I did know that I wanted lots of fun patterned papers, so I chose to use the Happy Little Fourth Paper Pack by Quirky Twerp and Land of the Free mini kit by Sarah Jones Designs. I also knew I wanted to play with Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s Star Spangled Template Set. I opened up the template and clipped some of the papers to the shapes and printed them out.

I also printed long stripes of patterned paper, little star shapes and added the U, S, and A letters from Kelley Mickus’s Hello Sunshine alpha to make my fans and then printed.

These are the things I pulled together…

And my actual supply list:

• digital kits and template from The Digichick
• basic tools (craft knife, Cutterbees or other fine-tipped scissors, bone folder, 3 hole punch)
• adhesives (paper glue, Mini Glue Dots, Mono Adhesive Permanent, scotch tape and foam tape)
• straws
• empty ribbon spools

I cut all my paper pieces out and then scored all the dotted lines from the star template. I was intending to use little wooden dowels to attach my stars and fans to, but then I remembered that I had plastic straws in my cupboard already and decided to use those instead. Before assembling the two halves of the star, I used a three hole punch to put a hole through the back piece and slid the straw in.

At first I tried to use regular white glue to attach the straw, but it was too wet and I was way too impatient to wait for it to dry, so I switched to a piece of scotch tape and that worked perfectly. I did discover that it’s easier to add the adhesive to the flaps using the tape runner before you tape the straw in though, so that’s how I did the other ones. Then I assembled the stars, starting on one of the points by the straw and working my way around the other points.

I used my craft knife to carefully take the cardboard circles off the empty ribbon spools and covered them in some of the patterned paper using craft glue, which is thickier and not as wet as regular white glue. I didn’t think of it this time, but next time I would paint the opposite side with white or other coordinating color acrylic paint.

While they were drying, I used my ruler and bone folder to score the long strips of patterned paper at equal intervals along the length. Next time I would score all of them at the same time before cutting them apart. I folded on the creases, alternating directions each time. Then I used the tape runner to attach the ends together, forming a circle which I gently flattened into the fan shape by pressing on the middle. I have a little cork board that I use for quilling, so I pulled that out and pinned the fan into the correct shape, putting a generous amount of craft glue down into the middle hole. If you don’t have a cork board, you could still add the glue and then sandwich your shape between two layers of wax paper and set something heavy on top to hold it in shape until it dries.

I repeated the process for the other three fans, and then set the board aside to let them dry. While they were drying, I assembled the little letter toppers for them. I find that putting a new blade on my craft knife before cutting out the little parts of the letters or other intricate work makes it go much faster and the cuts look cleaner. I used foam layering tape to add dimension between the parts. Here are the finished pieces of the fans before assembly.

To put it all together, I flipped the fan over and put plenty of craft glue into one of the folds and then added a little more glue to the center ribs.

Then I put the straw in the part with all the glue, rolled it around to get it covered and added the back to create a little sandwich. I set something heavy on top of it and left it to dry.

Then I flipped it back over and added more craft glue to the center of the front and put the layered letters on. Again, let it dry but make sure it’s lying flat somewhere because the letters have the tendency to shift out of place if it isn’t. Don’t ask me how I know. After all the pieces are totally dry, you can stick them in your centerpiece and that’s where using the straws made it fun. Because they were the kind with the little bendy section, I was able to adjust their angle. I definitely want to try these again and make even more stars in different sizes and have them coming out at all different angles. I chose to stick mine in my basil plant, one of my favorite summer herbs, but you could stick yours into a pot filled with little rocks or marbles to decorate your table, or into a potted plant to take to someone’s house. Even switch up the papers and letters to spell out “happy birthday” or “get well” for a fun gift. Lots of possibilities! Happy crafting!

The papers from the gorgeous Fresh Cut: The Collection by The Digichick Designers were perfect for my file pockets, and I found exactly the right calendar in the shop as well: Jan Hosford’s Perpetual Calendar Templates.

The first thing I did was to create a new 8.5 by 11 inch document and drag in the 12 patterned papers that I had picked out. I then created a vertical guide at exactly the half-way point where I was planning to fold the printed page in half to create the pocket.

I added Jan’s calendar and a white mat under it, as well as a white box where the cut-away for the pocket would go. Planning ahead, for once, I also made sure to leave plenty of room on the left side for the stitching and three-hole punching. Each page was created the same, and then I duplicated the necessary layers, flattened them and printed my file pockets.

After everything was printed, I gathered up the rest of the things that I thought I’d need. Here is the complete supply list:

• Fresh Cut: The Collection by the Digichick Designers

• Perpetual Calendar Templates by Jan Hosford
• Epson Premium Matte Photo Paper
• half-sized binder
• three hole punch
• sewing machine (or paper piercer, needle and thread)
• adhesive (I used both Mono Adhesive Permanent and a glue pen)
• ruler, craft knife, scoring tool

My sewing machine and I are not on speaking terms, and apparently our three hole-punch is not the adjustable kind so I had to use the old-fashioned tools here. This next part would go a LOT faster otherwise! First I scored the middle of all of my printouts, and then used my ruler and craft knife to cut out the blank white part. On two of the pages, I’d added some month tabs before I printed that I’d made from elements out of the kit, so I cut those out as well.

Next was the task of creating the pockets by folding the papers in half and sealing up the bottom and side. I knew I didn’t want to just use glue, because it needed to be sturdy enough to hold up to repeated use, so I decided that stitching it closed would be the way to go. I tried my sewing machine, failed, reprinted and got out my paper piercer and ruler with the evenly spaced holes. Then I started poking away. It took a while. But I finally finished and pulled out some floss and a needle and stitched the sides together. I hope that it lasts a long time because I’m not anxious to do that again!

Here are all my pages, pierced, stitched and hole-punched!

I added the tabs that I’d created and here is the inside of the binder, ready to be used. All I need to do is fill in the birthdays for the appropriate dates, and then the cards for each month can go in the pockets.

I slipped the outside covers into the front, back and spine, and my project was done! I can’t wait to start filling it up, and I hope that this fun little binder inspires you to use your craft supplies to get organized too!

One of my favorite things about doing a hybrid project is that after you print out your digital papers, you can just use whatever you have on hand to embellish. I like to rummage through my various boxes and containers before I start and pull out anything that I think might come in handy. It seems to save me time later on, and helps get the creativity flowing. Below you can see some of the things that I ended up using for this particular bag and card set.

Supplies:

• Sweet Memories, a Sugarplum Paperie and Danielle Engebretson Designs digital collab
• Sassy Purse #3 by Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs
• Mini Envelope Album Template by Karla Dudley Designs
• Handwritten Sentiments 1 by Karla Dudley Designs
• Red River Paper (Aurora Fine Art White Double Sided for the purse and Polar Matte for the cards)
• Colorbox Creamy Brown and Dark Brown chalk ink
• Making Memories flower
• Metallic Rub-ons
• beads, button, embroidery floss & velcro from stash
• and the basics (ruler, craft knife, and adhesive)

Of course the first thing I did was to decide which of the digital papers I wanted to use for the Sassy Purse template and coordinating cards. Then I printed everything out. Since I knew that I didn’t want the inside of the purse to be plain white, I decided to print it on Red River Paper’s Aurora Fine Art White Double Sided paper which also has the advantage of being a nice, heavy weight. I simple printed the purse template on one side of the paper, gave it a few seconds to dry, and then sent it through the printer again to print the coordinating paper on the back side.

I thought it might be fun to add some textural interest to the purse by beading the handle, so before I cut any of the pieces out, I took a heavy needle and pierced holes along both sides of the handle on top of my upside-down mousepad.

After I had finished piercing both sides, I cut all the pieces out, scored on the appropriate lines, and inked the top edges of the purse with the creamy brown ink. Before I print Kelleigh’s templates, I like to change the blend mode of the layer with the cutting & scoring lines to “Overlay” and then decrease the opacity until it’s just visible on the paper. I find that this allows me to see clearly where I should be folding, but is not obvious on the finished project.

I then assembled the base of the purse. I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of that, but it took both hands to get it together and I couldn’t figure out how to hold the camera and snap the shot without any hands. I did however find it easier to apply the adhesive to all the tabs before I started and then simply press them into place.

I tried all different ways of making a clasp for the bag, and finally settled on some velcro strips. Because they were the kind that had the fuzzy part on one side, and the little hooks on the other side, they were too thick to sew or get an eyelet through, so I ended up sticking them on with some really thick glue dots. It worked well, because the glue dot was thick enough to go between the hooks and provide a really strong hold.

Here you can see the purse with the clasp and velcro squares attached:

Next it was time to add the beads to the handle. I used tiny pearl-like beads that I had salvaged from some other project a long time ago, but seed beads or any other little beads would work great too. I’m sure there’s lots of different ways to sew them on, but I used a back stitch to attach them and taped the end of the embroidery floss down on the back of the handle.

It took a while, but I love the way it looks now that it’s done; even my five year old son stopped by the table occasionally to see how it was coming and it got two thumbs up from him when I finally finished. I didn’t use any kind of tool to make sure that the holes I pierced were evenly spaced so some of the beads are closer than others, but I’m sure you could find a piercing guide if you wanted all of yours to be perfectly spaced. I left enough room on each of the ends to adhere it to the inside of the purse.

I printed off some of the digital elements from the kit to use in embellishing the purse, and one of those was a key. I felt like it could use a little extra something before I attached it to the bag, and I had some metallic rub-ons that I bought a year or so ago and never used, so I decided I’d see if I could add some dimension to it. Here’s the key just as it looked before I started playing around with it.

The first thing I did was to flip the paper over and add some dark brown ink to the back side. I didn’t want it to be a solid brown though, so instead of smearing the ink across the paper or using a sponge, I used the ink pad itself. It gave it kind of a mottled effect.

Then I flipped the key back over and used my finger to apply the metallic rub-ons to the front of the key. I used the copper and gold colors, and just smeared them right over the print, including the digital jewel that was on the top.

I used a combination of my craft knife and some sharp scissors to cut out the key, and then I added a jewel on top of the digital one and this is what I ended up with:

I used some more embroidery thread to tie the key along with a heart charm and a tag that I had printed from the digital kit to the side of the purse, and then added a little bit of fuzzy green fiber that I had.

I used Karla’s Mini Envelope Album Template to make a little set of notecards to include in the bag and there was just enough room to slip a sample size of hand lotion alongside them. I hope that this little gift set will inspire you to to get crafty and show your appreciation for all those special mothers in your life!

I loved the cheerfulness of the birdhouse image against the soft background papers of this card by Alice Wertz and, of course, all the pretty pink buttons scattered around. There are more beautiful cards in her gallery if you’re looking for some card-making inspiration!

The bold colors and stacked flowers made this fun set by Jacinda jump out of the gallery at me, and I love the dangly trim around the edge of the bottom box.

This next project by putri caught my eye because it’s one of the few hybrid layouts that I came across. I love the mix of digi and traditional papers and the title spilling across the photo.

These baby onesies by juliemomof4 are simply adorable and I love the little bit of ribbon added to each one. The sayings are so fun too!

I love the rich colors of this card by SylviaB and the texture that the velvet flower adds.

This beautiful hybrid layout by Cathy Pascual is such a wonderful example of mixing digi supplies with the paper scrapbooking style. I love the handmade flowers and rounded edges.

I am totally in awe of this beautiful floral bouquet made by sinead! The colors are so lovely; I can just imagine how pretty a row of these would look on my fireplace mantel, if I had the patience to make them all.

Last for today is this sweet card by vervegirl; I love the scalloped shape and the fibers and butterflies!

I hope this tour through the gallery inspired you to get crafty! Don’t forget to post your gorgeous creations using the fabulous goodies from our Digichick designers in the gallery… you just might find your project spotlighted on the Hybrid Chick blog.

A piece of wordart in the digital kit I used which says “just something about you” inspired me to fill my fortune cookies with “ice breaker” type questions that I thought would be fun for a party, or as a housewarming gift for a newly married couple. (Just as an example, one of my paper strips asks “If you had an extra hour of free time each day, how would you use it?”)

I added eight questions like these to the strips of paper that were already in the digital kit and printed them along with my other papers.

The supply list is pretty basic:

• takeout container
• digital paper to fit your theme (I used the digital kit High of 75 by Sugarplum Paperie)
• ruler
• craft knife
• adhesive (I used a glue stick and some regular white glue)
• additional embellishments if desired

The first thing I did was measure the different faces of the takeout container that I wanted to cover (I didn’t bother with the parts that you wouldn’t be able to see) and create shapes of those sizes in photoshop to clip my paper to. I decided on the craft paper to cover the box, and I used the other patterns in the kit for my fortune cookies. For those I created boxes that were just over the size needed to contain a circle that was three inches in diameter. Once I had everything arranged on my document, I printed and cut out my papers.

To cover the sides of the box, I removed the metal handle so that the box could be flattened and then glued each piece of patterned paper to the right side and trimmed off the diagonal pieces with my craft knife. I figured that would be easier than trying to cut it to the exact right shape and then glue it on. I started with my glue stick but it didn’t seem to be holding well enough so I switched to liquid glue and that worked much better. It also increased the drying time though, so I had to do one part at a time and let it dry before I could move on to the next side. After it was all dry, I used my craft knife to poke the holes back through where the metal handle went.

The additional layer of patterned paper made the sides of the box want to cave in a bit, so I glued the folded over sides to the inside layer and held it closed with a clothespin until it dried completely. While I was waiting, I used my Cuttlebug and the Spellbinders Nestability dies to cut out the three inch circles from the patterned paper to use for making my fortune cookies. You could also trace around a glass or small bowl if you don’t have a die cutting machine at home. Following the directions I’d seen on the ehow website, I folded the papers in half and added a small smear of glue at the edges to keep them together and used my reverse tweezers to hold them together while they dried. Once dry, I gently pulled the ends together and added another dot of glue in the middle where they met to help the cookie keep its shape. Then I threaded the paper strip with the question through the middle.

By this time my container was dry, so I reattached the metal handle, inked up the edges, and added a few embellishments that I’d printed from the digital kit (including the wordart that had inspired the project), plus a few other goodies from my stash, to the top of the container and tucked my cookies inside, ready to be used at our next get-together or find a new home if the opportunity arises. I hope you feel inspired to make your own takeout container and fill it with whatever you think of (candy is always a good choice!) If you do, please be sure to post it in the Digichick gallery so we can all admire it!

Supply List:
mint/candy tin
Joyful Paper Pack by Kelley Mickus
Ornamentals Brush Pack by Roben-Marie Designs
TK Flourish font by TK Whimsy
Epson Premium Matte Photo Paper
I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the circles, but you could also use a pair of scissors
Mono Adhesive Permanent & Mini Glue Dots (or whatever adhesive you like to use)
Making Memories paint
sandpaper
embellishments, I used ribbon from Michaels, Prima flowers, Martha Stewart glitter and some brads

The first thing I did is grab a piece of sandpaper and go to work on the tin. I’ve found that the paint seems to stick better for me when the metal has been roughed up a little bit. Then I wiped it down with a wet paper towel, and set it aside to dry while I gathered up the rest of the supplies I thought I’d use. I also measured the tin to determine what size my circle would need to be to fit easily inside.

Next I squeezed some of the paint onto a scrap piece of plastic and grabbed one of my foam brushes and put on the first coat of paint, trying to be careful not to get any on the see-through part of the lid. I did keep my damp paper towel handy to clean up the spots where I got a little messy.

While the first coat was drying, I opened a new 8 1/2 by 11 inch document in photoshop, and then created my circle masks. I was able to fit four per page, and clipped a different one of the Joyful papers to each. Then I added a smaller circle in the middle of each of the big circles with a light colored paper clipped to it. On top of these circles I added the text, using the TKFlourish font. Once I had all my circles created, I printed off the sheets and added a second coat of paint to the tin. As it was drying, I cut out all my circles and put a coat of Mod Podge on them. I also used the Mod Podge to affix the top and bottom covers to the tin.

I probably should have let everything dry overnight, but as usual, I was running behind so I got out my heat gun to try to set the paint and glue faster. When it seemed dry to the touch, I added some glue pen and glitter to the top stripes, and a prima flower and leaf. Then I cut a scalloped circle with my cuttlebug to add around the outside edge. Another flower on the inside cover and a ribbon tied around the outside finished it off. From start to finish it only took a couple of hours to make, so there’s plenty of time left for you to make your own little gift tin for someone special this Christmas!

Here’s what I used for my Thanksgiving Tree project:

digital kit by Mari Koegelenberg
Crispy, Crunchy Leaves element pack by Pamela Donnis
8 in. x 10 in. frame (mine came from Walmart)
clear acrylic sealer or Mod Podge
scissors (Cutterbees or some other fine point ones)
Mono Adhesive Permanent

The first thing I did was to create my background image in Photoshop. I used one of the papers from the Hooty Toot kit, but used the clone stamp to remove the pink accents so that only the sky and grass was left. Then I opened another copy of that same paper, extracted the tree from it and layered that over my first paper with a bit of a drop shadow for some dimension. The second document I created was full of the leaves from the Crispy, Crunchy pack, all of them shrunk down to a size appropriate for my tree. I printed both of these out and gathered up my supplies.

I added a coat of clear acrylic sealer to my background image, and while it was drying I began the fun part… cutting out all the little leaves. This was definitely the most time-consuming task of the project, but I worked on it a bit at a time, and pretty soon I had them cut out.

After that my project was pretty much done. I took the back off my frame, removed the included mat and the piece of glass, trimmed the white edge off my tree paper and inserted it in the frame. I put the glass back behind the paper for added stability, and then put the back of the frame back on. All that’s left to do is add our leaves of thankfulness to the tree over the month. My oldest two sons have each contributed an idea of what they’re thankful for (daddy and mommy respectively) and I wrote it on a leaf for them and added it to our tree. Now our tree is sitting on the dining room table with the extra leaves in front of it, so that anyone who likes can add a note of thanksgiving to our house.

I hope this little project sparks some ideas of how you can take some time to remember your blessings, and maybe even get your family and digital supplies involved!

Supplies List:
Digital paper & elements (In order to get the most realistic results, look for elements that wouldn’t normally have a drop shadow in real life.)
Bazzill cardstock
scissors
craft knife & ruler
Scotch dimensional adhesive
glue stick (I’m out of my Mono Adhesive Permanent and boy do I miss it!)
Cuttlebug (This is totally optional, but I just got mine this week and wanted to try it out!)
Circle Nestabilities

The first thing to do is design your cards in Photoshop, and this is the part where I appreciate digital because you can try different layouts without ever cutting a piece of paper. When I make a set of cards, I like to design one on top of the other in groups so that it’s easy to toggle the visibility of each group and see how the cards look together. Here’s a screenshot from my computer showing my workspace and card groups.

Once I have all the cards looking the way that I want them to, I open a new 8.5 by 11 inch document and start dragging the layers over and arranging them in order to get as much on each paper as possible. Usually I can fit two cards on each page when I’m creating in the standard 5.5 x 4.25 size like here. For any of the elements that I want a white background behind, like the rabbit in the card below, I create a solid white shape behind the element the size I like, then after I drag it and the rabbit layer over together onto my printable document, I add a 2 pixel, black stroke line to the outside of the white piece so that when it comes time to cut everything out, there will be no measuring involved.

I added two copies of the flowers to my printable document so that I could stack them for added dimension. Once I figured out how to fit everything on my pages inside of the printer’s borders, I printed them out and began to cut out all of my pieces and assemble the cards. Here are my printed sheets with room around some of my “stamped” images so that I could run them through the cuttlebug.

Putting the cards together is one of my favorite parts because I love seeing the digital design translated into a real life card. Creating a digitally-stamped card isn’t exactly the same as actually stamping, because it takes more planning on the front side and it’s not as easy to improvise as you go, but for those of us who are more comfortable with pixels than paper, it’s a great way to get your feet wet and use the digital supplies you already own in another way. Happy crafting!!

The first thing I did was to measure the size of the dividers and create a new Photoshop document that was just slightly bigger all the way around. You could also scan in one of the dividers to use as a template, but we just recently replaced our printer and I hadn’t yet experimented with the scan function so I went with the easy way.  I then decided how many dividers I would need to start, and settled on three for each boy… one for verses that we are currently working on, one for verses that have already been memorized, and one for verses that we are not yet working on. Add in one cover paper and that gave me a total of seven dividers to create. (Another advantage to using the rolodex system is that when our third son is old enough for the club, I can just create three more dividers for him and keep using the same system.) Now came the fun part, designing each divider. I decided to use the Flight of Fancy mini kit by Elise’s Pieces Designs because my boys all love airplanes and there are so many fun patterned papers in it.

After I finished scrapping my seven pieces, I created two new 8 1/2 x 11 inch documents and arranged the flattened files so that I could print them off. I chose fairly stiff cardstock to print on since these will be handled quite a bit. There was some empty space on the second document which I filled up with other digital papers and elements to use at a later time. I try to get as much printing out of the paper as I can.

Once my papers were printed, I cut out the pieces and gathered up a few basic supplies that I thought I might need…

I didn’t end up using the glue stick because the dividers were sturdy enough without a second layer of cardstock behind them. I used one of the dividers as a pattern to trace on each of my printouts, being careful to reverse the direction each time so that the tabs would be alternating. Here is where scanning in the divider and using it as a template would have saved a little time… I could have skipped the tracing and just started cutting out each one.

After I finished the tracing, all that was left was to grab my pair of little scissors and cut each one out. Cutting around the bottom where they fit onto the two tracks was a little tricky since I didn’t want to bend the paper too much, but I got them all done and now the only challenge left is to keep on top of writing out the verse cards and helping them memorize them each week!

This project would also be a great way to keep an organized list of things like birthdays and anniversaries, since you can just add new ones in date order easily, or maybe as a way to keep track of new recipes that you want to try along with the name of the cookbook and page number where it can be found. I love it when a bargain find turns out to be actually useful!

Digital Supplies:
Our Story by Kelly Mickus
Doodle Stamps Part 2 by TKWhimsy
TK Smiley Font by TKWhimsy
TK Turtle Soup Font by TKWhimsy

Physical Supplies:
Bazzil cardstock
brown paper lunch bags
decorative edge scissors
plus the basics: ruler, craft knife, adhesive
You could also add whatever other types of embellishments you wanted (ribbons, buttons, flowers, etc.).

I cut out all my pages and matted them with the brown cardstock for extra stability.

Then I trimmed the bottoms off of the brown paper bags and cut the end with my decorative scissors to mimic the look of the top so that when I folded the bag in half, the pages would look similar. I repeated the process with three other bags, folding each in half. I was thinking about hole punching the fold on each one and tying them all together with ribbons, but I decided instead to pull out my old nemesis, the sewing machine, and give that a try. In the end, I triumphed, and the bags were all stitched together. The needle wouldn’t go through all the layers at once initially, so I sewed the bags together in sets of two, and then sewed the whole group together.

After I got the base of the album finished, all that remained was gluing in my pages and embellishing with whatever physical goodies I had on hand. I added a fun scrunched-up ribbon that I found in the dollar bin at Michaels over the weekend to cover my sewing seams. Inside the pockets created by the open ends of the lunch sacks, I am planning to put little notes or keepsakes that pertain to each of the pages. Except for my inefficiency with the sewing machine, the album came together quickly and I think I may make a few more copies to have on hand for hostess or thank you gifts. I hope this little project inspires you to create your own memory or inspirational books, either for your own enjoyment or for the benefit of your friends and family!