FEBRUARY 19 - DAY THREE, WEEK FIVE

Happy Wednesday! Today is a bit of a review -
guess you could call it a "mish-mash".

Cinderella slipper by Anne Temple

If you were unable to create a bingo “card” prior to the deadline, you may still play and become eligible for one of the weekly prizes. Click here for how to play without a card (see No Bingo Card? And Weekly)

Wooo hooo! We are getting closer and closer to the end!

I surely hope that not everyone needs the same last word! That would not be good at all!

When a player does have Bingo, please be sure to email me immediately using the e-mail address on the right panel of the Sparkle Adventure Blog.

Today's words are:

137 Sparkle

109 Cayenne Star

174 Love

50 Flocking

72 Gallery

Cinderella Shoe by April Williams

A little recap about Flocking:

• Using strips of Tear-ific Tape, or 2.5" Tear-ific Tape, or Super Adhesive Sheets, or Sticker paper, you can achieve similar results on your cards as you do with glitter. Striped or framed designs on your cards, burnished with Flocking or Sparkle N Soft will produce incredibly unique textures, and works with most styles from cutesy to artsy.

• To dry emboss a prepared flocking background, it is not necessary to ink one side of the embossing folder - a fabulous and elegant look is achieved when it is all one color. The debossed portion of your flocked panel will have "shadows" to help achieve dimension.

A little recap about yesterday's preliminary thoughts for digital images:

• Each printer is different, so it is important to experiment and see if your coloring medium will work with the ink in your Printer. I have a Canon MG8200 series, and copics work very well without smearing the ink at all. I can lightly watercolor with this ink, too, as long as the ink has set overnight and dried completely.

• Some of the el cheapo printers and older printers work great with digitals - so it has nothing to do with the "age" of the technology or the cost of the printer itself.

• You do not need Microsoft Word in order to play with digitals. Any word processor will work. 

• While digital images may be printed directly from the download, they are usually "too large" to do that. Resize them in any word processor. If the actual digital image is resized and saved, then printed directly from it, the image is permanently that size, and you may not be able to enlarge it in the future. Any word processor may be used.

• It does not matter if you are using a PC or Mac, both accept digitals.

• Usually, I save my word processor document when placing digitals in it. I click on "SAVE" and choose a name identical to the digital image. That way, the computer files both of them together, making it very easy to locate if I want to print more of that image.

Clarification about "what is a digital"

Several responses yesterday indicated that they preferred having layers, using lots of glitter, and that is why they do not care for digitals.

My confession is that my hands are increasingly unable to grasp stamps and press with them. I drop them and make lots of mistakes and it is quite painful. So I use digitals with LOTS of layers.

Mermaid Kisses with digital image, embossing powders and glitter.

I feel sheepish to admit this is actually a digital colored with Copics. It has lots of texture, layers, embellishments and embossing powder on it. All of the glittery parts are embossing powder, and all the embossing powder (on the mermaid, in the distressed areas of the die cuts, and in the background layers) is adhered with either VersaMark or VersaMarker. No one would know that this was not stamped with Memento Ink and colored with Copics.

So fear not! Our inks, glitters and embossing powders will not go unused when "stamping with" digi images!

How To Better View YouTube videos:

VIEWING VIDEOS: At this time SNS only has one tutorial in their Tips and Techniques section for digitals. It is a video. I find viewing the video there too small. There are two other options. In the bottom right of the Video square there is the word "YouTube" and also an icon of four corners. All YouTube videos have this on their "windows". You can click on the word "YouTube" and it will take you to the actual YouTube page where a slightly larger viewing is automatically available. Or we can click on the "4 corners" icon. This will increase the size of the video to our monitor/screen size. It may be blurry if it has enlarged too much. Click on one of the corners (often the right bottom corner of your screen), and pull/drag inward, to decrease the size until it is clear, without the blurriness.

A "General" Search Technique Tip for You:

Amber asked a very good question about "searching" the Tips and Techniques Page to make finding techniques by name a little easier. Such an outstanding idea, but unfortunately, too costly for a small business like SNS to invest in at this time.

HOWEVER - May I please share a time-saving tip I use ALL THE TIME?
When viewing a document (word, pdf, etc) or visiting a web page their is a time-saving way of wading through all those words without having to read them.

For PCs - use CONTROL F
For Macs - us COMMAND F (if an old keyboard, use the "apple key" and F).

The keys need to be depressed at the same time.

For example, when visiting the SNS Tips and Techniques page, let's say you want to find out how to make a SPINNER CARD. Go to the T&T page, do the COMMAND F and a little box will pop up (in Chrome it is in the top right - in Firefox it is the bottom left - in Safari it is top right). It is small and just big enough for you to type in a word or two. I find usually one word or a partial word is best. So do your CONTROL F (F for find), and type in Spinner. Some of the browsers will tell you how many times the word appears on a page. Others just provide "arrows" for you to click on to scroll to the words.

The actual word must appear on the page for the CONTROL F to work. So if you are trying to find "digital images" it might be best to type in "digi" and the words that contain that will be highlighted for you.

I hope this helps. As I mentioned, I use it all the time, and have discovered very few people know about this time-saving tool.

Tips and Techniques:

Sparkle N Sprinkle also has a section for "other techniques" which are popular with papercrafters. We tried to make these techniques user friendly for SNS customers who enjoy using our products but want to use other popular products as well. So you may discover that there are some ideas in the "Other Techniques" section that work well with the techniques listed under glitters, flockings and embossing powders. These are techniques that we feel you can also use embossing powders with, or embellish with glitters.

Today's Challenge Questions:

There are a total of 15 opportunities to have your name submitted to Random.org on Saturday. Be sure to send an email to SNS_Bingo@tampabay.rr.com with your name in the Subject Sentence followed by the date of the challenge questions.

1) (1 entry) True or False - you must have "Microsoft Word" on your computer in order to use digital images.

2) (1 entry) True or False - you cannot use digitals if you have a Mac. They can only be used on PC.

3) (3 entries) What will CONTROL F for PC (or COMMAND F for Mac) allow you to do?

4) (1 entry) True or False - digital works of art means that there are no layers or dimensional products used.

5) (1 entry) True or False - There is only one size of video to view with YouTube videos.

6) (1 entry) True or False - only new technology printers can be used with digital stamps

7) (1 entry) True or False - To dry emboss flocking or Sparkle N Soft, one side of the embossing folder must be prepared with ink.

8) (1 entry) Is it wise to occasionally "save" the digital images on your computer to a back-up CD, DVD, or thumb drive?

9) (5 entries) What are the two ways of searching for items in the SNS on-line store?

Good Luck, everyone!
hugs,
de

FEBRUARY 18 - DAY TWO, WEEK FIVE

If you were unable to create a bingo “card” prior to the deadline, you may still play and become eligible for one of the weekly prizes. Click here for how to play without a card (see No Bingo Card? And Weekly)

Bahama Woodstar Hummingbird by Rosiland Solomon.

Today's Words:

171 Paste BONUS WORD
21 Digital Stamps BONUS WORD
95 Search BONUS WORD
129 Fun BONUS WORD
149 Chocolate BONUS WORD
166 Valentine
175 Water BONUS WORD
178 Coffee Filter
90 Marbled Embossing Powder BONUS WORD
98 Poinssettia

BONUS WORD TIME! 

• If you have all of the bonus words, receive an extra FIFTY entries for the drawing this Saturday! 
• If you have ALL TEN words, receive 150 extra entries for Saturday's drawing + you can choose how you want the 150 divided up - a little each day or all in one day.  
• Be sure to send an email to SNS_Bingo@tampabay.rr.com with your name in the Subject Sentence followed by the date of the challenge questions.

Rusty with Flowers

Let's discuss something which is not always "understood" in Rubber Stamp circles. The horror of it is so disturbing to some rubber enthusiasts, that they consider it "taboo" and prefer not to even think about it. Many close their eyes and shout "NOOOOO! IT CANNOT BE!"

Gulp! DARE we broach the subject? 

We will just whisper it...

Digital Images 
                        -aka- 
                                 Digital Stamping 
                                                             -aka-
                                                                      Digital Creations

Many stampers "poo-poo" digital stamps, yet they have never tried them.

sigh.

why would anyone do that?

we know why... (giggle)

Grape Bunch by Rosiland Solomon in a creation by Roberta of Created With Love Challenges.

So let's look at the Positives... (don't be afraid, we'll hold your hand)...

Hope you don't mind. Today's post is written with the informal "you", instead of more professionally, because after all, this is a touchy subject and we ARE hand-holding (giggle).

1. While I'm lucky that I don't have to hide my purchases from my husband, many of my stamping buddies DO hide their purchases. Digital images are conveniently located on your harddrive. They are sent directly to your computer. They can be stored there, or copied onto DVDs to become portable and be used any computer. You can copy them to a thumb drive, SD drive, or even another external harddrive. OR all of the above. So storage is not a problem. NEITHER is hiding them. (smile)
2. Digitals can be organized into folders on your computer. Because they don't really take that much disk space, you can create a folder by manufacturer, and another folder by theme, another folder by style, and so forth. It does not matter how many times you duplicate an image on your harddrive when it is for your own use. You'll be able to find it anywhere on your harddrive in whatever way you choose to name it.
3. To take up even LESS space on your hard disk, you can create as many folders as you like and create ALIASes of your image. Each ALIAS can have its own name, and be filed into whatever folders you like.
4. Digi's (as they have been fondly dubbed) can be resized to nearly any dimension you need. Ever found a stamp and wish it could be smaller or larger? Digi's allow you that leeway.
5. Depending on the software your computer already has, some digitals can be colored right on the computer, although that is still frowned up in some circles.
6. No ink pad is needed.
7. No clean up after "stamping".
8. No warping or damage to the rubber.
9. Spending fewer dollars on the stamps so that you can spend more money on other fun goodies.

Vivian Hat Lady as created by Rachel of Created With Love Challenges.

There are Negatives...

1. The biggest negative is the Fear of the Unknown.
2. Not being able to heat-emboss images.
3. Difficulty (if even possible) to mask and over stamp.
4. Computer Crash (but that is why back-ups are made on DVDs, SDs, thumb drives, or a secondary harddrive. Or better yet... THE CLOUD).
5. Having a printer available at your location.
6. Having a printer which allows for both watercolor and Copic-style mediums.
7. Many images do not allow you to place them closely together to create a scene.
8. Having way too many wonderful images to choose from.

Ok, that's enough horror for one day.

There are a total of 9 opportunities to have your name submitted to Random.org on Saturday. Be sure to send an email to SNS_Bingo@tampabay.rr.com with your name in the Subject Sentence followed by the date of the challenge questions.

1. Of all the "positives" listed, is there even ONE which would be helpful to you?

2. Which of the positives is most attractive to you - or do you have another positive to share?

3. What is the biggest negative about digitals for you?

4. (up to 3 entries) Have you ever used a digi image before?
     4a. If yes, did it meet the needs of your paper crafting?
     4b. If no, what is the primary reason have you not used a digital image so far?

5. (up to 2 entries) Can you mention 2 reasons why the BINGO WORD "PASTE" is relevant to digital images?

6. Why is Chocolate on the bingo word list?

Hope you are enjoying a happy stamping day!
hugs,