Welcome to the Card Template challenge – a new monthly challenge here at The Hybrid Chick.

Each month, a new card template will be posted here on The Hybrid Chick (it’s also posted in our Challenge forum at The Digichick). Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to create a card using the template provided. As with any template, we want you to be inspired so feel free to improvise on the template a little to your liking.

For those of you who keep saying “I don’t do Hybrid” or “I can’t do Hybrid”, I say give the card template a try. Think of it as a mini layout – simply add your papers, elements and a few shadows. print, cut and fold. There you go… a digital card.

Next time, try cutting out one or more “parts” of the card and using some glue dots or 3D foam to adhere it to your card for real dimension. Maybe tie some ribbon around your card. And guess what? You’ve just created your first Hybrid project!

Are you ready for our first Card template? Here it is – a very simple template to get you started.

You can get the template (which includes a psd file, png files and a sketch copy) HERE

Here is my card that I created from the template – I used Sherwood Studio Together at Last patterned papers and Arty Pants Card Sentiments digital stamps:

How about some fantastic samples of what can be done with the template from the team?

Melissa created this beautiful card using Dani and Mari’s Bee Happy kit:

Cathrine, of Paper Garden Projects, created this sweet, sweet card using her own Folk Art Love kit:

Sharon created this wonderful baby card (that I want to steal from her!) using the kit Brady’s Room from Wishing Well Creations:

Cathy created this stunning card using Vanilla Noir by Quirky Twerp:

and finally, Joana’s beautiful card using the Feb. boutique collab A Love Story and Arty Pants Valentine Sentiments both of which are new releases today!

So, what are you waiting for??? You CAN do it, I know it!

I’d like to take a moment, on behalf of the entire Card Caravan team, to thank you all for playing along with our last challenge which was to include some sparkle on your card/projects. With each and every challenge, you continue to inspire and amaze us with your creativity!

At this time, I’d like to announce Julie’s Favorite Peeps from the last challenge. In no particular order, they are:

• Sasha
• Maria B
• Micki

Feel free to grab our badge to display on your blog!

Now, on to our new challenge – get out those dies and punches! I want you to use them in a new, unique way! Get creative with them. For example, you could create a flower using your scallop border die.

How about some Design Team inspiration?

Julie created this beautiful card using Read all Over by Elise’s Pieces and On This Day by Quirky Twerp. She used a Cheery Lyn doily die and a MS deep edge punch:

Next, we have Melissa’s oh-so-sweet card using Elise’s Pieces Affirmation, a Mat Stack 4 Die from Papertrey Ink and sentiment stamps from Waltzingmouse Stamps:

Cathy created this super sweet treat bag using the brand new Smitten kit by Sarah Jones:

I created my card using Elise’s Young Love {Mini kit} and a Fiskars scallop edge punch to create a void in my patterned paper to stamp my sentiment:

It’s time for our first challenge of 2012 but first we’d like to say thank you to all of you who played along with us last year. We really enjoyed visiting to see all of your creations and look forward to much more of the same in 2012.

First, time to annoumce Cathy’s favourites from our last challenge – metal.
In no particular order, here they are:

• Mallika
• Maria
• Leanne

Congratulations and feel free to grab our badge for your blog.

Now, onto challenge no. 10 and it’s super easy! We love our bling here at The Hybrid Chick and we would love to see lots of lovely sparkle on your creations. To get you going, here is some inspiration from the team.

First is Melissa who has used Kimeric Kreations’ Resolution 2012 kit to create this New Year Card.  Don’t all those disappearing lines make you think of walking into the unknown quantity of a new year?

Next is Cathy with a very pretty card using the My heART kit by Etc. by Danyelle.

Sylvia created this fun banner card using Karen Lewis’ Wellington Designer Kit.

Finally, my own creation, an altered jar using Elise’s Pieces Read All Over mini kit.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  My little girl turned 8 on Christmas Day…she always has double presents to open which she loves so it’s always a busy one for us!  

Now that Christmas is over I decided to create a Valentine’s card…..I love Valentines and I love red and pink, so girly!!!  Here is a super quick and simple Valentines card that anyone can create!

Supplies needed:

• Quirky Twerp – Retro Valentines
• Sarah Jones – Say I love you
• White Card
• Twine
• Adhesive, foam dimensional pads

1. Gather your supplies and print out papers and elements in your software. I used Photoshop Elements for mine.

2. Cut out your elements and papers to fit card and adhere.

3. Make all pretty with whatever craft supplies you have or just tie with bakers twine like mine.

Have a great day!

Hugs, Bonnie x

Right now we’d like to thank everyone that participated in our last challenge. We really enjoyed seeing your interpretation of the theme “two”.  Melissa’s top three Peeps are (in particular order):

• Janette G
•  Sara I.
• Marion82

Congratulations to you! Feel free to grab our badge for your blog.

This time around our challenge is to create a card using metal.  You can use any metal that you like. It could be as simple as a brad or a staple. Or it could be as intricate as some embossed sheet metal, embellishments made from metal, or maybe you have some left over tinsel that you can use on a card. Whatever you interpret as a way to use metal!

Here is some inspiration from our card caravan team:

Melissa made this adorable Valentine’s card using Chocolate Kisses by Sugarplum Paperie.  Check out the cute metal brad heart that she added to her card. So sweet!

I made a modified gatefold card with embossed metal. I used Every Day of the Year by Sugarplum Paperie.

The metal panel on the card is embossed with a poem.  I thought the poem and the word art from the kit combined well to make an upbeat New Years card.  Here is another look at the embossed poem:

The words to the poem are:

The blink of an eye
The time it takes to have a deep thought
The time it takes to decide if you should or should not
The time it takes to love and the time it takes to hate
The time it takes to smell something you like but never ate
A bright idea can come and a bright idea can go
Life can become high and life can become low
A bird’s little chirp can turn into a beautiful song as life comes and goes Ten Seconds Long.
by Geoff Darrow

Today is the start of our eighth Card Caravan Challenge, but before we get to that we’d like to say thank you to all of our participants of our seventh challenge! So many wonderful entries!

Before we announce this week’s challenge, I’d like to announce Sylvia’s Top three Favorite Peeps (in random order):
1. #18 Lovely Linda
2. #21 Carol
3. #37 Kristi S

Congratulations to you! Feel free to grab our badge for your blog.

Our next challenge is “two”. I was inspired to have this be our challenge as today is my mom and brother’s birthdays! You could interpret this to be a card for a second birthday, two buttons, two ribbons, two layers, or even two cards. The sky’s the limit! Here is some inspiration from our card caravan team:

Julie made some two amazing ornaments with The Cutting Files’ Artisan Labels Set 1 and Danielle Engelbretson’s Vision of Sugarplums .

Cathy created an adorable card with two penguins. She used lots of Pengiun Pal products from Paper Garden Projects: Penguin Pal Deck the Halls Digital Elements , Penguin Pals Tags and Borders Digital Elements , Penguin Pals Snow Flurry Papers , and Christmas Sentiments Digital Stamps by Arty Pants.

LuAnn took the “two” theme to an extreme and used 2 papers from Sarah Jone’s A Bushel and A Peck paper pack using 2 layers. She added 2 rows of double twine with 2 double bows and she used 2 different sentiments from Paper Smooches to create the sentiment.

I created two cards were made using Sugarplum Paperie’s beautiful Comfort and Joy .

Thanks for coming by and we can't wait "to" see your projects incorporating "two"!
Melissa and the Card Caravan team

Supplies:

• Happy Holly Days Designer Kit by Karen Lewis
• scoring board with tool or ruler and scoring tool
• 2 inch punch
• marker
• ink
• ribbon
• adhesive
• gems or other embellishments

I started by printing out my designer papers from the kit I chose to use along with any of the elements I thought I might use for embellishing. Since you will only need two 2-inch circles from each pattern, you can print them out two to a page at 5×7 size. This also makes the pattern a little smaller since we are working on a smaller scale project! 

Cut out twenty circles with circle punch. I used the 2-inch size.

Then, you need to determine the size of the center triangle.  I’ve already done this for you…for a 2-inch circle, each side of the triangle needs to be 1 3/4 inches. I made a template from a piece of thick cardstock.

Since I wanted my triangles to be outlined, I used my template and traced each one with a thin marker so the lines would show. I also inked the outside edge of all the circles with brown chalk ink.

Next, you’ll need to score each line and fold along the lines.

Do this for all twenty circles. 

The next step is to arrange your circles into four rows of five, varying the patterns and colors. 

Apply glue or adhesive to the back of the three folded tabs and begin to assemble the top row of your ornament.

I find it easier to insert my ribbon hanger at this point. Fold the ribbon in half and carefully pull it through the top where all the triangles meet to the desired length.

Tie a knot and cut off the excess.

Continue adding two more rows of five…it will look like this.

Add the final row, attaching all the triangles in the center like the top of the ornament.

Embellish your ornament as much or as little as you like. I added the holly element from the Designer Kit and a couple of red gems for berries. I also added a green gem at each intersection where the triangles meet.

Since I had lots of extra designer paper and I just loved the kissing birds from this kit, I decided to make a matching card!

Imagine the endless possibilities for making fun ornaments for everyone in your family. You can use different size punches for smaller ornaments and there’s a ton of possibilites to customize the ornaments using the recipients favorite colors, characters or themes!

Sylvia here with our next episode of the Card Caravan’s challenge!

The Card Caravan Design Team would like to welcome all of you returning participants and, also, those of you joining us for the first time!

Let’s start with the winners from our last challenge where LuAnn challenged you to make a birthday themed card/project.

Again, the team was amazed by the beautiful cards and projects that were created for the challenge! Thank you all so much for your participation!

Here are LuAnn’s top 3 picks – in no particular order:

• Maria Matter
• lalkygirl
• Hussena

Congratulations! Please feel free to grab our badge for your blog!

Now, on to our new challenge!

Since I’m your host for this challenge and I {heart} everything that sparkles, it’s no surprise that our theme this fortnight is

GLITTER 

Or better said: use something that glitters, shines or sparkles. It does not have to be ‘glitter’ literally, but rhinestones, jewels or anything else that sparkles is perfect, too!

Ok, how about some inspiration from our amazing team?

I’m totally in awe with this supah sparkly chipboard number as a focal point on Melissa’s adorable card! Melissa used Karen Lewis’  Sophia paper pack to create this beautiful card:

Ohhh, I love Cathy’s Santa peaking and the huge glitter snowflake on her card! To create this adorable card, Cathy used the  Wish List Letter To Santa bundle by Etc by Danyale:

Check out all of the glittery goodness on Julie’s cards. Julie used Danielle Engebretson’s Visions of Sugarplums: The Kit.

And finally, here’s my card using Visions of Sugarplums by Danielle Engebretson:

We can't wait to see your sparkly creations!
Sylvia

The Card Caravan Design Team would like to welcome all of you returning participants and, also, those of you joining us for the first time!

Our challenges are relatively simple and allow you, the challenge chicks , to interpret our challenge to your creative style. We just want you to get creative with us! We love seeing what you all come up with for our challenges!

Let’s start with our winners from our last challenge where Julie challenged you to make your own flowers. The team was simply amazed by the beautiful flowers that were created for our challenge! A HUGE thank you to all of the participants!

In no particular order, Julie’s winners are:

• E.T
• Margreet
• Szalonaisa

Congratulations! Please feel free to grab our badge for your blog!

Now, on to our new challenge!

Tomorrow marks a milestone birthday – my oldest child’s 21st birthday! Happy 21st Birthday, Justin!

It’s his birthday that inspires this challenge – we want you to create a card/project that has something birthday themed on it.

Let the theme inspire – create a birthday themed card, include a balloon or birthday sentiment on your card/project, create a birthday banner, create a party theme, etc.

How about some inspiration from the Team?

Cathy created this beautiful card using Every Day of the Year by Sugarplum Paperie.

Julie created this fantastic set using the Grateful Heart Paper Pack by Lisa Sisneros (a guest designer) and Cake Box by The Cutting Files.

This next gorgeous card is by Melissa using the Digichick Boutique Collab. My digital Obsession.

Sylvia created this stunning card using The Sun Will Come Out by Sugarplum Paperie.

And here’s my card for the challenge using Dawn by Design’s Family Meals paper pack.

How’s that for some inspiration?

Before we get to it however, I’d just like to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to join our colour challenge. We really do enjoy visiting to look at your entries and choosing the top three is no easy task!

It’s a tough job but Cathy’s managed to do it and here they are.

• Hannelie
• Tenia Nelson
• Jenn Zeeb

Congratulations ladies please feel free to grab our badge for your blog.

Now onto today’s challenge. Anyone who has ever visited my blog will know that I love making flowers and, as I visit your blogs, I can see that I am not the only one. So, we want you to show us your card or other project featuring a flower you made yourself. Can’t get too much easier than that.

The Card Caravan Design team has plenty of gorgeous inspiration to show you.

First up a wonderfully colourful card by Melissa. Melissa has used Danielle Engebreton’s I (heart) Autumn kit on her card and a Papertrey Ink die, Bloom Builder #3, for her flower.

Sylvia’s card features ‘Emporium’ by The Digichick Designers and a very sweet homemade rose bud.

Finally, here’s my card which uses Vanilla Noir papers by Quirky Twerp along with Paper Flower Templates set 1 and Paper Roses both by The Cutting Files.