Every Friday (more or less 😉) I bring you a graphic, a font and a cut file that I like. Some will be free and some will be paid for, but all are items that I have downloaded or purchased myself.
This week's graphic offering is a little bit different. I came across this Photoshop Stamp Brush Bundle at Creative Fabrica and couldn't believe how much it contained 😲! There are 136 stamp brush sets, totalling more than 5000 individual brushes! For those without Photoshop, they also work with Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo.
A stamp brush is basically a stamp. Although it is called a brush, you don't paint or draw with it. Rather you stamp individual images on to your canvas wherever the brush passes. So this could be great for creating textured backgrounds and patterned papers for journals, scrapbooking, cardmaking, sublimation... Basically any crafty project. At $12 (or included as part of the All Access Subscription) it's an absolute bargain.
I created this gorgeous, textured background using some of the brush sets in this bundle - namely the splash, foil and cracks sets. You can download this background for free here. I may film a tutorial for creating a digital background like this soon, so consider subscribing to my YouTube channel to keep updated.
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| Download this free textured background here |
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This week's font is Rainbow from Creative Fabrica. It is a decorative typeface with 5 different styles - plain, stars, stripes, hearts and circles. It's super cute and would be a good candidate for use with digital cutting machines.
If you know your way around a graphics program like Affinity Designer, you could also isolate the outline of the letters to get a solid base for layered effects like I did with the last two examples.
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With Easter fast approaching, these Easter Egg Lanterns from Design Bundles would be a cute addition to your Easter decorating. Do you decorate for Easter? I don't specifically decorate for Easter, but I do like to have a lot of floral decorations around go celebrate Spring.
And again, if you know how to modify SVGs, you could squish the tabs and replace with Christmas imagery to get decorative ball lanterns for the festive season.
Until next time...Every Friday I'll be presenting some graphics, a font and a cut file that have caught my eye. This week I bring you a gorgeous set of watercolour images featuring floral cameras with birds, an elegant serif font and a set of kitchen-themed monogram frames.
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| It's difficult to see the 3D in this photo, but it looks great in person! |
This week's font is Rise of Kingdom. This elegant, serif, all caps typeface is available as a free download from Creative Fabrica. There are over 100 pages of free fonts available on the Creative Fabrica website so it's well worth a look.
I recently used the font to create this kitchen sign, which also happens to be the cut file of the week:
The split monogram frame comes from the Laser Kitchen Split Monogram Svg Bundle, although I got it as part of the Cute Paper Craft SVG Mega Bundle both from Creative Fabrica. (The latter is an absolute bargain by the way, with over 300 sets of SVG cut files for only $11! I might have to do a separate post or two just for that.)
A few weeks ago my friend asked me to make a personalised gift for the daughter of a friend. I used one of the split monogram butterflies from this set. I welded the name to the butterfly and then turned it into a multi-layered design in Affinity Designer.
I exported the resulting files as SVGs, which I then imported into my ScanNCut to cut the various layers. After gluing them all together I decided to use a spray varnish on both sides to protect the card and increase its longevity.
It's so pretty! To display it tie some string to the antenna or glue it to the back of the butterfly to make a hanger, or put it in a box frame.
SUPPLIES and RESOURCES
I recently completed a class on Creative Fabrica about creating a digital tag - From Paris With Love - Create a Romantic French-Inspired Digital Tag. I really enjoyed it and ended up with a very pretty tag that I really like.
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| The end result. I went a bit off-piste, but I like it. |
All the materials that Traci uses in the class are provided and she explains everything really clearly. Despite the class being demo'd with Photoshop I was still able to follow along using Affinity Designer. However if you are using a program other than Photoshop it would help if you were somewhat familiar with it so that you can replicate what Traci does.
The techniques that I learned were actually super helpful in helping me to create the tag that I designed for this post. I will definitely be putting my newfound knowledge to good use and creating more tags and background papers. In the meantime you can download a sheet of the tag I created here.
To view the class you will need an All Access Subscription. The subscription allows you to download absolutely everything on the site with no limits! There's a great deal on at the moment where you can get yearly all access for just £4.59 / $4.99 a month (usually £26.99 / $29 per month). I'm not sure how long that offer is going to be around so get it while you can. Just head to the Creative Fabrica homepage and click on the "Upgrade Now" button on the blue banner at the top of the screen.
First off I have to mention this incredible, huge bundle from Digital Attic Studio on Creative Fabrica. The Ultimate Vintage Bundle consists of 60 individual sets including digital papers, backgrounds, junk journal kits, ephemera and clip art. Even if vintage isn't your thing there are so many elements to choose from that you're bound to find something that you like.
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.jpg "Christmas Mandala Golden Paper Texture Set")
I found this lovely set of golden mandala textures on Creative Fabrica and I thought that they would make pretty Christmas cards. I could have used the images for the whole card front, but I decided to just print them off directly from Windows Explorer. The resulting images were 9x13cm and would fit nicely on to the front of an A6 card.
.jpg "Print from Windows Explorer")
I felt that the resulting cards needed a little bit of jazzing up, so I tried out various embellishing techniques like using glitter glue, glitter washi tape, paint markers and Nuvo Drops to enhance the images. I also tried out different die cut and peel-off sentiments to see which worked best.
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| Gold acrylic paint marker around the edge of the image, some red glitter glue to highlight the red areas on the image (not very visible in this photo) and a Merry Christmas die-cut sentiment all on a black card blank. |
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| Red glitter around the edge of the image, a few dots of red glitter glue on the image and a Merry Christmas die-cut sentiment. |
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| Gold glitter washi tape around the edge of the image, a few dots of glitter glue on the image and a Merry Christmas die-cut sentiment. |
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| Gold glitter around the perimeter of the topper and a few spots on the image. Merry Christmas peel-off sentiment. |
They're simple, but pretty cards that can be put together easily; perfect for batch making. Go check out this designer's shop. There are lots of gorgeous backgrounds and textures - from Christmas imagery to cotton candy clouds and fairy gardens. I've downloaded at least 15 of the bundles and plan to add to my collection!
By the way, if you want to buy from the Creative Fabrica website and you're only being given the option to take out a subscription, change the currency to US$ via the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the screen. You should then be able to see individual prices.
Watch the process video:
