Love Is in the Air Mailbox « The Hybrid Chick

Love Is in the Air Mailbox

By kelleighr Friday February 5, 2010

I am very excited about one of my newest templates, which was created at the request of one of the designers at The Digichick.

See, every Valentine’s Day, mini mailboxes start showing up in the dollar section of Target, and there is always a mad dash to go grab them for pretty hybrid projects.

However, for some, a trip to Target would require loading children into the car and driving great distances. It might even require a hop on the airplane! So, I created a mailbox template that you can add your digital paper to, or simply print the lines out on paper from your traditional stash, and you don’t even have to leave your home!

Introducing, the Mini Mailbox Template!! Isn’t it cute? The template comes in two sizes and both are designed to be printed on a single sheet of letter sized paper on a standard printer. The large size is approximately 2.5 in wide, 2.75 in tall, and 3.5 in long. And, you can’t believe how easy this template is to put together!! Let me show you how!

Before I get started, let me direct you to some pretty good tutorials (if I do say so myself!) found at here at The Hybrid Chick:

Where to Start – offers suggestions for basic materials to get you started with hybrid.

Using Templates – guides you through the process of using my templates from downloading to adding digital paper, and preparing to print.

Borderless Printing – shows you how to find your borderless printing option on your printer . . . or at least gets you headed in the right direction.

Now, print your project! Of course, you can use digital paper or simply print the lines only version on some of the patterned paper or cardstock in your stash.

For this project, I chose the My Little Valentine digital kit by Quirky Twerp and printed my project onto Epson Premium Matte Photo Paper. You’ll notice that I changed the color of the lines on the template to blend in better with the digital papers I chose. My goal was that they would not be seen at all once my project was put together. I also added a few extra embellishments so that I could cut them out and add more dimension to my project.

Next, I scored the lines of my project using my bone folder for the straight lines and my embossing tool for the rounded lines. You could also use a dull fork to go around the curved lines. Other kitchen utensils like butter knives and pizza cutters also work well for scoring.

I cut my project out using a craft knife (which is the same thing as an Xacto knife) and micro tip scissors, similar to Cutterbees.

I folded all of the scored lines, and made sure to fold the tabs on the rounded back of the mailbox to the inside, like this:

Next, I added my adhesive. First, I applied Mono Adhesive Permanent to all of the tabs, and then I added a liquid adhesive along the side tab, just to make sure the project would stay together forever.