Tag Archives: hybrid

Creating Hybrid Cards

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Mother's Day Hybrid CardFor those of us who love to create and enjoy making cards, sometimes we may not have as much time as we would like to get them done!  This past weekend, I was going to swap cards with my Stampin’Up! friends, and knew time was going to be tight to get my 17 matching cards completed.  You may not need 17 matching cards to swap with friends, but what about a holiday card, party invitation, birth announcement, or some occasion or event you want people to know about!

Making a hybrid card can be the best of both worlds, paper and digital. One idea is to just print out your digital image as a regular 4×6 picture which you have the option to print at many locations.  You can print them out at the drug store or wherever your favorite place is to make prints.  If you plan ahead, you may be able to order them or use an online coupon and save even more.  Of course, it will depend on how many you need as to how economical it will be to order and pay shipping, you’ll have to be the judge of that.

My Digital Studio (MDS) is a great digital software program which is easy to use and extremely economical.  It even comes with a Free Trial.  MDS has been recently updated and the price lowered to where I think it is such a value, especially for beginners!  MDS is what was used for this card, and it only took two digital “stamps” to create this card.

If you plan to print on 4×6 photo paper, make sure to plan your design around combining that photo with your card size.  Since we often create a card that is a half sheet of an 8.5×11″ paper, your finished card front is 4.25×5.5, so you’ll need to plan your photo accordingly.  I find it easiest to make the size of what I’m working on a 4×6 and just watch my rulers for the sizing I will use for the finished card.  After printing, they only need to have a little bit trimmed off, usually about

The digital images on this cards are:

  1. Vintage Overlay – Texture 8
  2. “Ex Libris” digital download (main image over the card)
  3. “Happy Mother’s Day” from All Holidays set

Also, during the digital design process, you can play around with adding embellishments and get an idea of what you want to do as you assemble the card.

The card base is a half sheet of an 8.5×11 piece of cardstock, folded for a final card size of 5.5 x 4.25 inches. After the “photo” portion of this card was printed, I trimmed the 4×6 because photo so that it would fit my card front, and adhered it.  Now the embellishments of a rhinestone in the center of the “o” in the word “mother,” and bit of ribbon simply knotted in the center and adhered with a glue dot!  That’s it.

Doodling on a Printable Download

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Artful Adventures Digital Printables We continue our Artful Adventures today as we look at another way to use a printable download.  How do you like the picture for our adventure this week?

My definition of a printable download is one which is ready to print and could be plopped in a frame as is, except for perhaps trimming it.  The ones I am using this week are from Stampin’Up!, and come with not only the printable .jpg image, but have the digital stamps/brushes so that you customize colors of elements, change them around or use them on any of your digital projects.  Yesterday we worked on one for St. Patrick’s Day, and today we have one that is not just word art, but has a sweet little picture.

Let’s take a look at what we are starting with today.  Earth Laughs digital printable

This is a very sweet piece which is certainly framable as is.  However, around here, we like to kick it up a notch!  So let’s grab a fine tip black pen and just add some doodles on this piece after we print it!  We are only going to add a little definition to the larger elements, and let the more fine line work stay in the background, kind of like a piece of background paper on a card or scrapbook page.

Artful Adventures Earth Laughs digital printable with doodles

Once again, I want to stress that it doesn’t have to be perfect! Like our friend Joanne Sharpe says, “Perfectly imperfect!”  If it needed it to stay perfect you would just leave it as it came off the printer.  Just try your hand on a little bit of doodling, if you haven’t.  If you have, you may not have thought of giving yourself a headstart by using something straight off the printer!

Next, I just added a bit of a shadow to some of the lettering with a light, warm gray marker.  I wish I would have used a smaller tip marker, but…. it’s done.  Nobody is really going to be up close and examining it with a magnifying glass.  If they are, and they don’t like it, they should just make one of their own to admire their own self-imposed perfection!

Artful Adventures Earth Laughs digital download with highlights

This next photo is up close and personal.  Take a look and notice how imperfect it is.  (I have to say, I never in a million years would have dreamed I would be telling people to take a close look at something I did to take special note of how imperfect it was!)  There are finer tipped pens that may have been more appropriate for the doodling on this, yet they weren’t handy at the moment I wanted to work on this.  Remember when you were young and liked to color and doodle?  It’s still fun!

Earth Laughs digital doodles closeup

Try your hand at a project like this and come post it on the Artful Adventures Facebook Group!  We would love to see what you are up to!

St. Patrick’s Day Digital Printable Jazzed Up

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Thanks for joining me again this week!  Our Artful Adventure today continues with ideas to jazz up a word art digital download. Digital downloads can make quick word of creating something special, whether you want a piece of decor or a card to send.

Here you can see the original version of the template.  Since this version is able to be quickly transformed, you’ll see that it was easy to tweak the color just a wee bit.  Only the green has been changed.  This makes it such an easy way to personalize it in a way that best fits your color needs.

St. Patrick's Day Template

Original colors of download

St. Patrick's Day Template Color Change

The green color was tweaked just a wee bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One way to change up your printable is to print it out and then use a fine tip marker to outline some of the words.  If you don’t really feel confident with your hand lettering skills, this is a perfect way to have a little practice.

Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect.  Note to self, don’t have so much caffeine before you do this again!  Some of my lines are less than desirable, but that’s okay.  I was rather pleased with the outcome.

This was meant to show you a quick project, so I only did some of the larger words, which I knew would be much easier to outline.  When you try something like this, you’ll begin to notice the little nuances of the particular font of the word you are working on.  That is what lettering is all about, the little things that each letter has in common.

St. Patrick's Day printable enhanced by outlined letters

Pick some of the words with larger lettering to outline! Glad this isn’t under glass yet, I see I forgot to do part of the “k” in “lucky.”

As long as you are going to print it out, why not make a smaller size and create a card?  Here is a card that was created from the same template.

Lucky Printable Card

Reduce the template before you print and you can create a card!

Lucky Printable Card with embossing

Just a little embossing can really jazz up a quick card! The Hollogram Effects embossing powder combines a bit of glitter in a clear embossing powder, which will let the ink color show through!

Card Recipe

  1. Half sheet of black card stock (cut 8.5″ x 5.5″), folded in half
  2. Lucky Limeade card stock (cut 4″x5.25″)
  3. Printable Template reduced to allow some of the white border (cut 3.75″x5″)
  4. Before assembling the card pieces wipe the printout with an embossing buddy
  5. Use Versamark marker over some of the letters.
  6. Sprinkle Hollogram Embossing powder and use heat tool to emboss!
  7. Assemble card pieces

TaDah!  You are done!

Okay, now that the card is finished, I realized that the Hollogram embossing powder is no longer available!  SO….. some other ideas to add a quick bit of sparkle or shine (these are options, not steps):

  • Use 2-way Glue Pen over selected letters and sprinkle with glitter.
  • Use Clear Embossing powder
  • Use Dazzling Details on selected areas
  • Try some Crystal Effects on a few letters!