Some of my latest designs

I have been pretty busy creating some new digital sets for my shop at mygrafico. From flourishes to frames, or getting a jumpstart on Christmas, there is something for the creative niche in all of us! Check out the latest design releases & some "oldies but goodies" from Cheri Wenger Digital Designs:

For the frame and flourish lovers...

Get inspired for Christmas...

Need some early Christmas card inspiration? Check out these digital creations made using designs from some of the sets above. Digital cards are great for emailing to friends and the graphics can also be used to dress up your holiday newsletters that some of you send out with annual updates.

Project 365 Challenge/Days 49-51 What’s Swirly, Sweet & Lovely?

What’s Swirly? Day 49 brings swirly flourishes. This is a collection that I have been working on of flourish brushes and svg files. It always seems that I can never find the right flourish element when creating a card or scrapbook page, so why not create a set of my own where I can have lots of fun ones to choose from. I can’t wait to use these large scale diecut elements on layouts and smaller size on cards. I already have plans to use them on my Glue Arts design team project later this week so be sure to keep an eye on their blog.

The end result of my designing is one of my latest releases on www.mygrafico.com called Swirly QZ’s. Just imagine pairing the svg files with patterned papers, digital or traditional or using the brush art to create flourishes of any color, texture or pattern. Pair these with florals, buttons, brads and more to create your own fun card and page embellishments!

What is Sweet? On Day 50 I paired hand-cut flowers from Crate Paper’s Restoration collection CS along with one of their coordinating chipboard designs and Stampin’ Up’s 5 petal flower punch for leaves to create this Sweet Cup of Friendship card. I chose to use this background patterned paper from Stampin’ Up’s Springtime Vintage collection to compliment the florals and add a soft vintage look to this card. I distressed the edges and dragged old olive ink over them. The verse is an old favorite of mine from a retired SU set. I stamped it in the same color ink, tore the soft vanilla CS and layered over Pear Pizazz seam binding with thin pink ribbon tied over the bow. I used a small chipboard flower over top of the verse and ribbon and finished off this card with a little rhinestone bling added to some of the flowers. I used my Glue Glider Pro with high tac adhesive for adhering most of the layers and used raise 'ns to pop up and add dimension to some of the flower bouquet.



What is lovely? On day 51, I created this Whole Lotta Love Card using paper leftovers from my keepsake box project featuring Fancy Pants Designs Love Birds cardstock. I used some diecut circle leftovers to create the layered paper flower with button. You may recognize the twine I threaded though the button on top of this card. It is from the Twinery. I tied a bow, then snipped the loops and trimmed the ends to create this feathery, bow. For fast card creations, you can use patterned papers like this one to cut out verses, phrases or to use as an overall background. Easy to create in a few minutes and perfect for any occasion you want to send someone you love a card.

Project 365 Challenge: Day 4/Digital Valentines

One thing I promised myself in doing this challenge is that I wouldn’t sweat it if I didn’t get to post daily each of my projects, so I apologize if I don’t always get to post my project the next day. Life & work sometimes gets in the way but I will post them as soon as possible. However, I am sticking to the challenge of finishing a new project each day. Sometimes photographing them might have to wait until the next day.

Yesterday was filled with work, a doctor’s appt. and my children’s request to watch My Sister’s Keepers together. And these were all priority over my challenge. So later last night I sat down to think about what I wanted to create. With Valentine’s Day in mind, I decided to work with my Fluidity Multi Color collection to create these digital card fronts in Adobe Illustrator.

In these, I used the colors in the set, however, you can edit the eps files 

in Illustrator to recolorize the art.These can be printed and mounted on cardstock 

or simply emailed to friends and family as an attachment.

Be My Valentine

Heart Flutter

Free My Heart

Hot New Releases of Cheri Wenger’s Digital Designs

Pocket Full of Shells

If you have ever wallked the beach and picked up shells along the way, this set will bring back fond memories. It includes a bonus set of png files with white shell backgrounds for making your own shell collages or groupings. Use chalks and markers to color the digital printouts and create!

Garden Swirls

Flourishes are fun to use on any card or layout. These bold, flowy swirls work well by themselves or paired with the other images in this set. Add some floral flair to your next creative project with my Garden Swirls set.

Forever in Love Flourishes

This set evolved from another set with a wedding theme in mind. These delicate flourishes add a touch of class to any project you choose to use them on. The images are all provided in large 6" size and can be scaled as shown.

Total Fluidity

Recently I put fear aside, grabbed my trusty drawing pens and without any plans or pencil lines, I just started drawing stylized drawings and let the lines flow where they wanted to. I was pretty happy with the results, sort of a stylized tattoo feel to them. Next, I scanned them into my computer, live traced and did some clean up on them. Here are the finished results; two new sets for mygrafico, one a b&w brush set and the other a multi color version. They are both part of my Fluidity Line. See what you think! Click on the graphic to view in my shop.

Here are some examples created using the Fludity Brushes in Photoshop. It is fun to use color, texture or even patterned papers with these brushes! You can also add shadows, embossing and other cool effects. You can create your own page elements, layouts, background papers and more.

8 x 8 Digital Paper

Blog icon design image (can be reduced as an avatar)

create your own art for home decor, cardmaking or scrapbooking...

Colorize elements and use on layouts or use as decorative overlays ghosted onto photos.

These hopefully give you some ideas of what can be done with digital design sets. Can't wait to see what you can create with my sets! Be sure to post in the mygrafico ning community gallery or on my group page.

Next, I will be doing something with the sea shells I did in a totally different sketchy style! You will have to check back to see what I do with those!

A Card for A Craft Idol

American Idol is in full swing and it got me to thinking about how I actually got to meet and eventually become friends with one of my crafting idols, Susan Stringfellow. You see as I go go through my scrap and stamp magazines and find projects I REALLY like, I always check out who the designer is. More often than not the name was Susan Stringfellow. I was a huge, anonymous fan of her work so imagine my surprise when our worlds collided when designing for Inque Boutique. Susan and I have kept in touch and share projects and inspiration whenever we can via email and our blogs. Now the real dilmena...I wanted to send her a surprise along with a card. Talk about intimidating! I finally let go of trying to create the most fantastic Susan worthy card and sent one that reflected my style. Here is the card. I used papers from Me & My Big Ideas Sassy specialty CS pad, fiskars scallop heart punch an old hostess set of occasions verses for the greeting, flourish set from Autumn Leaves and this cool new wood mounted rubber stamp flourish from Inkadinkado that I used over top of the two side hearts. I used black and pixie pink ink from SU.

P.S. She liked the valentine surprise and the card!

Valentine Publication Alert!

If you are a subscriber to Cardmaker Magazine, you may have caught this project of mine published in the January 2010 issue as a bonus web project. The Love You Beaded Heart card was one I originally created for my DH and recreated, since the background paper was no longer currently available. (Hint: I sponged Pretty in Pink ink on the background of Whisper White CS to give it that light pink color, then used Chocolate chip ink and dots stamps to create the pattern - easy peasy!) Some other tips: I made the pocket of Regal Rose CS by scoring and folding. For added interest I scored a few nore lines across the pocket. Other stamps used are from an eclectic mix of sets. Check out Cardmaker for a complete list of supplies used on this card creation.

You know I have a second love affair with the colors pink and brown, but HUSH, don't tell my hubby, he might get jealous! So if today, you find yourself staring at a blank piece of chipboard, pull out beads, buttons and glitter and get busy decorating that blank canvas. Then use it as inspiration for a card or scrapbook layout. Happy Crafting!