Free Christmas Craft Papers

We have a good selection of free Christmas Papers to download now so this year we can be a bit more relaxed about them. You will probably have noticed that many of these are cartoon based, the Craftville Bears, which seem to have gone down very well. We started with three designs, Father Christmas, the Elf and the Fairy but then someone on Facebook asked if we were going to release a snowman. We hadn't planned to but though it was such a good idea we added it to the list.



What we didn't want was for newer users of the site to think that we only have cartoon style Christmas papers so this week we are reminding every one of the more traditional papers we have available for download.

We have a great selection of Christmas papers now and as usual the main problem has been to help people find the right ones for the project they are making. For this reason we keep on pushing the page we have which lists all the free Christmas papers. This is our sort of "one stop shop" for suitable papers and by far the easiest way to see the full range.

CHRISTMAS 

DOWNLOADS

Free Card Kits

For years I have been avoiding making card kits. My thoughts were along the lines that we would provide crafters with a large number of free papers but that the actual design and style of the card ( or other papercraft item ) would be down to them. We've stuck to that for every since we launched Free Craft Downloads / Craftville.

So what's changed? Well basically we have been asked again and again for kits so we have finally decided to trial them. They aren't meant to replace our "normal papers", in fact all the kits have been made up using previously released papers.

What we have done with these kits is resized and altered the papers so they all fit together to make one card. It reduces the amount of cutting, resizing and altering sheets making the kits quite easy to put together. No only that but you don't even have to use everything which is there. Sheet 1 is the basic card and you could, if you wish, just print that off and fold it in half. That would make a card but obviously doesn't involve a lot of craft.

The second sheet is the decoration, normally a bit of decoupage or a pyramid (stacker). You don't have to use everything (or anything) on this sheet. Even my demonstration piece at the top of this page uses less than half the decoupage available. If it's a pyramid design with 6 layers you could just choose to use 3!



The final sheet, 3, it an insert sheet. Again it is optional, you could put in a plain white sheet if you prefer, or not use one.

So we shall be trialling these kits for the next few week, So far they have proved very popular with lots of downloads (maybe having them available in zip files helps) so my guess at this stage is they will become a perminant feature on the site.

You can see the range of free card kits we have available HERE.

The Craftville Bears

Bride and Groom Bears

By now many of you will have seen some of the designs in our new character set. We are really pleased with the Craftville Bears For a long time we have wanted to develop our own bears but it has proved a bit more difficult than we imagined. Whilst we fully support "copyright" it is remarkably difficult now-a-days to develop a bear character which doesn't resemble some other too closely.

If you think of all the bear designs in existence, many of which are covered by copyright. We have Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Rupert Bear, The Care Bears, Yogi, Ted and even Smokie. Add to that Bears which have appeared in films and TV but not necessarily as the main character; Baloo, Fozzi, Lots-O'-Huggin Bear (Toy Story), Teddy (A.I.) and lots lotsw more, I'm sure you can think of many more. So you can see how crowded the market has become for bear designs, I wonder if there will come a t time when no more are possible!

Anyway we are really pleased with our designs and we how to use it in a wide range of  situations and styles. So far we have a soilder bear and a nurse bear. These will soon be joined be a fireman bear, a lollypop bear ( sorry that may be confusing for the non-UK readers... crossing guard bear may explain it), bride and groom bears and many many more.



As with all of our papers these bear designs are completely free to download, print and use in your paper craft projects. We hope you like them as much as we do :-)

Whats all this about 300dpi

Firstly let me get a couple of things out of the way:

There is no need for this image
to ever be printed at 300 dpi.
There isn't enough detail to warrant it.

1. Before anyone want s to point out the error I do realise that we are  really talking about PPI (Pixels per inch) but in this article which is directed towards the average crafter I'm going to stick to the common usage of DPI.

2. This article certainly isn't an in-depth look at dpi/ppi and printing and is only meant for the hobbiest crafter. I'm afraid if you are looking for a more in-depth article then you'll have to look elsewhere.

High Quality 300 dpi images.

I am seeing that phrase more an more in relation to craft downloads and craft cds. It's being used as a selling point however I have serious doubts as to whether it is as good as it seems. Everyone will know that all the images on craftville.com are made at 150 dpi which is a decision we took after much research and advice. We did this mainly because the majority of our images are graphics rather than photos and few graphics have the subtle detail which requires 300 dpi, in fact you will get no more detail in a 300 dpi copy than you will a 150dpi.

This image would look good at 300 dpi, ink
bleed on lower quality papers shouldn't
be too much if an issue.

Secondly there is a danger that your printed image will be worse by using 300 dpi rather than a lower one. When I first discussed this with friends they thought I was making it up BUT once they thought about it they realised they had all seen it. The problem is when we print out the designs we often aren't using quality of paper which a 300 dpi image requires. Sometimes we're printing onto white card and sometime just a white paper, neither of these can handle the quantity of ink being applied and in the case of card what were clear lines can actually bleed. In the case of paper not only can it suffer from bleed but it can also cause the paper to buckle as the ink dries.

Finally, and rather obviously, you are using twice the amount of ink to get a worse image.

Don't get me wrong, there is certainly a place for 300 dpi images but in order to get the benefit it should be a photo with lots of gradients and colour changes plus, if it has distinct detail it need to be printed onto paper which can cope with 300 dpi.

I do often print my 150 dpi images onto 260gsm glossy photo paper, especially the decoupage, I like the finish it gives. But again, as they are graphics/pictures rather than photos, there is no need for them to be 300 dpi. Printing at 300 dpi can't add a level of detail which just isn't in the original image.

This image would be good at 300 dpi but should be
printed on high quality paper or ink bleed will be
an issue on the sharp rocks and edges etc.

Having said that I have just released a set at 300 dpi, mainly because they are based on photos and therefore should be good at 300 dpi, plus, they are all colour blends without any sharp lines, so using them on card or lower quality paper shouldn't be a huge issue.

My advice to crafters:

1. Think whether an image needs to be printed at 300 dpi. Is it a photo? Does it have lots of subtle  light, shading, colour?.
2. Is the paper or card you are printing it on going to make a 300 dpi image look better or worse.
3. If it isn't a photo, and you know what you are doing, think about decreasing its DPI. It will save you ink and give you a better finish on lower quality cards and paper.

Obviously there are exceptions to the photo rule. Many oil and watercolour painting etc can have very subtle colours which could benefit from being at 300 dpi and on nice paper but that is a long way from many cartoonish style craft designs.

Site Move: Craftville

Well I shall  write a bit more when I get time but I'd just like you to know the we have finally moved site. The new URL is http://www.craftville.com

Most of the links you will find on this blog and elsewhere (which are the old ones) are still working as we have set up some "redirects" but if you can't find what you are looking for we do, as always, recommend the site map which is fully up-to-date.

Site Changes

Well like everyone else (or at least a lot of people) I'm not writing in this blog as often as I should or as often as I set out to do. However we have some big news for the site so I thought I'd better put pen to papers, or at least fingers to the keyboard.

Well in fact there are going to be two big changes on the site, the first being a change of name. The site will be changing from Free Craft Downloads to Craftville.

Craftville.com

There are a few reasons for the change. Firstly the new name is shorter and more memorable, it's a domain name I've owned for a long time, in fact it was the first one I ever bought back in the days when domain names were really expensive. Secondly, we will be using craftville.com (although we do own craftville.co.uk as well) which reflects the fact that our users/members come from all over the world. Another reason is a change to the way Google index websites, they no longer seem to like descriptive domain names.

We will make sure that all old links and bookmarks continue to work, so even if you put in freecraftdownloads.co.uk you will be automatically taken to the new site. Having said that we will be making a few changes to the structure of the site so, as normal, we recommend using the site map if you get lost :-)

I can't really tell you when this change is going to happen. I can tell you that we are working really hard behind the scenes to get it all sorted and hope to have a better idea about how long it will take in a couple of weeks. I can't see it happening for at least a month though.

Archived Sets

Set Archive Example

The other big change to the site will be the introduction of archived sets. Basically we have too many individual papers on the site.  At the moment we have just under 180,000 individual papers available but the way are server works it stores 3 copies of each image, a thumbnail, a medium sized copy and the full sized one for download. That means the 180,000 sheets lead to 540,000 images being stored on the server which is far too many and leads to speed and stability issues.

We needed to find a way to reduce the number of individual files we store BUT keep our promise to always have the designs available free on the site. The solution we have come up with is to archive many of the sets into zip folders and let you download the zip folders rather than individual sets. This means an average set, e.g. the name set "Adam", has 272 sheets in it, leading to 816 images being stored on the server. By turning it into an archive we reduce this to 12 files, 6 zip files and 6 example images. That is a heck of a saving!

We did ask in the newsletter and most people seemed to like this idea. It does have it's drawbacks, in an archive set it will no longer be possible to view or download individual sheets (although we have split the zip folders into types of sheets so you wont have to download everything if you just want 5x5 papers). However this will make it easier if you want say the whole of a Christmas set.

We have set up an example page HERE using the Arrows set. If will give you an idea of what an Archive set will look like and as it is working, give you a chance to download one of the zipped folders and look at that as well. We will be producing a page of instructions for those who haven't used zip folders before but it is very easy on the newer versions of windows where they seem to be treated just the same as any other folder.

At the moment we have decided to archive all what we deem to be "old" papers plus all the name papers and number papers, this only applies to the Backing Papers section, no papers will be archived in the other sections such as decoupage, templates, digi stamps etc.

By doing this we will be creating a lot more space to add new papers plus the whole site should work smoother and faster!

Well we've got plenty of work to keep us busy so I'll get off to it. Please feel free to leave any comment you have below.

Pinterest

OK so we've succumbed to another another trendy "Net 2" site, Pinterest. I did look at it a while ago but I had my doubts about putting our images on another site. Anyway after much though I've decided to give it a go, anything to get a bit more traffic to our site.

Although it still seems strange that I'm putting our images on someone else's site they are only the "medium" sized images, so if anyone wants the proper quality images they will need to come over to Free Craft Downloads to get them. I will also only be putting on one image from each set so again, if they want to see the rest they'll have to visit our site.

I'm willing to give this a go and see if it has any effect. As we are new to Pinterest I shall be highlighting some of past papers as well as adding a "latest papers" section.

If you are a member of Pinterest maybe you could think about following us and or "re-pinning" some of our images.

I haven't quite decided if I shall be putting a "pin this" button on our site yet, need to think about that one a little more :-)

Free Craft Downloads on Pinterest

[p.s. If you haven't visited Pinterest before it's well worth taking a look. Lots of craft stuff on there, just put "card making" or suchlike in their search box.]

Stuck for a Birthday Card Idea.

Zodiac Papers

We often here from people who are stuck for an idea for a birthday card. Maybe then don't know the person who the card is too well, maybe their creativity has escaped them for a while. Whatever the reason it can sometimes take longer to think about the theme for a greeting card than it can take to make the card itself!

Here are some basic ideas, using the papers from free craft downloads which we hope will give you a few quick ideas. Obviously, as normal all of the downloads mentioned can be downloaded for free of our site.

Zodiac Based Cards

So you know when the persons birthday is so you can look up their Birth Sign. On free craft downloads we have all the basic backing papers and inserts for the various birth signs, we also have decoupage and digi stamps available as well so, if you with, you can make the whole card out of Zodiac papers.  If you think that is a bit over the top then you can use one of the zodiac elements and combine it with some of the other papers below.

Zodiac Decoupage
Zodiac Digi Stamps
Basic Zodiac (Backing Papers, Insert Sheets etc.)

Name Papers

Name Templates

We cover a large number of names both in basic papers and in card templates so take a look because we may have the one you need. Again they can be used together or maybe you can use them with the zodiac papers or other. Don't forget you can "double print the templates if you wish, print the backing paper you want onto the sheet of card first and them put it through the printer again and print the template on top. This only works for some of the "texture" and pattern design as obviously it will end up up-side-down on the back of the card.

Basic Name Papers (Backing Papers, Inserts Sheets etc)
Name Templates

Number Papers

Number Templates

Now you wont always know the age of the person you are making a card for, but if you do and you think it appropriate then you can use some of our number papers, decoupage or number card templates. In most we do all the numbers from 1 to 21 , and then each multiple of 5 from 25 onwards.

Basic Number Papers (Basic Papers, Insert Sheets etc)
Number Decoupage
Number Templates
Number Templates2
Number Templates3

Birth Stones

Birth Stone Papers

We haven't quite done all of the Birth Stone papers yet but will will be adding the remaining one soon. You can find the basic papers we have done so far here:
Birth Stones

Relative Papers

If the person you are making a card for is a relative then maybe you will be able to use one of out relative Stencil Cards or Backing Papers. These are fairly new sections to the site and we have concentrated so far on the female papers but we will be adding more regularly. We do try and cover some of the relative which don't normal get covered (aes wel as the regular ones) so do take a look and see if what you want is there.

Relative Papers (basic papers, Insert Sheets etc.)

Relative Card Templates

Relative Templates

If after all of that you are still stuck for an idea then .we suggest you take a look through our Site Map and see if there is anything on there which triggers an idea :-)

Free Card Making Toppers

Mothers Day Topper

We have been meaning to start a free toppers section to the Free Craft Downloads site for some time. In fact we already have a few of this type in the decoupage section but we though it would be best to start a dedicated section for them so we can categorise them correctly. As normal these toppers will be freely downloadable and printable. We intend to make them available in at least 3 different sizes, 6 inch by 4 inch, 4.5 inch by 3 inch and 3 inch by 2 inch.

Birthday Topper

Many of the sheets will have the image on twice, once with a background and once without. When you use the sheets you are free to use one or the other of these or you can use both of them and make a fairly simple piece of decoupage. This may not be practise for some of the toppers where the images is overtly complicated.

To start with we have uploaded sheets in three sections:  Birthday Toppers, Fathers Day toppers and Mothers Day Toppers. We will be adding to these section and adding new sections over the coming months.

As normal we hope you like the papers and please contact us about any particular sheets you would like to see.

Free Toppers to Download

Favour Box (Free Template)

Favour Box Instructions with Free Template

I really like this video project. It's a rather nice favour box (favor box) which can be used for Weddings, Valentines Day, Birthdays, Christmas in fact, any time you need a favour box or small gift box. What makes this box so versatile is the fact it can be used with any landscape paper off free craft downloads. That immediately gives you 1,000s of possibilities. Not only that but it can also be used with any landscape paper you already own.

The simple trick is: if you are using one of the papers off free craft downloads simply put the thick paper or thin card through the printer twice. Once to put the landscape design on and once to print the template on the back. If you are using a landscape paper you already own (A4) then just put it through the printer and print the free template onto the back.

After that just follow the video instructions. Do watch the video as there is an important twist towards the end (literally speaking rather than figuratively) which is a bit difficult to explain in writing. The page with the video also contains the direct link to the template and a few suggestions for landscape designs to use for Weddings, Brithdays and Valentines Day.

Favour Box Instructions and Video

Free Favour Box Template

Card Making Projects (and other paper crafts)

Mother Day Card Projetc

So I have decided to make some Card Making and other paper craft projects. I want to make these accessible to all levels of card makers. Beginners should find I am working very much at their level and more experienced paper crafters may just see a few ideas or techniques they haven't come accross before.

In no way do I think I am a "good" paper crafter, in fact, after years and years of designing papers, I've only actually done a minimal amount of actual making. Having said that I often have ideas in my head when I've been creating the designs and it is a few of these ideas I'm going to try and do on video.

Card Making Video Project

The first project I have done is a simple mothers day card. I've obviously used both a template and some of the papers off Free Craft Downloads although I have altered them slightly so I didn't have to do lots of manual cutting and pasting. These altered sheets are available on Free Craft Downloads on the projects page. This mothers day card is vert straight forward but I am certain many of the clever crafters who visit the site will be able to see what I have done and then improve on it. After all that is a big part of crafting, taking what someone else has done and adding your own personal twist.

I hope you enjoy this project and the future ones. They will only be occational additions to our site but hopefully, after a year or so, we will have built up a nice library of them.

Free Stencils to Downloads

This week we have had a bit of a stencil frenzy with two completely different uses for stencils. As normal these stencils will be completely free to download and print at home.

Free 3 and 4 inch Stencil Patterns

Letter Stencils 

These free 3 inch and 4 inch stencil templates are a bit different from our normal downloads. Normally we do free  card making, scrapbooking, glass painting and cross stitch downloads etc. With these stencil downloads we have no idea how people are going to use them, but we are very sure that people with find them really useful in a wide range of situations. Print them onto card and cit out  to use in sponging and other craft work.
We'd really like to hear how people are using them, so, if you use them please do let us know and send a pic if possible.

3 and 4 inch Stencil Templates

Relative Card Stencils

Relative  Card Stencils

The second type of stencil downloads we have done are these relative card stencils. This is just the begining of what we intend to be a much larger set. At the moment we have cards available  for close relatives such as Mum, Dad, Grandad, Nan, Sister, Brother, Aunty, Uncle and Cousin.  The cards are available in three different sizes all which are "long folded", the are A4, A5 and 10x7. Our idea for these cards is that you cut out the letters and then put a sheets (coloured?) behind it. I'm sure our users over on Free Craft Downloads will  come up with lots more ideas.

We have put fold marks on these papers so you will know where the middle is, plus they have a very light border all rounds, so if you print the A5 card onto an A4 sheet of card you will know where to cut.

Relatives: Card Stencils

New Music and Sport Papers Topic page.

It's the bane of my life that we have all these great papers for people to download for free,  but helping them find the one they need almost an impossible task. Things have slowly improved since we started the site, the site map lists just about everything on the site by section, the Special Dates and Special Events section help people find free papers for those important days and we are still working on an index for the papers.

     

In addition to these we are adding TOPIC PAGES which will list all (or all we can find) papers we have on a given topic. The first two topics we have covered are Music and Sports.

Free Sports papers.

Australian Football

The Sports topic page list all the papers we have covering different sports, all the obvious sports are there: football, Cricket, fishing, horse riding, sailing, tennis, golf etc and also some of the not so obvious: Skateboarding, bowling, Clay Pidgin shooting, Pool etc.

We list papers from all over the site so as well as the popular free Backing papers and inserts we also list the digi stamps, cross stitch charts and glass painting designs when they are available.

Free Sports papers.

Free Music Papers.

Brewster Guitar

Like the sports topic, the music topic page is also very diverse. One set of papers and decpoupage show a string quartet which another shows Yowser doing some mixing on the decks. We also have free papers showing Carol Singers, Brass and String instruments, treble clefs, Brewster on the guitar and much more. I should hope that, if you want to make a music based greeting card or other paper craft projects, you will be able to find some suitable free papers in this section.
Free Music Papers.

Treble Clef Papers

We will be continuing to add to these "Topic sections" over the coming months. The next two sections will focus on our free floral/flower papers and our Dance papers. As normal, after that, we are open to any suggestions you may have.

Card making papers for relatives

Free Craft Downloads: New Relatives Section

So a new year brings a new section for the site, "Relatives".  It's actually quite an obvious section for us to have. We have always tried to offer a wide range of basic papers which are free to download and useful to both card makers and other paper crafters. Although obvious it took a suggestion by one of the sites users to prompt us to make this a section.

We already have some papers on the site for relatives, particular papers to download for fathers day, mother day etc. However in this new section we will be widening the range of relative papers significantly to include some obvious but less widely covered relation ships.

Female relative card making papers.

The first few weeks will be spent up loading papers for female relatives and this will cover:
Aunt, Auntie, Aunty, Cousin (female), Daughter, Gran, Grandma, Mom, Mum, Mummy, My Partner (Female), My Wife, Nan, Nanny, Niece, Sister, Mother-in-Law, Sister-in-Law, My Girlfriend, My Fiancée, Step Sister, Step Mother, Step Daughter, Daughter-in-Law and Great Aunt.

This should make a good start for the new section. Each of the set will contain our normal papers: Backing Papers, Tags and Labels, Page Curls, Landscape Papers and our 12 types of insert sheets.

These papers should be great for making birthday cards as well as cards for other special days such as fathers day and mothers day. All of the papers will be fully downloadable and printable so you can use them right away or save them on your computer to use later.

We have already made a start on this new section which you can find here:

Relatives Craft Papers

Male Relative Card Making Papers.

Once we have a reasonable number of sections for female relatives we will start uploading the same for male relatives. These will include:

Uncle, Cousin (male), Son, Grandpa, Dad, Daddy, My Partner (male), My Husband, Hubby,Gramps, Nephew, Brother,Father-in-Law,Brother-in-Law, My Boyfriend, My Fiancé, Step Brother, Step Father, Step Dad, Step Son, Son-in-Law and Great Uncle.

As with all our free papers we are open to any suggestion you may have for these sections. Birthday cards for relatives are probably the most common greetings cards (after Christmas Cards) so we would like to have as many different free papers in this section as possible.
There will be more new sections on Free Craft Downloads over the new couple of weeks so please look out for those!

Special Paper Set

During the Christmas period we will be releasing a special set of papers based on a Rennie Mackintosh theme.

This set wont be available on the site like our other papers but all members of or mailing list will be sent a link to download the whole set in one zipped file. We are asking people nicely NOT to share this set with others as it is just meant to be a "thank you" to our members. The set will include:

• Backing Papers
• Inserts
• Pyramid Papers
• Frames/borders
• Page Curls
• Decoupage

Plus lots more! We hope you like the set (when it arrives) and we shall look forward to seeing some of your cards based on them.

If you are not yet a member of our mailing list you can join it here.

Another free image

Here's another free image to share with your friends. We are trying to use Christmas as an opportunity to encourage even more people to hand make their cards.

Please feel free to take this image and share it on your own blog or Facebook, twitter, forums etc.

Please feel free to repost this image where it will be seen by paper crafters and others who may be interested in taking it up. Lets see if we can reclaim at least a bit of Christmas as a time for crafting and giving personalised cards rather than the impersonal mass produced ones.



To see our range of 5,000+ Christmas papers  just visit: Here 

New Site Section... Topic

As you may know we are continually trying to find different ways of classifying our papers. We now have over 100,000 free papers on the site and our biggest worry is that people wont find the paper they need even though they're there!

To help with this we are starting a whole new section which will concentrate on topics rather than styles of papers. To give an example the first topic page covers sport. We have 1,000s of free sport based papers covering such things as football, cricket, tennis, skateboarding and lots more.

SPORTS PAPERS

The page lists all of the papers we have which deal with different sports.  The papers are listed from all over the site, from the Backing Papers section, the Decoupage Section, Cross Stitch, digi stamps etc etc. Sometimes it is quite difficult to classify a papers or sometimes it fits into more than one topic. The "Horses" papers go just as well in the the Sport section (especially as some of the papers show horse jumping) as in the animals section.

Future topics we intend to cover do include Animals as well as Music, Transport etc and we'd love to hear from anyone who has any more suggestions.

p.s. This topic section is intended to compliment the "Special Days" and "Special Events" section we already have so we wont be covering topics like Birthdays, Christmas etc which are already covered in there.