is as beautiful as the ‘Winter Frost Dragon’.