Use a Digi at Back to Basics

It's my turn to choose the challenge at Back to Basics and  this time we would like you to use a digi (digital image) somewhere on your work.

Digis are a convenient alternative to rubber stamps - they are generally cheaper (especially when buying from overseas as there are no hefty postage and duty costs), easy to store, and can be manipulated to whatever size you want, as well as being reflected, re sized and even digitally inserted into backgrounds depending on what software you use. For complex manipulation, I like to use Craft Artist but to simply resize and print them, I just use Word. I know some crafters only use digis now, but I still use real stamps for most of my stamping because you can stamp on any shape, size and colour background, not just ones that will go through the printer.

However I do have a pretty sizeable collection of digis, many of which have been challenge prizes, and the one I have used here is from Di's Digi Downloads which was part of a prize I won from Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge a while back.

I coloured it with Promarkers. A tip - when colouring digis, the printer ink can be inclined to run and smear into the colour, especially if you are using pale colours and/or alcohol markers. However, if you leave at least 24 hours between printing and colouring, the ink has set completely and won't smudge.

Actually I coloured this image to match a completely different background paper but once it was finished, it looked better with this one. The paper and embellishments are from a Craft Asylum 12x12 Candy pad.

If you would like to join in but don't have any digis, there are quite a few sites that give away free ones - many of the sites that sell them have free samples or end-of-range designs,  and if you do an online search for "free digital stamps" you will find many more. There is a lovely blog called Free Digi Dearies where there are hundreds that you can download and use - although the designer, Mary, is now semi retired from designing she has kindly kept all her images on the blog and available for anyone who wants to use them.