I went googling online for a template, found one that I like, then started scrapping! First I made one for a friend of mine to use as a Promotional Product Packaging for her Discovery Toys business, then I made a design for some little Christmas gifts to use this year! I’ll make my own hot chocolate mix, fill the little (2×3") baggies and staple them into the little candy tents I made!

Ready for some pics? Here are some photos I took of my 2 (first ever!) finished candy tents!

 You can find more scrapping inspiration and information on my regular blog, Monique’s Scrappin’ Blog!

But this month I wanted to try something different. So I bought some blank cards (4×5.5 inch) to use as my base, designed the cards digitally to begin with, then printed them out with some of the elements separate from the main card image. I cut out the background, cut out and pasted the other digital pieces, added some traditional scrapbooking pieces like ribbons, flowers, charms etc. I’ve done several designs, once I started I just didn’t want to stop! So here are some photos of my finished hybrid cards, I hope I’ve inspired you to try something new this month!

Both of the above cards were created using graphics from DAISIE Co, Eline Pellinkhof’s Babies’ Bath and Bedtime (both the boys and girls sets were used). I also used a striped digital paper by Jennifer Barrett in the baby boy card. I just love how these turned out! Here are a few more of my faves from today’s card making:

The first card is my Father’s Day card for my wonderful hubby. It was created using the Gitchy Gitchy kit by Robin Carlton and Mandabean, plus a little paper flower, a mini brad and some ribbon.

The second card is a wedding card that I created for a wedding that we are going to at the end of this month. I find most wedding cards to be so…. white and blah that I really wanted to make something myself. I used a wedding set from PC Crafter called Now and Forever by Marie Cole, I also added some paper flowers and mini brads as well as some yellow ribbon (though it’s hard to see it since it’s yellow with polka dots like the background).

The last card is a Thank You card that I made just because I wanted to use the kit… lol. It’s a new kit I just bought called Haute Spring by Zoe Pearn, I also added some ribbon and mini brads. There’s a little tag on the end that says "sweet", but it’s a little hard to see in the photo.

Well, I think I’m hooked on hybrid card making! I can’t wait to design some more!

So what new-to-you crafty thing have you tried recently?

You can find more scrapping inspiration and information on my regular blog, Monique’s Scrappin’ Blog!

This month I wanted to try combining framed photos and extracted photos in a layout. It’s something that I saw recently in another layout at one of the other scrapping site’s galleries and it just screamed scraplift me! So I did! I also tried another new (to me) thing in a layout, a "blocked" layout design. So here’s what I came up with:

Layout Credits:

Scraplifted from my3hens’ Fly High layout at SSD Gallery;
Papers, ribbon, staple, string from Doreen Stolz’ Spring Romantic kit;
Frames by Doreen Stolz;
Lace (recolored) by Mindy Terasawa;
Flowers and butterflies by Flergs;
Metal heart by Michelle Bowley;
Letter "A" charm by Pink Poodle Designs;
Memories barcode by Carolyn Bender;
Priceless receipt by Crazy Universe;

My inspiration for this layout was the layout that I scraplifted. Then after taking the photos, doing the extraction and playing around with the brightness and contrast in the photos I decided on the colours that I wanted to use. I then went to the DAISIE shop and found the perfect kit, Doreen Stolz’ Spring Romantic kit, it was perfect. I also decided to try another new thing, scrapping in a new size. I thought I might want to frame this one so I scrapped it in 8×10 inch so it would be easy to print and frame. After putting in the papers and photos I went looking through my files (thanks to ACDsee it was super easy!) and found some great flowers and ribbons, along with a few other cute elements. And of course I just had to use Doreen’s frames, I just loooove this set! I use them all the time, and if you’re a scrapbooker looking for a good basic set of white frames with some curl to the edges then these ones are a must have! The set also comes with a set of frames with cute little scalloped edges on the inside of the frame, can you say adorable?!

Anyways! In case you were wondering if there were any special effects done to the layout, there were… but not much. For the photos I used my PSP 8’s Brightness and Contrast settings to get the look that I wanted, I don’t usually go quite so harsh with the settings but that was the effect I was going for this time. For the extraction I just start with the Freehand Selection Tool and selected roughly around my DD in the photo, hit invert selection then delete! I then went around my DD’s image with the eraser tool very carefully using a reduced Opacity and Density setting. One thing to remember when doing things to photos, don’t use the original! Create a duplicate copy (shift-D in PSP) first!

Then the only other thing I did is adjust the size of the elements as needed, my fave way of doing this is by using the Deform tool and playing around with the Scale % settings. The framed papers were resized down to 55% so that you could see some detail of the patterns even at that smaller size. Oh and I recolored the lace by playing with the Hue and Saturation settings

And that’s it! I’m very happy with my latest layout, I love the framed photos with the extracted photo of my DD all in one layout. So what new crafty thing have you tried lately?