Category: Hybrid Crafting

May 23, 2015

Real Inspiration for Hybrid Layouts

We all know that Pinterest is a great source for inspiration for layouts, but beyond being inspired by other people’s layouts, what do you look at for inspiration? I’m a firm believer than inspiration can come from anywhere. One of my very favorite ways to get inspired is by looking at vintage record covers. I have several of these pinned on my inspiration board.

For this layout, I found a record cover that I really loved and modeled my layout almost exactly after it. I used The Digital Press’s shop Collab called Go Play and created a sketch in Silhouette Studio and used print and cut with my Silhouette Cameo to cut out all the different pieces of this layout.

Source here

Another example of a layout based off of a record cover is this layout I made using Mari Koegelenberg’s and Laura Passage’s #HappyThings collection.

This layout was based off of another record cover and made within the Silhouette Studio. This collection was so fun and inspired me to document all the things that make me happy currently. The record cover was very graphic and geometric which is one of my favorite ways to scrapbook— clean and with lots of circles/triangles/stars, etc.

Source here.

And if you can’t find the inspiration you are looking for in record covers, I recommend finding a good scrapbook sketch.

I found a sketch on the Paper Issues blog and was immediately inspired to use Amanda Yi’s and Karla Dudley’s Limitless collection. Again, I recreated the sketch in the Silhouette studio using the shape tool and shapes I owned and dropped the digital patterned papers directly into the shapes. Then I did a print and cut and assembled and added a few extra embellishments.

Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box when it comes to finding inspiration. Record covers or any sort of visual art can be great forms of inspiration. And if all else fails, find a great paper scrapbooking sketch and go from there!

About the Author: Brenda Smith is a mother of two littles and wife located in Southern California. When she is not scrapbooking, you can find her working full-time, trying to finish up her college degree with online classes, or sleeping because there are never enough hours in the day. Hybrid scrapping satisfies her addiction to technology and her addiction to paper and glue.

May 16, 2015

Hybrid Scraplifting

Remember this weeks challenge for creating a layout by scraplifting? If not, you can read the full post here: inspiration scraplifting

Scraplifting is one my favorite things when it comes to scrapbooking – no matter if I scrap digital, hybrid or paper. There are so many great inspiration sources outthere and it would be a shame not to use them! Whenever I scraplift I also like to let somebody know that I scraplifted their layout and if I have a photo I will also link it. I always got good responses. They felt honored to be scraplifted. Never skip an opportunity to make someone smile!

For a scraplifting a page digitally or as a hybrid page, I open a new 12×12 document in Photoshop and the first thing I do is to drag & drop the original layout into this document as my referrence. It will be much too small, but you can make it bigger without worrying about the quality – you will not print it, as it is not your layout, but having it as big as your layout will be makes it a lot easier to keep the sizes and proportions or placements.

Browsing through the shop I found this beautiful page:

I love the simplicity and especially this little cluster at the top: a round element in the back, a piece of washi and a button. I do like the colors of this layout aswell, but I already knew which colors I wanted to use for my photo, so I went with another color scheme.

As I said the first thing I did was to create a new 12×12 document and added the layout. Normally I would now go ahead and create shapes for all papers and photos on this layout. In this case it is there is a template available, so I used the template to get me the correct shapes. Ones I finished adding shapes to the page, I will add another copy of the page I want to scraplift on top.
Now I have it as the bottom and the top layer. I will turn both off and on whenever I want to look something up. Sometimes I like to use the overlay mode to keep them semi transparent on top of my working space, but mostly that’s too distracting for me.

Next step is to add papers and play around with text and embelishments. In this case I decided not to use any real elements as I don’t like to use printed buttons or flowers on my hybrid layouts. I rather use real ones from my stash. Same goes for all other 3D-objects on a page. The only exception is stitching! I do think stitching looks much better when it is real stitching, but laziness wins. It is the first time I’m trying to print a stitch, so I might throw the paper away and replace the stitch with washi tape. I think it is always worth trying to print something you are not 100% sure about. You can always throw it away if it turns out that you don’t like it.

When I know this will be a hybrid and not a digital page, I will not spend any effort on the shadows. There were shadows already in the template, so some shapes now have shadows and others don’t. Overall the page looks unfinished, but I’m ok with that this still is some kind of a prototype of what my actual page will look like.

If I blend the original layout over it, you will see it looks pretty similar.

My page just misses some splatters and elements.

Now comes the unpleasent part for me: getting everything on a4 and a3 pages and print it. For the layers where I need my silhouette, I will add a black color overlay, so it will be easier for me to trace them. Now it get’s to the fun part of assembling the page. I start with glue the clusters together, so I can move them aroung more easily on the page then I now where I want to add my stamps and splatters. Don’t forget to cover everything you don’t want color on, because otherwise you have to print again. Been there, done that!

The last step then is to add embelishments from my stash and this is how the finished page turned out.

About the Author: Anika is part of the hybrid team here at thedigitalpress.com. She loves to travel and use the photos her boyfriend takes (thanks for that!) to scrapbook. Digital, paper and hybrid. When she is not scrapping, she is most likely playing a computer game or in a city searching for a geocache.

May 2, 2015

How to make a hybrid box card

Hi all! Donna here to share with you some tips and tricks that I do when I create hybrid projects.

1. Re-sizing patterns

In traditional or paper crafting, they have sizes like 12×12, 8×8 and 6×6 paper pads. The last two are perfect for card-making. They’re basically shrank 12×12 patterns. Digitally, it’s super easy to replicate.

Here are image comparison when you re-size a paper to 6×6 and 8×8, respectively.

For this particular pattern, I like the 6×6 version better for the card I have in mind. Below is a sample of how I collage my elements. I re-size them first before printing, of course.

Here is the card after the print/cut/paste/assembly process (closed)

And you can watch this video for a short tutorial on how I created this super fun card:

Thanks and hope you liked what I shared today.

Have a great day!

Donna

About the Author: Donna Espiritu is a new mother to a little girl and wife to a very supportive husband. She is currently living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with her family. When she is not scrapbooking, she likes to read some sci-fi/romantic/time-travel themed books or watching old episodes of some of her favorite tv shows.

April 18, 2015

Create Hybrid Journal Cards with Digital Kits

Sometimes I fall in love with a digital kit and all the fabulous patterned papers and embellishments only to find out the kit doesn’t have any pre-made journal cards for Pocket Scrappers like me. But since becoming friendly with the shape tool and clipping masks in Photoshop, I make my own cards in just a few minutes and can customize to my needs.

I used Mari Koegelenberg and Scotty Girl Design’s new collection called Party Animals to make this hybrid page about my daughter’s 5th birthday party this past week. It was the perfect collection and perfect timing.

I made a video showing my process in creating these hybrid cards. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. I’d love to hear them.

April 11, 2015

Hybrid For The Home

This month the design team here at The Digital Press created a lovely collaborative mega kit called Gingham Style, and included is a set of printable banners. Being a member of the hybrid team, they immediately caught my attention. I know some of you out there who purchased Gingham Style might be wondering what you could do with them, so today I’m sharing a little home decor project I used the banners for!

These are a great “introduction to hybrid crafting” project. All you need is a regular pair of scissors or a straight edge and X-Acto blade. If you can cut a straight line you can do this! I happen to have an electronic die cutting machine, so I used my Silhouette Cameo to do the cutting. I set up my Print & Cut file in the software that I use with my cutting machine. Because I wanted it to be double sided, I duplicated each banner, rotated 180 degrees, and aligned the straight edges to form a diamond shape. Don’t forget to add your cut lines! Mine are shown as the black line around the edge of each diamond.

Hybrid For The Home

Once everything is cut out I scored down the middle and folded to create a 2 sided banner, which I then strung on a piece of seam binding. Ribbon, embroidery floss, baker’s twine, or yarn would all make excellent choices as a stringing material. I closed by banners around my seam binding by placing a glue dot near the bottom point of the triangle. Once I had each banner strung, I distributed them evenly and then stapled at the top with my mini stapler.

Once my banner was completed I used it to decorate an empty wall above my bed. By adding a family photo and a decorative letter (F for our last name) I picked up on clearance at the craft store, I’ve quickly and affordably livened up this living space. These banners are a fun & temporary way to bring color to an otherwise boring space in your home.

Hybrid For The Home

Digital Scrapbooking kits are a great resource for creating your own custom decor for any season or holiday! Have you created anything for your home? If so, I’d love to see it. Leave a comment with a link to your project.

About the Author: Amber Funk enjoys a vast assortment of interests such as scrapbooking, photography, getting crafty with her Silhouette Cameo, reading, and playing video games. She is a Wife and Mother of 2 living in Northern California and blogs her crafty adventures at http://perfectly-fabulous.com/
Amber

March 28, 2015

Pocket Minibook

Creating pocket pages with 3×4 cards is definitly not the only way those cute cards can be used. Today I want to show you how I created a minibook using different cards and a few of my favourite photos. One of them is actually the very first picture that was taken of us, so it is very special to me. It’s the top right one. The others are selfies we took during our citytrips in the netherlands and belgium.

So let’s get started! First of all I created two rows with five journaling cards each in photoshop. I have a A3 printer, so I was able to print everything at once, but it is totally fine to create it with a A4 / lettersize paper aswell, you will have more rows then with three cards each.

Next step is to print the cards, without the photos and frames, cut the rows and fold them after each card. You can glue them back to back together, but leave the first and second card like they are for now. Your book should now look like the right picture below.

Now you get some ribbon, I like to use snug hug seam binding ribbon for minibooks, and cut it to one long and one shorter piece. The long one should go 2-3 times around the minibook. Glue both of them between the first and the second card, as you can see in the left picture below. The picture on the right shows you what the finish book will look like. When the ribbon is in place and looks like you want it, glue card one and two together and you are done with the base for your minibook!

I printed the frames on the same paper as the cards and used my selphy for printing the photos, so they are printed on photopaper. I also added some wood veneer to my finished book. The next pictures show you what my finish book looks like in detail. I really love how it turned out!

Thanks for reading and see you next time!