One of the features of digital stamps is that you can add them to templates using your computer and position them where you want them before printing. While you can, of course, print the templates and then stamp images using traditional stamp and ink techniques, the benefits of using digital stamps are that you can place stamps with precision. This is also useful if you want several of the same type of item as you can easily print multiple copies.
I've created this tutorial using the cube box template which you will find in the Gift Box section of the Templates category. You can use this basic technique with most printable templates.
Advantages and Disadvantages
There are advantages and disadvantages to using digital stamps with printable templates:
- Advantages - easy to resize the images to fit the template and to precisely place them where required
- Disadvantages - the template lines will show on the printed version (which is why I used a dark marker pen to color the box) and it may be impossible to print onto very thick or textured paper or cardstock
Materials Required
- Digital stamp (I used this flower sample) - remember that a PNG file has a transparent background and this may be the best format for this technique
- Template (I used this cube box template)
- Coloring tools, embellishments and other basic craft supplies
Software
You can use a wide number of software packages to do this. Drawing and photograph manipulation packages will give you a greater range of features, however you can also combine digital stamps and templates using word processing packages. I used OpenOffice Draw for this tutorial.See the following pages for a step by step guide.
