Digital Stamp Tutorial

I recently discovered the mysterious and wild world of digital stamps. Upon hearing the term “digital stamp” I went to Google to see what cyber space had to show me. As it turns out, a digital stamp is simply a piece of clip art which is printed out and used as you would a traditional rubber stamp.

There are several benefits to using digital stamps.

1. Storage space is not a problem because it’s all on the computer.

2. You can find almost any image that you want-all you need is determination to keep on searching until you find what you are looking for!

3. The cost is significantly less than traditional rubber stamps.

There are two drawbacks to the use of digital stamps as far as I can see.

1. You are using computer ink which (a) gives you less options than all that’s available in the world of stamping ink and (b) computer ink isn’t exactly cheap!

2. You cannot put a digital stamp onto mediums other paper-no ribbon stamping, no flower stamping, etc...

If you decide that digital stamps are something that you’d like to sample, there are a couple ways to get them. There is a plethora websites out there that sell digital stamp files for a few bucks a pop. Most of these sites have a “freebie” file that you can download, free of charge, to try out digital stamping prior to making that monetary commitment. The other way to get files is to simply search “Free Digital Stamps” in Google and see what you come up with.

Using digital stamps is incredibly simple.

1. Once you’ve found the digital stamp that you want, right click and save to your computer (if it’s a free file) or follow the website’s instructions for payment and download (if it’s a pay-for file).

2. Open MS Word or any image editing program.

3. Insert the digital stamp file.

4. Expand or reduce the size of the image to what your project requires.

5. Print and you’re done!

If your digital stamp file is a line drawing you can either colour it in using a computer program or do it yourself with whatever medium you choose. Computer programs have the benefit of saving time and having a uniform amount of colour. However, I think it’s much more fun to colour in the image myself!

The three images below are some digital stamp freebies that I created for anyone to use. The hearts can be tiled to create one continuous image-and presto!! Patterned paper!! Enjoy these “digi” stamps!!