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

Here it is…my confection built of  diapers and receiving blankets and ribbons oh my!  There are tons of great tutorials and advice articles to be had on assembling a diaper cake if you are so inclined to google.  Boy!  Do I love the web for all the sharing that goes on.

But, back to the gift topper…I first created some custom paper in Word to coordinate with the invites and such that were handmade for the shower.   My custom dot paper was printed on one side of white cardstock and then Kelleigh’s perfectly square template was printed on the other side.

Here is the template all cut out and scored.

Then I went to town embellishing the sides of my perfect square to resemble a baby’s block complete with baby-to-be’s initial and mom and dad when they were little.  Aren’t they precious?!  The “N” was cut using the Base Camp cartridge from Cricut and the monkey is from the My Cute Stamps Circus Animals set.  I used my trimmer and a square punch to make chocolate brown cardstock block frames.  A couple of holes in the lid and some brown grosgrain ribbon for a bow and ta da! The perfect gift topper.

When it came time to assemble the box, I used liquid glue to adhere all of the tabs together and then also glued the lid shut.  While this block won’t withstand toddler play, I’m quite certain this would be a fun keepsake in baby’s room to remind him that he is so very loved.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and checking out this project.  It was so fun and easy to make.  OK, I have to run, it’s time for a slice of  {diaper} cake! ; *wink*

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

All you need for this project is…

• Photo editing program, I use PSE6
• Printer
• Iron on transfer printer paper and an Iron
• Onesies
• Matte photo paper
• Digi Kit, I used Punky Girl by, Pri Rocha and Tutti Frutti by Sugarplum Paperie both at TDC
  Box template, I used The Top Heavy Box Template and the 4×6 print box Template both by Kelleigh Ratzlaff at TDC too!
• Some edge distressing ink, glue, scissors, ribbon

That’s about it!

So, let’s get started. First of course you design your shirt iron-ons in Photoshop. Just open up your digi kit and go crazy! Make is say something like “Cute” or “Sweet” I also made some with the baby’s name “Summer” You can make them say anything you want! That’s the great thing. Here are a few of mine.:

While you are in Photoshop go ahead and design your box! This is so simple, too. The instructions come with the templates and it’s a snap! I made mine with the same kit as the Onesies so the whole set matches!

So next we need to print everything out! Make sure you print your iron-ons in mirror image! And print our your boxes on your matte photo paper or cardstock.

And now assemble! Make sure you let the iron-ons sit for at least 30 minutes before you iron them on… as the directions say. (I was going to have a cute little matching hat for one of these sets, but it smeared because I didn’t wait long enough! LOL! I guess following directions is a good thing sometimes!

Here are my boxes getting put together. They are easy just cut on solid lines and fold on dotted lines! I like to sand and ink my edges too.

Here are the onesies all done! I made a diaper bag tag too.

Now just wrap it all up in your matching boxes and your gift is ready to give!

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!

I’m kicking off this celebration with a very fun and easy project – Photo Blocks! What I love about them is that you can decorate them as much or as little as you want.

It’s July, half the year is behind us and I’m sure by now you have a stack of great photos you can turn into gifts. So select one, gather the lists of supplies listed below, and start making photo blocks for your loved ones. Come to think of it, they would make really cute stocking stuffers as well.

Here’s what my finished project looks like.

Here’s what I used: 

Digital: Autumn Blooms by Kelley Mickus and Sugarplum Paperie

Materials: Photo Block (Oriental Trading Company), Ribbon, Crystal Gems, File, Paint, Brushes, Mod Podge, Exacto Knife, Ruler, Brayer

First: Put on some Christmas music to get you in the mood…I made a Christmas play list on iTunes and it was great background music as i worked on my project. Right now I’m listening to Santa Baby as I type up this post…so come on it’s not too early to listen to Jingle Bells.

Second: Prep your block. You need to file the edges and paint any areas that are not going to be covered.

Third: Cut all your pieces (I measured the block and then designed each piece accordingly).  Add Mod Podge to the block and adhere a square to each side.

Use the Brayer to make sure you don’t have air bubbles and it all adheres correctly.

Fourth: Add another coat of Mod Podge to all sides to seal it. Here’s a photo of all four sides.

Fifth: Attach photo to frame, embellish as you’d like and you’re finish! Here’s a close up of just the photo, frame with some ribbon to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you have yourself a merry July, and make sure to check back for the next fun project!

But now to the important part of today’s post…the WINNERS!  Each hostess has randomly chosen their winner from the comments posted.  Each hostess will be contacting their winner via email to get their address.  Here we go…

Sat June 20: baby shoe favors …#10 Judy Stocker

Mon June 22: $5 gift card to Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s store…# 4 Char-D

Tues June 23: baby announcement book…#8 Angie Britt

Wed June 24: Baby Albums…
# 9 : Baby Girl Album: Dawn
# 16 : Baby Boy Album: Cristina

Thurs June 25: altered picture frame…Michelle A

Fri June 26: $5 gift card to Kelleigh Ratzlaff’s store…#2 – Karen

Sat June 27: Uh-Oh Box…#5 Teri

Congratulations to all of our winners.  And a big thanks to everyone who came to look, comment, and be inspired!  If you are a winner, your hostess will be contacting you soon to get your address so your prize can be mailed! 

For this project I didn’t stop to plan everything out and just grabbed things as I went along (I even cleaned up my work space a bit first so I could find everything!) so even though only the box itself is pictured, I ended up using the following supplies:

What I Used:

• Photo storage box (from Michael’s)
• Little Sugar Mini Kit by Elise’s Pieces at  The DigiChick
• 65 lb. white paper
• Making Memories acrylic paint
• Paper Mod Podge
• Colorbox Chalk ink
• Offray white ribbons
• Prima flowers (green)
• Making Memories flower (white)
• Clear button
• Glue Dots
• Memory Stor tape runner

The first thing I did was measure out the dimensions of the box so that I would know how big to create my Photoshop documents. The lid was 11.25 inches long so even if I did have a borderless printer, I knew that I would be able to print a document big enough to cover the whole thing. Instead of piecing something together out of multiple print-outs, I decided that I would simply leave a white border around the edge of the box.

So I pulled out some of the acrylic paint and got to work painting around the edges.  The box soaked up the paint a bit, and it took about three coats to completely cover the bright pink of the lid. I think next time I’d give the lid a quick once-over with ModPodge to seal if first.

In between coats, I began creating my Photoshop documents and deciding which papers and elements I wanted to use. After getting it all set, I began to print. Apparently I didn’t measure quite as accurately as I thought that I had however, and some of the sizes had to be adjusted and reprinted. Whenever that happens though, I just set aside those first pages so that I can go back later and cut out the printed pieces to make cards or other projects out of. Since measuring is not really my strong point, I have quite the stack of rejects waiting to be recycled!

After I printed the papers for the lid, I discovered that the green in them was a perfect match for the bottom of the box. I was originally planning to cover the whole thing, but this happy accident saved me quite a bit of work. I started by covering the sides in the strips that I had printed, matching up the pattern as I went along.

I started at a short end and wrapped the paper the whole length and then folded onto each of the long sides. I figured that the edges would stay neater if the ends didn’t meet there. I used Mod Podge for my adhesive and just smoothed it onto the box as I went. After I got all the sides covered I let it dry for a few minutes, then turned it upside down, cut the corners and started folding it over, again using Mod Podge to glue it. My reverse tweezers came in handy here to help hold the paper down while it was drying. As you can see, even after I remeasured, I still didn’t print off big enough strips of paper to cover all of the pink that was originally there.

To make it look neater inside, after my fold had dried, I grabbed the original printout that I had set aside and used those strips to finish the covering job. Then I added a spot on the inside of the lid for jotting down important phone numbers, like the pediatrician, as well as a spot for a baby photo and a little embellishment from the kit. I used my tape runner to glue down the journaling spot so that a photo could be slipped underneath the top of it, like a photo pocket.

After the sides had dried, I inked the edges with a creamy brown color, and set to work on the top. I inked around the edges of the cover and then, using the Mod Podge again, glued it down. I didn’t think that the polka dot letters stood out enough against the polka dot background paper, so I added a second piece of solid, neutral paper to the top with the title on that instead.

Then I started digging around for some matching embellishments and found some flowers, a bit of white ribbon, and a clear button. I stacked up my flowers, threaded my button and stuck them all together with glue dots. Then I slipped a piece of paper behind the label and added some folded ribbons to the front. Voila! All finished…

But wait… I’m giving this project away! Plus, I’ll even throw in a couple of diapers and two coordinated onesies, so all you’ll have to do for the perfect baby gift is add your own creative items to the box! Just leave a comment to this post for your chance to win it. If you want to double your chances of winning then make your own blog, Twitter or Facebook post telling everyone about the Baby Shower we’re having here at The Hybrid Chick and post a link!

For the spunky baby or mommy to be in your life, how about the tres chic zebra stripe from Melissa Wilson’s Tween You and Me Creative Girl kit to spice up the already adorable templates from Kelleigh Ratzlaff?  There are tons of great paper and element choices in this kit that make this project a snap! 

Ready?  Let’s go for it!

Supplies:

Templates: Baby Themed Shaped Cards Template Set and the Take-Out box template sets by Kelleigh Ratzlaff

Digi Kit: Tween You and Me Createive Girl Kit by Melissa Wilson

Other: Acrylic clear spray sealer, 22 gauge floral wire, eyelet, button, adhesive velcro, embroidery floss and safety pin, vintage cream ink by Papertrey Ink

Using Microsoft Word, I arranged digital papers and elements to fit my templates and printed everything out.  Each sheet received an even coat of acrylic spray sealer to avoid smudging of the ink.

I then cut out the two diaper templates I printed and glues them together to form a printed inner and outer diaper.  I also wanted this card to be free standing so instead of folding straight in half I folded the card so it would have a base to stand on.  I allowed the adhesive to dry completely while having the card stand in this position to reinforce the shape I wanted the finished product to be.

While the body of the card was drying, I adhered the two half flowers from the digi kit to form a whole flower and layered on some fun embellishments.  This was adhered to one of the diaper tabs.

Self adhesive velcro was applied to form the diaper card closure.  I also inked the edges of the diaper with vintage cream ink to help the front stand out from the back.

Next up is the take out box template.  I prescored lines on the  printed paper and traced the template on with pencil.

Assemble the box and add embellishments and eyelets to the side in preparation for a wire handle.

The two half daisy images from the kit are perfect to adorn the tabs on the top of the box.

The flowers match perfectly once the tabs are aligned.

Adhere the two layers of the rattle together and allow to dry folded to reinforce the shape.  A few simple embellishments to the rattle and adhere to the side of the box for the perfect box tag.

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I hope you had fun!

EDITED TO ADD: Enter to WIN!  Leave a comment on this post and you have one entry to win one $5 coupon card from the very generous Kelleigh of Kelleigh Ratzlaff Designs at The DigiChick which I will randomly draw at the end of our Baby Shower celebration. If you would like to give yourself more chances please leave us a link to your twitter, blog post, or facebook comment linking up to this post telling everyone about the WILD baby card and gift box you saw here.  Thanks!

• A blank picture frame
• A digital kit
• Adhesive
• Miscellaneous embellishments if you would like to add some.

For my project I used Mari’s Luvbug kit and an unfinished wooden frame found at my local craft store.

To begin, I measured the sides of the frame to see how much paper I would need to cover them. I then digitally cut and pasted strips of paper from the kit onto a page to be printed. I also selected the digital elements that I wanted to use, copied and pasted onto another page to print.

Once printed, I cut out the strips of paper. I cut the top and bottom strips diagonal on the sides to make the edges meet. I then used Xyron adhesive to adhere the strips to the sides of the frame and used sandpaper to remove the excess paper from the sides. I also added a little chalk ink to the edges for a distressed look.

Next I cut out the elements that I had printed from the kit and glued them to the frame. In addition to the digital elements, I decided to add a bit of ribbon, chipboard and a button as shown.

All done! But wait… I’m giving this project away! Just leave a comment to this post for your chance to win it. If you want to double your chances of winning then make your own blog, Twitter or Facebook post telling everyone about the Baby Shower we’re having here at The Hybrid Chick and post a link!

Winners will be announced on June 28th. Keep checking daily for more prizes!!!