I have to tell you—I think that having digital versions of my favorite BasicGrey designs is even better than having them in paper. I’ll give you five reasons why:

• Digital papers and elements aren’t “consumables.” You’ll never use them up! Ever come home from the store and think “Gee, I wish I bought more of this paper. I want to use it for something else!”? I know I have! Then I horde what I bought for fear of using it on the “wrong” project. Ack! With digital paper, that’s not a concern! You need more paper? Just print some more paper!
• Along the same lines, once you purchase a set you’ll have your favorite BasicGrey collections forever! No need to worry about something retiring. If you want to use a certain paper you love from an older collection, you’ll have it!
• You can also resize papers and elements to your heart’s content! Cardmakers and papercrafters love BasicGrey’s 6 x 6 packs of paper because the smaller patterns look better on their projects. Well, with digital paper, you can decide to make something 8 x 8 or 6 x 6—whatever size you need, you can easily make it that way!
• Best of all, you can use digital kits with your cutting files and hybrid templates! It makes hybrid projects quick and easy. Just open a digital file, drag it into your template and print. It’s a piece of cake!
• And of course, you can also use BasicGrey’s digital kits to make digital or hybrid layouts, too! I like to print off BasicGrey’s pretty tags to use on my scrapbook pages.

I would have to say that all of BasicGrey’s collections include hybrid-friendly selections. Here are my top picks from the Boutique:

Now for some eye candy from the gallery! Our Hybrid Chicks love using BasicGrey papers for card making. First up, here’s a gorgeous card from Sylvia, using the Mellow Starter Kit:

And here’s a beautiful card from Sharyn, using the Blitzen Starter Kit:

I was excited to get a chance to make some BasicGrey hybrid goodies, too!

I picked out The Tag Bag Collection: Hybrid Templates and Cutting Files by our newest Hybrid Designer, Geeky Diva and I got to work! I wanted to make little gift bags to use for those times when I want to give someone a gift card. Gift cards themselves are often so small in size… I thought that some pretty handmade bags would be the perfect thing to make these gifts even more special!

For my first set of boxes, I used one of my all time favorite BasicGrey kits, Blush:

I used one paper for the front and the two sides and then a second paper for the back, to give it a little more interest. And I shrunk these papers to about 65% of their original size so that I could get more of the patterns on my bags.

I was also super excited to make some of The Cutting Files’ Paper Roses to go with this bag! I don’t have a cutting machine, so I did these by hand which was incredibly easy.

I love how they turned out! I printed three extra sets of roses with different papers to play with later. LOL!

I had watched Mari’s tutorial, which was so helpful. Here it is, if you haven’t seen it! But beware—once you know how easy these are to make, you will be addicted:

For my next set of boxes, I used the Mellow Starter Kit:

I’m so happy with how these bags turned out! I even found a place for them in my cabinet:

Now the next time I need a little bag for a little gift, I can just come to my craft room and grab one! How easy is that?! They are all ready to go. Fun!

Hope you enjoyed this look at BasicGrey’s yummy goodies in action and I hope you feel inspired to make a little something as well. Be sure you don’t miss out on our “For the Love of Hybrid” event this weekend! Hope to see you in the forums.

Happy crafting!

Join us February 26th and 27th as we kick off a weekend full of inspiring posts and challenges–all for the love of hybrid!

Are you curious about hybrid papercrafts, but you don’t know where to start? Our Creative Team girls have teamed up with The Hybrid Chick team to bring you several easy to follow tutorials and tons of eye candy! You’ll feel empowered to pick up those scissors and get your fingers inky. Come and find out what all the hybrid hype is all about.

We hope to see you there!

ps. While you’re at it–be sure to stop by and check out the Boutique! You’ll save 30% off store-wide on hundreds of hybrid goodies, papers and embellishments now through Sunday.

Enjoy the savings!

Not only does Jennifer have a great eye for color in her kits, but her patterned papers make the transition to real-world papercrafts just beautifully, as we’ll see. She also adds several elements to her kits that can easily be printed and used on your scrapbook pages as well!

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

• Blog: Jennifer Fox Designs
• Newsletter: Jennifer Fox Designs Newsletter
• Facebook: Jennifer’s Fan Page
• Twitter: jfoxdesigns

And here’s a peek at some of Jennifer’s great collections that you’ll find in her shop:

Now let’s take a look at Jennifer’s designs in action! First up, here’s a beautiful card from one of our Hybrid Chicks, Joana, using the Splendiferious collab kit:

And here’s a sweet set of birthday cards from Hybrid Chick, Jackie, also using Splendiferious:

Jennifer has her own hybrid creative team, so I found a ton of fantastic project in the gallery to show you today! First, here’s an adorable set of cards from scrappydonna, using Funkalicious Fall collab:

Here’s a homemade bingo game from jklmscrapper using Jennifer’s Down by the Seashore kit:

And here’s one last project from sarahbhb, using the Oh So Studious collab:

I was tempted. I wanted to play around with Jennifer’s pretty papers, too!

I decided that I’d like to make an apple out of Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s Perfect Pumpkin and Autumn Leaves templates! I’ve seen this done before and I just had to have one of my own. Here’s how my box turned out:

For this project, I chose a red paper from Jennifer’s Won’t You Tell Me Your Name kit. I LOVE how rich and beautiful it turned out!

I used the green plain paper for my leaves and I added a bit of a Linear Burn to the edges by adding an Inner Stroke to the leaf shape in Photoshop. It gave my leaves an inked up look once they were printed! I also slightly scored them down the middle, so that I could fold them a tad to make them look a little more “real.”

I also picked a tag from the kit and added the words “Just for You” to it. Then I printed, snipped and assembled my little apple box! I love it… it’s so cute! I’m thinking that I’ll fill it with chocolates and give it to my mom this week for Thanksgiving! (Don’t worry—I don’t think she’s knows about this blog! LOL!)

Hope you enjoyed the inspiration today! And we hope you found something that’s just perfect for your next hybrid project, too!

Happy creating!

Here’s the post in our Challenges & Special Events forum: Fall Centerpiece Challenge

Joana says:

I love everything about fall. I love the colors, the scents, the flavors that incite anticipation for the upcoming holiday season. When the weather turns cooler I enjoy putting out my fall decorations: brightly colored leaf garlands, assorted pumpkins and gourds, and even a little turkey figurine here and there. When we host the Thanksgiving meal, I like to add a unique centerpiece to the tablescape and the best way for me to ensure uniqueness is to create the centerpiece myself.

Here is Joana’s lovely centerpiece:

And here is her challenge:

Browse The Digichick Shop to find inspiration for creating your own holiday centerpiece, and then create a hybrid Thanksgiving or fall-themed centerpiece or decorative item for your home or to give as a gift.

Jackie played along and created this adorable turkey by re-purposing an empty seasoning container:

And Cathy decorated this lovely hurricane candle:

And one last one from Kim:

So inspiring! So beautiful! Are you in the mood to make something now?!

We hope you’ll join us for this wonderful challenge! All the details and deadlines are posted here on our forums: Fall Centerpiece Challenge

Happy creating!

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

• Ami’s Blog: Dysfunctional Design
• Twitter: DDbyAmiC
• Facebook: Dysfunctional Design Fan Page

In Ami’s shop, you’ll find everything from beautiful patterns, like floral prints and ornamental scrolls, to funky geometric shapes. It’s a wonderful mix of spunky, retro and sweet! She also makes lots of great journaling pieces, tags and stamps that are perfect for adding touches to your paper scraps as well.

Let’s take a peek in her shop, shall we? Here are some of my favorite picks that I think are perfectly suited to hybrid papercrafts:

One more thing I found in Ami’s shop that I wanted to show is this collection of grungy numbers and letters. I’ve seen lots of art pieces today that include these sorts of graphic elements. I love these!

Looking around in the gallery, I found three stunning cards from our Hybrid Chicks to show you today! First, here is a gorgeous card from Jess, using Ami and Sherrie’s collaboration, Your Mother:

And here are two pretty cards from Savitri, using Ami’s Skwerm papers. Here’s the first one:

And then she also made this adorable one with Skwerm as well:

And here’s a card I made using Ami’s adorable Joyful papers and Kelleigh’s Cupcake Card, Fat Envies and Flower templates:

I kinda “over” soaked my flower this time. I was feeling brave, after having success with previous flowers that didn’t bleed on me. So I guess I thought this puppy was invincible! I stuck it under the faucet… and then watched all the color disappear on me. I had printed pink and orange flowers (which I alternated) but you can’t really tell that now. I even tried to paint some color back into the flowers with my daughter’s watercolor set! But then I sprayed it with glimmer mist. Oh, my. Well… it looks nice and tangerine at least.

Hope you enjoyed getting a peek at Ami’s beautiful papers and goodies. Take a look in her shop and see what you find that might be just perfect for your next project!

Happy crafting!

Karen makes beautiful patterned papers that are just perfect for hybrid projects! She puts lots of floral, stripe, plaid and polka-dot patterns into her paper packs, which make for lots of choices when you’re planning out a project. Karen also makes great word art and embellishments that are well suited to hybrid papercrafting, too.

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

• Karen’s Blog: Karen Lewis Designz
• Facebook: Karen Lewis Designz Fan Page

And here is just a small sampling of some of the beautiful things you will find in Karen’s shop:

Here are some adorable projects from the Hybrid Gallery using Karen’s designs. First, here’s a sweet card from Alice, using Karen’s Supreme Paper Pack Volume 1:

Here is a sweet little box from Kelleigh using Karen’s Close Up collection:

And here’s one from Sharyn using Karen’s Makin’ Mischief kit:

As you can see, Karen’s things print out beautifully. I was excited to make something of my own!

I thought about what I’d like to make and I settled on some boxes for my daughter and myself. I wanted to make a set of pretty boxes that I could use in my scrap space. I thought I could use these as little, decorative bins to throw flowers, ribbons and buttons into—that sort of thing. And I thought that my daughter would like to have a set of her own for the little things that she has in her room!

I started off with one of the new templates from The Cutting Files, the Gift Basket. Since I knew that I was going to be cutting out six boxes, I opted for the simplest pattern. Otherwise, I would have totally used the scalloped one. But I didn’t want to go overboard. That’s because I also wanted to make flowers to go with each box, too! I used Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s free Paper Flower Pieces for that.

Well, it didn’t take too long to trim all six sets of boxes and flowers out. I just did it while my daughter worked on her schoolwork:

Yup! That’s six boxes and 24 flower pieces. Yeah, yeah—I know. Santa needs to bring me a cutting machine like the Silhouette or the Circut. And a laser printer would be nice, too. You listening, Santa?! But in the meantime, I’m happy that I can still use things from The Cutting Files and Kelleigh without needing all that stuff. Options! Yay!

Well, here’s how they turned out! This one is my set. I used Karen’s Serendipity papers:

Top view:

And this is my daughter’s set (sorry the one box is so out of focus—I didn’t notice that until I transferred it over to my computer). For her set I used 5 Things I Love About You:

We love them! My daughter especially loves that CUTE birdie pattern. Me, too. It’s adorable!

So, I hope you are feeling inspired now! Be sure to take a look at the beautiful things in Karen’s shop! You’re sure to find something that’s perfect for your next hybrid project.

Happy crafting!

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!