Today I thought I’d run through a few of my past hybrid projects and highlight some of the ways I’ve incorporated the use of stamps into them. Once you realise that stamping isn’t just using black ink on white paper, you’ll have ideas to make all sorts of projects!

I love to keep loads of spare greeting cards ready in case my kids go to a birthday party, or we’re invited to a wedding or a baptism, or Christmas comes upon you all of a sudden. I just reach for my shoebox and there’s always something suitable hiding in there just for that special occasion! I have made lots of cards that I don’t use because the greeting that I’ve used on them isn’t relevant for the particular occasion I’m searching for. So go ahead and make up your hybrid cards but leave off the greeting on the front. That way, you can reach for those greeting stamps when you actually need to. I’d leave a blank area where you can stamp ‘happy birthday’ or ‘thank you’ or whatever the occasion calls for. My greeting stamps are my most used ones in my collections. You can never go astray buying a ‘happy birthday’ or a ‘merry Christmas’ stamp can you?

WISHING YOU LOVE CARD

Another part to stamping is the ink you have on hand. I just love inking up the edges of my layouts, my cards and just about every project I make has something inked on it. It gives your projects that extra bit of warmth and depth that you may not otherwise be able to achieve. Try it and you’ll be amazed at the difference some shading or shadowing can make! Just check out Julee’s post yesterday as her shading is just exquisite. I tend to just go for it with a sponge dabbed onto an inkpad and slowly build it up around the edges of whatever you’re inking. Start off lightly and build it up to the depth you want. You can apply the inkpad directly to the side of your paper/photo but remember this will come out dark from the get-go. This gives a rather dramatic result which you may be looking for whereas sponging the edges will give you a softer, more subtle effect. Give it a go as I’d never heard of inking up an edge until a teacher in a paper scrapbooking class showed us how easy it was. From then on, I was hooked and my inkpads don’t always get used just for stamping now! Make sure to check out our DISTRESSING link at the top of The Hybrid Chick where you’ll find some further tips on distressing with ink.

LOVE CARD

And a final thing that I just treasure my stamps for is being able to create my own embellishments or to jazz up an existing embellishment. Before I’d had any ‘official’ stamping lessons, I had never thought to stamp an image, maybe colour it some way, but then cut it out to use as your own personalised embellishment! Who would have thought to do that!?! It’s great to be able to stamp a duplicate of an embellishment that you may have used on your project and use 3D foam tape to double it up so it gives the embellishment a more realistic and dimensional look. Take a close look at the flower on the right of the card.

THANKS CARD

It’s so much cheaper to be able to change up a flower you might have or some plain old chipboard with a bit of inking and/or adding some stamping to it. I love being able to stamp a script stamp onto a silk flower or in this layout, I have used a script stamp on some plain chipboard to add a bit of a vintage touch to the pieces. Can you see the word ‘you’ and the keyhole and the dramatic effect the stamping has on it in the layout below?

LOVING YOU 2 LAYOUT

For this baby keepsake tin, I used a stamp for the greeting ‘treasure’ and also for the angel wings. It’s so easy to stamp them onto your own papers, colour and cut out.

BABY KEEPSAKE/TREASURES TIN

And here’s my last example showing a beautiful butterfly that I stamped, painted up with some shimmery paints, cut out and 3D mounted. A special little touch to add to my canvas.

COLLAGE CANVAS

So there you have it! A few more simple stamping tips to explore when you’re hybrid scrapbooking!

So let’s see how I put this beautiful little hybrid gift altogether!

Supplies:
* TINY PRINCESS digital kit from Sugarplum Paperie, available at The Digi Chick
* Crystal Effects from Stampin’ Up
* Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Tattered Rose
* Sponge to apply ink
* 3D foam tape
* Pritt Gluestick
* Crop A Dile from We R Memory Keepers
* Jump rings
* Making Memories Jigsaw Chipboard Alphas
* Cream cardstock
* Kaisercraft DUSTY PINK acrylic paint
* Making Memories MANILA acrylic paint
* Sandpaper
* Craft knife
* Cutting mat
* Jump rings

First off, I grabbed out the letters that spelled ISABELLA from my Making Memories chipboard alphas. I love the Jigsaw font as it’s nice and fat, easy to cut out and you can easily embellish them too.

I grabbed my paints out and very roughly painted over them leaving lots of raw chipboard showing through. On some areas, I painted the two colours over each other as I wanted to get a nice shabby and worn effect.

Next up, I worked out the size of my digital elements from the beautiful TINY PRINCESS kit from Sugarplum Paperie, and printed them off. I decided to use three different papers to cover my alphabets with and I cut each piece to 3×2.5 inches to fit each one.

To add to the distressed and shabby look, I used sandpaper to wear down the edges.

I then used my glue stick to adhere them to the front of each alphabet.

I then flipped the alphabet over and used my craft knife to cut out the negative part where the alphabet would go.

To give the alphabets more stability, I decided to adhere a piece of cream coloured cardstock to the back of the alphabets and I also inked up the edges of the area where my alphabet would be placed back into.

I took the alphabet piece and gave it a rough sand around the edges and glued it into my embellished background piece, allowing the cream cardstock to show through the areas in the middle of my alphabets.

And to add some more pizazz to each alphabet, I cut out, inked and adhered my embellishments randomly. I used Stampin’ Up’s Crystal Effects in the centre of my flowers and on the buttons to give a nice and glossy shine – it might be a little hard to see the shine from the photos.

Now for the final touch to hold this altogether, I have used the smaller hole on my Crop A Dile – I punched two in each side of the alphabets – and joined them together with some gold jump rings, and voila! The finished project

At the time I made the tin, I did not know the sex of my friends baby so I stuck with some soft green and neutral shades. She ended up having a little girl and named her Isabella, so I decided to make the index cards in some pretty girlie colours but I might just go and add a touch of pink to the ribbons on the handle of my tin to tie in the baby girl theme. Here’s a picture of the tin I made on that baby shower post:

I measured the width and height of my tin to determine the size for my index cards – they’re approximately 6.5 x 4 inches. I then made a template to clip each of my papers to. I’ve made a few general cards that any memory or story can be recorded on then I’ve done a card for each of the months of baby’s first year. Here they can record feelings, events and special memories that they have experienced with their new little baby.


Here are my index cards bundled up with some pretty satin ribbon and ric rac, ready to pop into my keepsake tin.

You may notice that there isn’t quite 12+ cards in this bundle. I’ve still got to make months 7-12 but it’s getting too late where I am and I wanted to get this posted! But you get the gist of what my little hybrid goodie is for!

And here’s a closeup of a few of the cards so you can see all the details.

Supply list:
Digital kits from Sugarplum Paperie, available at The Digi Chick
** TINY PRINCESS kit
** FIRST KISS OF SPRING kit, a collab with Flergs
** LOVEY DOVEY SENTIMENTS
** LEMON TWIST kit
** MEADOWLARK kit
** PROJECT 365 EMBELLISHMENTS
** PLUMBERRY TEACAKES kit
** Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Tattered Rose (my new-fave colour)!
** sponge for distressing
** corner rounder punch
** Making Memories coloured staples
** satin ribbon
** ric rac
** scraps of cream lace and ribbon

I’ve started by using a digital kit from TK Whimsy – A SEASON TO SHINE, available at The Digi Chick. I just adore all the sparkle and bright colours in Taran’s kit.

I printed out a few strips of paper measuring 4 inches wide so I can fit them into a standard envelope. I also printed a sheet of embellishments off that I could cut out and use on the pocket and the card.

Once I cut out the pieces for my first pocket card, I inked them up with Ballet Blue ink from Stampin’ Up – I used a sponge to do this as it gives a softer look to your inked edges. The star was inked with Green Galore ink from Stampin’ Up. I then rounded the corners on a couple of my pieces with a corner punch from Stampin’ Up.

Then I assembled my card so that it makes a pocket – I used a thin double-sided tape to seal the sides – don’t use a wide tape or you won’t be able to slide your card in and out – my tape was 6mm wide. You can then slide the blue polka dot piece in and out and also write your message/greeting on there. You could even attach a gift card to the insert piece or even slide some cash in there!

I stapled a star to the top of the card to help pull it in and out of the pocket. I have cut out a piece of the present border, inked the edges and mounted that with 3D foam tape at the bottom and then I used a Hero Arts stamp to stamp the greeting on the green flap!

That’s it! Very easy and quick to make.

Here’s another variation of the pocket card with Taran’s fab kit. The flower has been mounted on 3D foam tape and I have used the Stampin’ Up Mat Pack to prick a hole pattern in the corners of my card. I have inked all these pieces of the pocket with Green Galore ink. And I have stamped a Christmas greeting in Ballet Blue with a Hero Arts stamp and inked the edges of this card with the same ink.

Supply list:
A SEASON TO SHINE digital kit from TK Whimsy
Green Galore ink – Stampin’ Up
Ballet Blue ink – Stampin’ Up
sponge to ink edges
Basic Black marker – Stampin’ Up
Corner Punch – Stampin’ Up
3D foam tape
Awl
Staples – Making Memories
Mat Pack – Stampin’ Up
Spirit of Christmas stamp – Hero Arts
Merry Christmas Ornaments – Hero Arts
Matte Premium Presentation Paper – Epson

Welcome to another day of baby shower gift ideas here at The Hybrid Chick! I’ve made up a keepsake tin to put those baby treasures in. I was given a time capsule tin when my eldest was born and I’ve got some of my precious treasures in it such as the hospital wrist/feet tags from baby and me, baby’s first dummy, baby’s first bib, the cord clamp and the smallest bodysuit that was size 0000 and he only wore it for one week before growing out of it! You could even keep baptism gifts in here, trinkets, locks of hair, birth cards, birth notice, etc. It’s been fun to create this and one of my good friends is due any day now, so unfortunately, I won’t be giving this gift away. I love being able to give hand-made gifts to my friends and family and I’ve made it so it could be used for a boy or a girl.

Let’s start with the supplies I’ve gathered, many of which are not shown in this photograph as I just went along looking for things throughout my creating process!

• Provocraft lunch box tin
• Digital paper from MEADOWLARKkit by Sugarplum Paperie, available at The Digi Chick
• Glimmermist ‘ Garden Fairy’
• Assorted trims and ribbons
• Vellum
• Aqua brush
• Watercolour paper
• Watercolour pencils
• Metal charms – giraffe and star
• Twine
• Double-sided scrapbooking tape
• Black StazOn ink
• Glue Dots
• Inque Boutique ‘What A Feeling’ stamp set
• Heidi Swapp Edge Distresser
• Heidi Swapp ‘treasure’ clear stamp

So let’s see if I can recall how I made this project, as like I said, I just get an idea and start pulling things from here and there until I’m happy with it! That’s how my creative process works so I rarely go in with any formal plan or sketch.

First of all, I printed my two patterned papers off from the gorgeous Meadowlark kit. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get my papers to wrap all the way around the tin and you may see in the images that the seams are on the sides of the tin.

I then measured how high I wanted my paper sections to be and cut two each of them to that height by the 12 inch length. I adhered my papers with a double-sided scrapbooking tape. I could have used Mod Podge, but the tape I use is strong enough for this purpose. Before I stuck the green patterned paper down, I used my Heidi Swapp edge distresser to rough up the edges.

I decided to keep the base of the tin white, but I could have painted it with cream paint which would have blended in nicely with the colour scheme. But to cover the outer edge of the lid, I have used my double-sided tape to adhere some cream coloured lace to it.

You’ll notice that the lid has a big handle and the front of my tin has a clasp and these items made it a little more difficult to stick my papers down. I fiddled around with a rough paper template that I had created to get the right sized gaps so that my digital papers would sit nicely. I trimmed away my digital papers with some small paper snips until they fitted nicely.

My cutting does leave a lot to be desired but I rather like the shabby look and using the edge distresser also took a little more off the paper than I needed, but it’s not like there’s an ugly colour glaring out at me from the base of the tin! Once it’s embellished, you won’t even notice these uneven gaps anyway.

Because the black handle does not match with my baby theme, I raided my ribbon jars and gathered an assortment of trims and ribbons. I tied them in a random fashion until the handle was completely covered.

TIP : Rather than precut your ribbon pieces, I grab the whole ribbon roll/length, tie it at one end of that length, then cut it. It’s so much easier rather than trying to tie up small lengths with big fat fingers!

Now to personalise the tin so that you know what it’s for!

Something very subtle on an already-busy handle – I have used some twine to tie on two metal charms – one of a giraffe and one of a star. You’ll see it in the last photo on the left hand side of the handle.

I would love to have added lots of bling and sparkle to this tin, but I thought I’d keep it neutral in case the receiver is using it for a baby boy. So to get my sparkle, I decided to go with spraying some Glimmermist around the box. It’s a very pale green and just adds a slight touch of shimmer.

For the front of the tin, I have stamped the wings image in Staz On ink onto watercolour paper and used watercolour pencils to give it some colour. I have then used some pop dots to adhere the word ‘treasure’ to the front of the box. This was stamped onto vellum in StazOn ink. Vellum is a non-pourous paper so you need to use a permanent, fast drying ink which StazOn is and is especially suited to surfaces like metal, glass, plastic and vellum.

I had all intentions of making up some little index cards to pop inside this box from the Meadowlark kit as Nicole has some gorgeous little wordart phrases that would be appropriate to record so many memories of a baby (here is the story, the most precious thing, always remember this, etc) but I have run out of time. Maybe that will be another follow up post!

So want to see my final keepsake tin?

I am by no means a Donna Downey or an Emily Falconbridge, so this was just a run-by-the-seat-of-my-pants project where I just did a bit of this and a bit of that. I still don’t know if I like the finished project, but I’m like that with all my scrapbooking projects and eventually it will grow on me!

So let’s see how I created this masterpiece (LOL)!

I have a large stash of cheap paint canvases that are about half an inch deep – the canvas is stretched around a wooden frame and this one is roughly letter sized. I primed it roughly with Gesso first.

I recently bought myself some Tattered Angels Glimmermist and Glimmer Screens so have been itching to try them out. So I used one of my ‘Blossom’ screens and ‘Garden Fairy’ Glimmermist to come up with this on the base of my canvas. I love the subtle mask it gives you and I love how it all bled slightly into the canvas. It’s oh-so shimmery too.

You might also notice that there are some brown images on my canvas. I ‘attempted’ to stamp a couple of images onto the canvas and the ink ran when I used the Glimmermist but that’s just added to the effect for me! Note to self – stamps do not really work on a soft canvas, thus the whole image does not appear and need to use waterproof ink (not water-based ink) if spraying any liquid onto them! But there are no mistakes in scrapbooking, just creating art, and I continued on!

(By the way, you can click on any of these images if you want to see them in more detail.)

Next, I started to gather up and lay out some of the bits and pieces that I pulled together for this project. I printed off a paper from Gypsy Couture’s ENCHANTED AFTERNOON kit which is due for release on Thursday.

I scrunched it up a little, scratched it, distressed the edges and cut it to size. I then tore out my photo to fit – and yep, I’m only a spring chicken in this photo – maybe 16 or 17!

I adhered some white tulle to the left of the paper and some pink fibre across the bottom of the paper. I also had a go at making some embellishments out of tulle.

I cut out a number of rough circles with green and white tulle, layered them, stitched on a button with some fibre underneath and stuck a couple of digi leaves in behind the button.

I also ruffled up some ribbon and hand-sewed it to the canvas with some clear beads scattered along it.

Next, I stamped a couple of butterfly images with black Stazon ink, which is waterproof, then used some H20 Twinklings luminescent paints to colour the images. After I cut out the images, I stacked the butterflies with 3D foam tape to give it a more realistic look.

You’ll notice that I have added some pink glitter around the bottom of my tulle flower and onto the green paper – I added some drops of Crystal Effects and tipped the glitter onto them. On the paper, I also tipped some heart confetti onto the Crystal Effects. There is also some hand stitching around the paper to hold it to the canvas.

Using some metallic rubons, I worked some colour into the corners of my canvas with my fingers and you’ll see that it highlights the texture of the canvas too.

I have added the word ‘beautiful’ to the bottom left hand corner of my canvas with a Basic Grey rubon. I just adore how versatile rubons are and they adhere to just about any surface. There’s a couple more flourishes rubbed onto the bottom left corner of my photo which you may see in the images below.

And here’s some pics of the final canvas which I could have kept adding to. It’s fun to just get your goodies out and have a play around and see what you can create!

Supply List:

• Paper from ENCHANTED AFTERNOON by Gypsy Couture
• Gingham leaves from COTTAGE GARDEN MINI by Kaye Winiecki
• Letter-sized paint canvas (from a Dollar Store)
• Gesso
• Glimmer Mist – Garden Fairy
• Glimmer Screens – Blossom
• Tulle
• Basic Grey button and rubons
• Thread
• Fibre
• Ribbon
• Beads
• Butterfly stamp from Lucy’s Stamps
• Crystal Effects from Stampin’ Up (a/k/a Diamond Glaze)
• H20 Twinklings by Luminarte
• Glitter
• Heart confetti
• Assorted stamps used on canvas
• Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Vintage Photo

When I think of making a hybrid project, I instantly think of a layout given that I’m a paper scrapbooker from way back but there are so many other ways you can use your hybrid goodies and you only need to look through our magnificent site here to see what our amazing CT come up with – they constantly amaze me with their creations! People just love receiving hand-made gifts and packages of all sizes to hold their treats or precious gifts in. And it’s so heart-warming to receive a hand-made card from your friend or loved one. Well what about creating some goodies to display in and around your home? Home decor adds so much warmth to your home. You can about alter just about anything in and around your home with a little care and attention and turn it into something magical – a piece of art to display proudly on your wall or mantle. Now let’s have a look at what I discovered in our wonderful hybrid Gallery over at The Digi Chick!

When we talk about altering home decor, look at what Elaine (aka ehooton) did with her cute little owl clock…she has popped some digital papers from Mari Koeglenberg’s HOOTY TOOT kit and it gives it such a lift!

I found another little keepsake that Melissa Wilson has created using an old kit of hers. It sits proudly on her table displaying her family name and is such a wonderful idea!

And finally, here’s a cute little hanging frame that I made for a friends daughter a while back. I started out with some chipboard shapes and covered them with digital papers from Sugarplum Paperie – MANGO SORBET (a collab with Andrea Burns) and papers from the TWIST COLLECTION. As a final touch, I added some goodies from my scrapbooking stash and some ribbon so that she’ll be able to hang it from a wall or a door handle. She loved the fact that there was a photo or her with my DS3 in it! It’s been personalised and people just love that.

Here’s your challenge:

• Pick a pretty product from Digichick Boutique.
• Create a little something for your home.
• Submit your entry here by leaving us a link to your layout. You can upload to our Hybrid Gallery at the Digichick, too!
• The deadline for getting your link in is: next Saturday, May 9th by midnight EST. That should give you plenty of time to play!
• And what’s the prize? It’s a $10 gift card to Mari Koegelenberg’s shop for one lucky winner!

Don’t forget to hop on over to the Happy Little Chickadees Forum at The Digichick for more awesome giveaways by The Digichick designers in honor of National Scrapbooking Day!

This project is very inexpensive overall as my base was a kraft cardboard box from Kaszazz which cost only a few dollars. The mini album is made from cardstock and all the embellishments on the box and album were made using bits and pieces from my stash. I never throw out any scraps as they always come in handy when making mini projects up such as this.

The first thing I did was to prepare the box by painting it with gesso and dusty pink paint. I wasn’t too concerned about the coverage on the box – I was going for a shabby chic look. I then painted Mod Podge all over the outside of the box to seal it from dust and fingerprints.

While the box was drying, I headed off to print my digital paper and embellishments from Strawberry Café, a beautiful kit from Sugarplum Paperie. I measured the areas of the box (lid and sides) that I wanted to adhere paper too and just printed those portions on some scrap white cardstock. I cut them out and used a sponge to apply some Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Walnut Stain) to the edges of my papers to give them a little bit of a lift and then I used Mod Podge to adhere the pieces to the box and again covered the box all over with Mod Podge to seal it totally.

Then I gathered some embellishments from my scrapbooking stash such as ribbon, flowers and ghost shapes. I printed off some of the digital elements from the Strawberry Cafe kit, cut them out and inked the edges with a sponge (you’ll notice that I do this a lot in my projects)!. I laid the embellishments down on my cutting mat to cover them with Crystal Effects, which is a clear dimensional glaze from Stampin’ Up. There are other products on the market such as Dimensional Magic or Papiere Glass but I find Crystal Effects is the least runny out of the products I’ve tried so it doesn’t run off your embellishments as easily. By applying this glaze, it gives your paper elements a bit more ‘pop’ by making the colours more vivid. The glaze requires a little bit of drying time, depending on how thick you apply it. Usually a couple of hours will do the trick.

As you can see from the picture below, I have stuck a piece of gingham ribbon around the edge of the box lid using double-sided tape. A liquid glue is not good for adhering fabric or ribbons as it seeps into it, so always use a dry adhesive such as tape, tabs or glue dots for this type of embellishment. On the lid, I have used a Lil’ Davis green flower with a gemstone in the centre of it, a Heidi Swapp ghost bird shape and some alphabets out of the Strawberry Café kit. I used 3D foam tape to pop the embellishments off the box and give it a more 3-dimensional look. For the last touches to the box, I adhered some strawberries and hearts from the digital kit with some 3D foam tape. Ta-da – all finished!

Now to the mini accordian album that goes inside. First I needed to know what size my album was going to be so I measured the inside of the box. It was a nice easy shaped box to work with being a square. It measured 8cm across so I made my album 7.5cm as the closed up size so it still fit nicely into the box without having to force it in. I took a piece of pink Bazzill and cut out 6 strips measuring 7.5cm across and 15cm long and scored them across the long side at 7.5cm. I then overlapped each piece with the next, keeping the textured side to the front, and stuck it down with double-sided tape to form the accordian shape. I also inked the edges of the Bazzill so it picked up the texture of it. I didn’t take any photos of this step but you can see in the photo below some of the overlapping pieces of pink Bazzill if you look carefully (see, behind that red flower)!

Next, I cut some pieces of Confetti White cardstock from Stampin’ Up into 7cm squares. I used a Mesh stamp from Lucy’s Stamps which I got through Kaszazz in the Walnut Stain in from Tim Holtz. I went off the edges with this stamp at random on each piece. The only embellishments I added inside the album were the red digital flower from the Strawberry Café kit and I stapled a piece of gingham ribbon to the last page with some blue Making Memories staples.

For the final touch to the album, I created a mini digital page with a picture of Alex (the birthday girl) on the front from the Strawberry Café kit and also some Pea fonts. This only measured around 7cm squared but it came out so cute when she opened it to see herself on the cover! I printed off the cover and inked the edges, again in Walnut Stain, and then matted it onto some Old Olive cardstock from Stampin’ Up before sticking it to the front of the album with 3D foam tape. I then grabbed some pink satin ribbon and poked it through the front under the cover (remember, it’s raised with the 3D foam tape) and threaded it around the album so you could secure it closed by tying it into a bow. I taped the ribbon onto the back cover of the album so it didn’t fall off each time you opened it up.

Here’s my digital cover:

And here’s the final album, all tied up with the pretty pink ribbon, ready to pop into the box!

So there you have it and I hoped you learned a few little hybrid tips along the way! You really can whip up a storm with goodies in your scrapbooking stash by combining it with some digital goodies! Have fun