Here’s how you can keep up with the latest news and info from Sherrie:

• Sherrie’s Blog: Pixel Gypsy
• Twitter: pixelgypsy
• Subscribe: Pixel Gypsy Newletter

Sherrie’s designs are crisp and clean—just prefect for printing out for hybrid projects! Her gorgeous paper packs and kits are all created with very harmonious color palettes. I love her eye for color.

Here are just some of the beautiful papers you will find in Sherrie’s shop:

I took a peek in the gallery and I saw this amazing pinwheel set that slprunning made with Sherrie’s By The Sea collection. Isn’t this adorable?!

I also spotted this adorable Father’s Day card that Jess, one of our Hybrid Chickies, made using Sherrie’s French Laundry kit:

And I thought these flowers made by Jackie, another Hybrid Chick, using Sherrie’s Funky Monkey kit were so very pretty:

I was totally tempted by Sherrie’s pretty papers, too! I was inspired by the beautiful card that designer Mari Koegelenberg made with her CD Card template (you can see her pretty card posted there in the shop) and I wanted to make one like it.

I picked Sherrie’s gorgeous Lola paper pack for this project and set to work! Here’s the front of the card (made with one of Mari’s Doilie Shapes as well):

And here is the back of the card, where you can open it up:

(I just love, love, LOVE this pretty gray patterned paper!)

Here is the inside of the card with it’s little pocket where the greeting will go, once I’m ready to use it:

This card was simple to make! I don’t have a fancy cutting machine, so I just use the .png files that come in Mari’s Cutting Files template packs. And this template was especially straightforward and easy to trim. I clipped the floral paper to the front of the card in Photoshop and then on the back I printed a full sheet of plain gray paper, so that my cardstock would be double-sided.

In retrospect, I probably should have clipped the plain paper to the shape and printed the patterned paper on the back, so that I could use the scraps of floral paper for something else. Oh, well! The beauty of hybrid paper is that you can always print MORE. Yay!

When I was preparing the little pocket piece for printing, I also added a square shape to my page to cut out for layering on the front of the card. I knew I wanted to use a lot of layers for this card. Have you seen the beautiful work by scrapper Christine Middlecamp? We’ve been talking about it on our Hybrid forums (here) and, well… some of us really caught the bug for making these beautiful little goodies. Mari made her beautiful Cutting Files template set with these projects in mind. And she knew how excited I was about them, too… so she did the sweetest thing—she sent me a little package with some doilies inside so I could play along, too!

Well, today I finally broke one out and used it! I was a little afraid to… Are you ever like that? Sometimes I think “Well, maybe I’ll just keep this in my stash…” What a hoarder I can be! I love my papercraft collection. It’s just pretty to look at all the raw goodies sometimes. LOL!

But I digress…

I really love how this card turned out! I used a touch of pink on the front, which seemed to go perfectly with the other colors. And I used some green ribbon, since there is green in the original kit. I can’t wait to give this card to someone special!

Hope you enjoy all the inspiration and that you find something pretty in Sherrie’s shop for your next hybrid creation! Be sure to link us up if you do. We always love to see what you’ve been up to!

Happy creating!

If you’ve not visited her blog before, you need to stop by and see the inspiring projects and layouts she’s posted there. You will find plenty of eye-candy and ideas in her blog’s gallery!

Here’s how you can keep up with the latest news and info from Karla:

• Karla’s Blog: Create Something Today
• Twitter: karladudley

Now let’s take a peek at some of Karla’s beautiful designs! Her papers are full of beautiful colors and patterns—just perfect for printing! Not only that, she has a real knack for playing with fonts and will often add her own handwriting to her kits. These stamps and word art make for an easy way to make a great card or add a finishing touch to a project! Here are a few great “highly printable” goodies from Karla’s shop:

Here are a few lovely projects I hunted up from our gallery today! First, here is a great card created by Jacinda, showing a creative way to put all of Karla’s beautiful word art into action. She used Karla’s Printables – No. 1 Dad brush pack for this project:

Here’s a set of gift card holders that Mari made using Karla’s Joy collection:

And here’s an adorable little card from Savitri using Karla’s Zander: Play paper pack:

I decided to have some fun playing with Karla’s papers myself! I picked the Pamela paper pack and tried out one of the new templates from The Cutting Files (I used the Cake Box). I love that these new templates are both compatible with die-cutting machines and Photoshop! I don’t have a fancy-pants cutting machine yet—I can only be jealous of everyone else’s fancy-pants cutting machines right now. But I love that I can still use these fabulous templates because they come in .psd format, too!

Here’s the cake box I made:

And I also needed to make a thank you card, so using this pretty card by Jeryn as inspiration, I made this:

I took the paper from the kit and shrunk it down to be 6 x 6 instead of 12 x 12. I know that Basic Grey used to release these 6 x 6 paper packs that were just perfect for card markers because they made it so you could get more pattern in a smaller space, so I used their idea here on my card. I love how it turned out! Yes, even my messy handwriting.

I hope you enjoyed seeing Karla’s beautiful goodies in action! If you try some of her designs for your next project, be sure to let me know! I’d love to see a link to your creations.

Until next time—happy crafting!

We don’t often have a call for new members, so if it’s something you’ve ever thought about before now is your chance to come and show us your stuff! We are looking to add a few new members to our team and we’d love to hear from you.

Our monthly requirements very light—we just ask that you write one article a month!

You’ll have the creative freedom to use what ever goodies you like from The Digichick Boutique. And you can also use all sorts of other items from your stash, like scrapbook paper, stamps, ribbons, pretty flowers, etc.

So, if you love to share about the things you’ve made, we’d love to hear from you!

We are accepting applications now through June 20th. Just send us an e-mail and tell us a little bit about yourself! And please be sure include a link to your favorite gallery so we can see your work.

We look forward to hearing from you!

(Photo Credit: from the Love Notes article by Shabby Shaz)

If you haven’t heard, The Digichick is having a 30% off sale store-wide today! There’s also a special Birthday Bash category in the shop where everything is 50% off because this month also marks The Digichick’s 5th Anniversary! And we also have a huge selection of Grab Bag bargains new in the shop today as well—be sure to stop by and check it out! We are having one major party!

Well, I’m here today to share with you a free card template I created and wanted to share with you!

The other day it was my cousin’s birthday and I wanted to make her something special—and I thought she’d get a kick out of seeing my papers in real life, too. (Because no one loves you like family, right?) The papers I wanted to use were from my new collab kit that I recently created with the lovely Danielle Engebretson called Sweet Memories.

So, I grabbed one of Kelleigh’s templates (the Matchbox one) and I made her this little gift set:

I knew I wanted to use the box to hold a gift card, but when it came to making the card, I felt overwhelmed (those of you who may know that several years ago I was a rubber stamping fanatic are probably chuckling at me right now!). But you see, card making with paper and ink is a little different then using your graphic design skills to make something to print! I was intimidated.

But then an idea came to mind and I realized it was really easy to make a nice, simple card. I’ll show you how I went about it. (By the way, you can click on any of the images to enlarge them.)

STEP ONE:

First, I opened up a new document that was 8 1/2 by 11 in.

I pulled over a guide line from the ruler side bar of my document and set my two Guides at 5 1/2 and 4 1/4 (which is half of 8 1/2 by 11; when you’re making a card out of a sheet of cardstock, that’s where you’d cut and fold to create your card base).

STEP TWO:

I decided that I wanted to make my card be “short and fat” vs. “tall and skinny.” So the next step I took was to use the Rectangular Marquee tool to mark off the section of my card where I planned to place my patterned paper. The other half of my paper would be the plain white back.

I created a new layer and then I filled the area with color to create a Clipping Mask to use for the next step! You can either do this using the Fill (bucket) Tool or by hitting the Backspace key.

STEP THREE:

Next, I dragged the paper I wanted to use on to my template and clipped it to the base. Now I was ready to add the final touches!

STEP FOUR:

I used the Shape Tool to make a long, narrow strip on which to write “Happy Birthday.” I added a Stroke to the strip, in order to help it stand out from the patterned background. Then, I clipped some yellow paper to the strip and used the Text Tool to type out my greeting.

And I was done! It was ready to print and ready to cut in half to make into two cards!

Now, one very important tip here—make sure that your printer can handle a “full bleed” or else your card might shrink a bit during the printing process and cut off part of your design! You want to set your printer to print things right to the edge to make the trimming process super easy.

As promised, here is the Quick & Easy Card Template I used to make my card, if you would like to use this as a starting place for making your own! I’ve included the paper strip and the stroke layer that you can also use (if you like. If not, feel free to ignore them).

I hope you enjoy using this template! Be sure to come back and show us what you made! And if you’re looking for some free paper to use, remember that we still have last year’s NSD freebie, Paper Daisies, available for download as well.

Happy scrapping!

Sarah is not afraid of using color. She has a real eye for mixing them up together in a way that makes for a harmonious collection. When you’re making a kit and you have a color palette you like, it’s not always possible to get each one to play nice together. But Sarah seems to have a real gift for pairing up colors!

And she certainly a fan of adding lots of wonderful patterns to her paper packs–which is something you need in the Hybrid World! I know I’m not going to use a plain paper to make a project… that’s what I have all that cardstock in my stash for. Ha! So, I know that when I need something fun and bold and playful, Sarah’s papers are going to be a perfect fit!

Here’s a peek at some of Sarah’s fabulous kits and paper packs to give you a taste of what I mean (images are linked, so you can take a closer look):

One of my favorite things that I’ve seen made with Sarah’s fabulous papers were posted here on this blog! Mari wrote an article about a set of Hybrid Hairclips she made for her daughter with Sarah’s Pish Posh paper pack. Here’s a snapshot of Mari’s adorable creation:

And when I was browsing around in the gallery, I found this adorable basket made by Hybrid Chick Julie out of Sarah’s Girls Rule, Boys Drool paper pack. I love how bold and bright and just-plain-fun this basket is in these “non-traditional” (or “non-pastel”) colors:

And I’ve always loved this star that Kelleigh made with her awesome Star Spangled template and Sarah’s retired paper packs… (just had to show you what a perfect fit Sarah’s papers are here it was—this project is still one of my favorites. I have to try making this star someday!):

Now, when I thought about what I’d like to make with Sarah’s papers, I thought of my daughter, Katie, who’s seven and loves pink! So, I picked Sarah’s Pretty Little Buds collection for my project. I also used Kelleigh’s Matchbox template to create a set of little “treasure boxes” for Katie to use… a place for her to keep all her little goodies in her nightstand, especially those things that she might not want her baby having. Everyone needs a place to put their little treasures, right?

Here’s what I made for her:

I punched a hole in the middle of each box and then took some ribbon and knotted it on both sides to make a little “drawer pull” for my daughter’s little fingers to grab (and to hopefully help keep the box intact by giving her something other than the edge of the lid to pull on). It’s the perfect size for her collection of necklaces and rings and other tiny playthings. And she’s thrilled! I even let her pick what papers she wanted, which was just delightful for her (she’s a real crafter, that one!). I loved how Kelleigh’s template was set up to let you pick different papers for the top and sides of your box. We came up with some great combinations from Sarah’s paper pack. Fun, fun!

I hope you enjoyed the inspiration here today! And I hope you enjoy trying some of Sarah’s wonderful prints for yourself the next time you’re making something special! You will not be disappointed. They are a real treat!

I love to go window shopping at my favorite scrapbook shop—just to look at all the pretty papers. Of course, I usually get sucked in by the pretty paper flowers, too. But patterned papers hold a sweet spot in my heart.

And that’s one reason I love the designs of Donna Wells (a/k/a Quirky Twerp). I’m here today to spotlight some of her gorgeous papers to show you how lovely (and how perfectly printable!) they are.

Donna has a real talent for working with themes and making holiday collections. She has made kits that celebrate special times of the year like Easter, Valentine’s Day and Christmas. And she has kits that celebrate special things in our lives, like birthdays and girlfriends and vacations. She certainly makes some wonderful elements—but my favorite things are always her gorgeous papers! YUM!

Here are some of my favorite Quirky Twerp paper packs that I think are just perfect for making hybrid goodies (images are linked):

I went hunting in the gallery for some pretty hybrid projects made with Donna’s designs—and let me tell you! It was hard to narrow it down to just a few.

Since Easter is right around the corner now, let me start by showing you this lovely little basket that Kelleigh made with her Easter Basket template and Donna’s Happy Little Easter paper pack:

Here’s a bright and sunny card that Sylvia made with Donna’s Pop Frenzy papers:

Here’s a pretty little mini album from Holly, made with Donna’s My Little Valentine Scrapbook Pack (click to enlarge):

And here’s one of my all-time favorite hybrid cards (oh, my!!!), made by Savitri using Donna’s Gardenologie papers:

I love this card so much, so I thought I’d play around with those lovely Gardenologie papers, too!

I grabbed Kelleigh’s Mini Envelopes template set to make myself some little embellishments for my scrap stash (because, yes, I am still paper scrapper! LOL!) and here’s what I made:

I sent this off to Kinko’s again. I’m growing quite addicted to doing this, despite the horrible customer service at the location I go to. I love the job they do. I love ordering it all on line. I hate having to wait in the store 15 minutes for someone to simply grab my order and hand it to me. But I digress… LOL! Once again, they did a beautiful print job!

And I made a mistake in my order that turned out to be a happy surprise. I made myself two letter-sized sheets of tags (2 tags to a page) and I thought I set things up so that I would be ordering both pages on cardstock. Well, come to find out—I only set the first one to be printed on cardstock. The second came in color (thank goodness!), but on regular paper. After I recovered from the initial shock… I actually thought that this would work great for these envelopes! They need to be lightweight and not so bulky. And whatever the special inks they use at Kinkos are, they make for a really glossy and beautiful finished product! So, even though I messed things up… I’m happy! And I learned something, too. The next time I want to make some envelopes, regular paper will do!

Okay, so enough about Kinko’s. Ha! I hope you enjoyed this little spotlight on Quirky Twerp. If you’re looking for some great paper for your next hybrid project, now you know where to go!

Every other Saturday, we’ll be checking out some of the gorgeous items you can find for sale at the Digichick that are just perfect for your own hybrid projects.

There are so many different types of digital items available for sale in our shop—and over thirty wonderful designers! It’s easy to get lost and not know where to start if you’re new to hybrid. What items are best suited to printing? Which kits should you pick? Well, we’re here to help answer that question for you!

Today’s featured designer is Kellie Mize. Kellie is not only a talented template designer (you can check out her templates here), but she also makes the most beautiful, printable papers as well! Here are just a few of my own personal favorites:

Here is a gorgeous card by Sylvia using Kellie’s Blueberry Cobbler collection:

And this afternoon I made a set of gift boxes out of Kellie’s beautiful Nesting Instinct kit and Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s Jewelry Box template:

Thought I’d whip them up now so that the next time I need a tiny little gift box, I have something on hand! I actually had a lot of fun with this. I had to run to Kinko’s to make copies today, so I used their online ordering system to upload a .pdf I made out of my Photoshop document (it had Kellie’s papers and the Jewelry Box inside). Very easy! And I’m really happy with the quality of the printing job they did—nice glossy ink and great cardstock that’s strong, but still flexible. Also, I didn’t feel like it was “fragile” and would bleed on me, so I didn’t Mod Podge it up. I’ll have to try this again in the future. Much nicer than my home printer! It made Kellie’s gorgeous papers look so shiny and pretty!

So take a little detour today and peek in Kellie’s shop! Lots of beautiful goodies just waiting for you to use in your next hybrid project! Enjoy!

So, we decided that it would be fun to change things up a little bit and have “Stamp Week” here on The Hybrid Chick this first week of October! Stamping can really add the perfect finishing touch to your hybrid projects! We’ll show you a few ways that you can easily incorporate stamping into your hybrid papercrafting. And I’m here today to explain some of the basics of stamping to get you started!

First of all, let me hop down a rabbit trail for a minute with a little story. You see, if it wasn’t for rubber stamping, I wouldn’t have ever tried my hand at designing digital goodies! When I was in high school, I took a few art classes that I loved. But after high school, I always felt like the outsider looking in at the cool world of creative people, wishing I could do something—anything—like they did. Well, one day a girlfriend of mine sent me a pack of hand-stamped baby “thank you” cards. I was amazed at what she had done. The cardstock she used was a beautiful soft pink and yellow and the ink matched the cardstock perfectly! I had never seen anything like it. All I had in my collection was a random set of stamps my mom gave me (kittens and fairy line art stamps!) and a rainbow ink pad… needless to say, this gift opened my eyes to what you could do with stamps!

I signed up with a home party plan company and started to host workshops to teach others all about rubber stamping, too! I loved teaching people about the little tips and tricks that I had picked up (much more than I liked trying to sell them anything—LOL!) And maybe you can tell that I still love this? This is the whole idea behind our Hybrid Chick blog… sharing, teaching and helping others just makes me all warm and fuzzy inside! And enabling others with something you love is just plain fun.

Rubber stamping gave me the confidence to believe that after all I could be crafty—I could learn something new! So, I started to teach myself to knit, quilt and scrap. And then one day when I stumbled on to a free digital kit—well, that was the end of that! I had a new obsession! I wanted to learn how to make paper. (hee hee!) Bye-bye, rubber stamping blog!

All that to say that stamping is a wonderful hobby! It’s simple to do and can be so elegant. A raging addiction to stamping can be a little expensive (like anything else) with all the things you feel like you “have to have.” But there are also a lot of ways to save and make do with the products you have in your collection.

So, what do you need to get started with stamping? It’s pretty simple! You just need:

• Stamps,
• Ink, and
• Paper

Flutter Top Gift Set by Julee

There are two kinds of stamps that call for two kinds of ink. One kind is called “Line Art” stamps. This would be the kind that you’d color in (like this cute little snail in this gift set by Julee which also uses Strawberry Café [Revised] by Sugarplum Paperie). You’d typically need a black or dark brown ink for this kind of stamp. The other kind of stamp is a “Solid Stamp. It’s the kind you’d use with colored ink or markers. This pretty leaf stamp from Verve would be an example of a solid stamp; you’d want to use green ink, for example, when you stamped with this.

To start off a collection of ink, I’d recommend:

• One black ink pad (that’s water-fast; meaning it won’t bleed when you color or paint over it)
• 4-6 ink pads in your favorite colors (like green, red, blue, etc.). I’ve found that the lighter the color, the more I use it. Ranger makes some great dye-based inks.
• Versamark: a clear ink that’s great for stamping a light background on colored cardstock (and because it’s just FUN!). It can also be used to hold embossing powder because it’s sticky until it dries.

And there’s another thing you might find to be confusing: ink! There are several kinds of inks on the market but they come in two main types. There are water-based dye inks (which you are probably the most familiar with already) and pigment-based inks that are more like “stampable paint” (this would include chalk inks, too). Dye inks are great for stamping and coloring. You can press your ink pad on to a plastic surface and use a watercolor brush to paint with your ink pads (which can save you $100 when it comes to buying a set of good markers—LOL!). Pigment inks are great for stamping on various surfaces where you need the ink to stand out and not soak in… like if you wanted to stamp a light ink on a dark paper. And I love to use pigment inks for distressing the edges of my paper! It’s my ink of choice for that.

Also, I wanted to mention that the other day, my daughter (who’s a total crafting nut!) went to town on a paper I had printed out for her. She’d colored on it with crayons and then discovered that if she piled a ton of watercolor on it until it was all purple and black, the crayon resisted the paint. Well, I discovered that my black printing ink is water-fast! Yay! I know that the color ink will run on me, but none of the images that were printed in black bled. And so if your printer is the same, that can open the door for you to use all sorts of digital images as stamps, like this cute set of Halloween doodles (Jeepers Creepers by Danielle).

And now for the last thing you’d need to get started with stamping: Paper!

Most cardmarkers will use cardstock for their projects because it’s sturdy and stiff. You’d need a great white cardstock, preferably one that is as smooth as can be. I know Stampin’ Up! offers a great white cardstock. Smooth white cardstock makes for crisp, clean impressions, so it’s worth the money!

And you’ll also want a pack of plain colored cardstock, too. You’ll use this for all sorts of things, like cards, boxes, tags, mats. It’s the base that will take the backstage to your stamped images and your hybrid embellishments.

Purse Ensemble by Julee

Well, I hope you’ve found this introduction to stamping to be helpful! I have a few more links for you that you might find useful! I’ve made two lenses on a site called Squidoo all about rubber stamping:

• Stamps, Ink and Paper: Get Started with Rubber Stamping! which has lots of tips that I brought in from my old rubber stamping blog.
• Stamping Shopper – Shop for Rubber Stamps, Ink and Paper which needs a little love and updating (some products might have been discontinued?). But it still gives you an idea of all the goodies you can incorporate into your stamping projects.

And enjoy Stamp Week as the girls are planning lots of fun things to show you!

Happy stamping and happy scrapping!

You see, for so long now—maybe a year—our printer as never had both black ink and color ink working properly at the same time. It’s so frustrating and stupidly expensive. I’m sure some of you can totally relate!

Well, the other night when I printed out the little diaper bag tag for the last post, it looked so good that I simply had to seize my golden opportunity to make something else before the whole thing when kaput. Ha! So I quickly got to work on something I’d always wanted to make—a little mini album full of Bible verses that mean a lot to me.

Supplies:

• Mini Envelope Album template by Karla Dudley
• Click. digital kit by Kelley Mickus
• White cardstock
• Mod Podge
• Paper trimmer and scissors (I adore my Cutterbees for stuff like this)
• Scoring blade
• Glue Dots
• Coordinating embellishments, like ribbons, buttons, flowers, etc.

Karla’s template pack is just awesome. It comes with two files (an envelope and mini card) in two formats: One file is an outline of the shape that you can print on the back of any patterned paper in your stash (and then cut out). The other file is a gray template that you can open up in Photoshop and clip your digital papers and elements to (and then cut out). So, you simply choose which method you want to use and get to printing!

STEP 1:

Pick your papers and print out your envelopes and little cards.

Now, if you are doing this project with digital paper, like I did, this is the point where you’ll need to stop and ask yourself “To Mod Podge or not to Mod Podge?”

STEP 2:

Like I said, I had printed these out at night. When I work at the computer or scrap and craft, I’ll work at the kitchen table. Well, knowing that I have two kiddos who are able to make a huge mess of things in an instant, I made sure to put these papers off to the side and away from trouble. But as I was going to cut these papers out the next day, I noticed that somehow there were already two water spots on one of the cards! Sigh.

So that made me stop to think—this is a mini album, meant to be handled. I decided that I needed to Mod Pogde if I was ever going to let the kids touch it (LOL!). So, we did…

Notice the eager audience, waiting to see what Mommy did next? And with their own crafting supplies that they got out? So cute. Another reason to love hybrid—for me, it’s time well spent chatting with my kiddos.

Oh! And I came up with a quote for all you (if you’re anything like me): “It’s not a Hybrid Project if there’s not at least one fingerprint in the Mod Podge.” It’s so hard to be patient, isn’t it? Hee hee!

STEP 3:

Once it’s dry (hopefully), it’s time to cut everything out!

I used my paper trimmer for the cards and my beloved Cutterbees for the envelopes. I love Cutterbees for things like this because they are have a short blade, give you lots of control over what you’re doing and are sharp to the tip (for tight spots).

These envelopes are an easy shape and quite simple to cut out, but it’s still nice to have a great tool to do it with! Regular household scissors aren’t really built for the job.

STEP 4:

For this next step, the easiest thing to use is a scoring blade. Scoring your paper helps to give it a perfect fold, just were you want your paper to fold.

My trimmer came with a little black scoring blade, but I could not for the life of me find where in the heck I had put it. Obviously not in the place where I thought I’d be most likely to find it again! I finally gave up and improvised with a clay cutting tool and my favorite little mini ruler.

After you score your envelopes and your mini cards, fold them and get ready for the fun part!

STEP 5:

It’s time to embellish! Get out everything you have and go to town! At least, that’s what I did…

Here’s a close up look at the front of each little envelope with the cards inside:

By the way—you may have noticed above on the black striped envelope that the stinkin’ printer did run out of black ink when I was 3/4 of the way done with this project! But you know, sometimes you just have to keep on going with these things and work around them or cover them up and pretend like you meant for it to be that way anyway.

I thought it actually looked kinda cool because it went from black to blue (which was a color in Kelley’s kit) back to black again. So I just left it as is and even added a blue button on the front to pull it all together! I had a girlfriend that I used to stamp with who had another great quote: “There are no mistakes—there are just opportunities for creativity.” And she’s right! It’s really the best way to look at those aggravating boo-boos that happen when you’re crafting.

Now, back to the mini album!

STEP 6:

As you can see, I folded the little flap down inside of each mini envelope and tucked each card inside. That’s because I wanted the envelopes to be the container that held each teeny, tiny mini book. Here’s a close up of one of the cards:

I was going to print out some verses to go inside these booklets, but as I was talking to my daughter she changed my mind. I said I was hoping to get a little more ink out of the printer today because I didn’t want to use my own handwriting. Then she asked just one little question: “Why?” And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she had a point. If this is something I’m making, why not put a little of myself into it and not just use a font. So, inside the card are two little square pieces of cardstock (about 2 x 2″) that I glued to the booklet with two of my favorite Bible verses written on them.

STEP 7:

Now, to finish it all up!

I punched a hole into the corner of each envelope and strung them together with a piece of black ribbon. I tied a knot and that was that! I was finished.

Here’s another shot of the album with a close up of the embellished backside of one of the envelopes:

And the front:

Pretty easy. Pretty snazzy looking. I love it! Let me know if you try your hand at making your own. I’d love to see it! My daughter was busy making her own just minutes after I was done:

If she can do it, so can you!

If you have yet to try hybrid, you gotta try this project. Most of the creative work is done in Photoshop! Seriously friends, if you haven’t tried a hybrid project yet, you have not experienced the fullness of the joys of digital scrapbooking. Nothing compares to working on something on the computer and then printing it out—the giddiness you feel as the printer starts up, the nervousness you feel as you wait to see your creation come out line by line, the bounciness you feel when you see how awesome it looks in person. It’s wonderful. But I digress…

I learned about making these adorable little diaper bag tags from other crafty ladies about three years ago (wow!) on Splitcoaststampers. I made one for my diaper bag and for a girlfriend when my son was a baby. They are easy, addictive and make fantastic little gifts for a new mom!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Digital Kit; I used Mari K’s gorgeous new baby girl kit, Sweetie Pie (ps. it’s 20% off today!)
• Ruler; I used my little 6 inch quilting ruler. (I just love using this small, clear ruler for papercrafting! So handy.)
• White cardstock
• Paper trimmer
• A vertical ID badge holder (horizontal ones are cute, too)
• Glue stick
• Key ring (I used this kind, but I would have preferred this kind)
• Ribbons and any other embellishments

STEP 1:

Using a ruler, measure the space where your insert will go in ID badge holder. Mine was about 2 3/4 x 3 1/2. I trimmed a 1/4 inch off this measurement so that I would be sure that my printed paper would fit inside.

STEP 2:

Using the Shape Tool (U), I made two rectangles that were 2 1/2 x 3 1/4. If you don’t know how to get a shape to be a fixed size, look up at your toolbar (when using the Shape Tool; I’m using PS CS2, by the way) and you’ll see this drop down box here:

(If it’s different in PSE, maybe our friends who use it can let us know here in the comments? That would be great!)

Set the Fixed Size to whatever you’d like it to be and simply click on your document to get your perfect rectangle.

STEP 3:

Open up the papers and embellishments from your digital kit that you want to play with and clip them to your shapes:

I reduced the size of my papers (to 40%) and resized my elements to fit the page. I was also worried that the drop shadows would be too black here, so I set them to be a dark green color instead.

STEP 4:

Print out your images onto cardstock and trim them out with your handy-dandy paper trimmer.

If you’d like, at this step here you could add some distressing ink to the edges of the paper. It depends on what sort of look you’re going for on your finished tag.

Also, if you wanted to add any other embellishments (like maybe a paper flower or a rhinestone?) to your tag, now is a good time to do it.

STEP 5:

Glue the two pieces of your tag together.

This is step optional, but probably helpful for the next step—which would be wiggling your cardstock into the ID badge holder.

Before you glue, be sure to check that you have your tags aligned the way you want them to be!

STEP 6:

Wiggle your tag into the badge holder. Add the key ring to the top.

For fun, add some ribbons, too! I looked through my stash and I decided to just use one big white bow for my tag.

I tied it to the key ring—but if your badge holder is like mine, you’ll also have a few holes on the badge itself. You could tie several ribbons here as well. It all depends on what you think looks good.

Here’s my finished tag:

Perfect! And just ready to be placed on my new diaper bag from my friends at the Digichick!