just a little hybrid birthday invitation...

Digital is great. I love creating without hardly any mess and, of course, the undo button. But there is something special when I finally print out a project I've been working on. So, for my daughter's 3rd birthday party, I designed up a cute little invitation to take around to her close friends.

I was trying to decide on only one theme for the party, and decided that I just couldn't narrow it down, so I ended up coming up with more of a color theme - red, pink and a light blue. Once I had that figured out it was easy to design up some cute invitations, as well as dress up the favor boxes (which I will blog about later...). It is so fun to have such a cute custom little accent for a party! Its all in the details!

Since I didn't want huge 5"x7" invitations, I opted to pull out some little sheer glassine favor bags to use as envelopes (we were hand delivering all the invitations). I then sized my invitation to fit into the favor bags, printed a coordinating accent digital paper out onto sticker paper and made a cute little faux tape to seal the envelope.
 

...and now that all is said and done... the party was a success! And I am excited to share it with you, but that blog post, is for another time!

Have a wonderful weekend!

time is running out...

...to pick up the amazing stash of $1 kits at Design House Digital!

Today is the last day of the sale.. tomorrow all of the kits will return to their normal price.

I wanted to quickly show you a fun little mini album I put together over the weekend for my daughter. It was a lot of fun, and very quick.. mostly using all the odd and end scrapbook embellishment supplies I have gathered over the years.

The kits I used for this mini album are:

color wheel : SPRING : paper pack (on sale for only $1)

color wheel : SPRING 2 : paper pack

back to basics bundle (on sale for only $1)

I made this little album because my daughter really misses her cousins. I had no idea what an impression a summer with cousins could have on my two year old.. she asks, at least once a week, if we can go to "Taylor" and "Ba-gen" (baby megan) house.

This book was a lot of fun. I arranged the basic layout in photoshop, printed it all out (not even a full 2 8.5x11 pages), cut it out and taped it all together. Then my daughter and I, literally, dumped out all our little embellishments and arranged and rearranged each page a dozen times.

I really like how this book turns out, and I am not at all worried letting my two year old carry it around. If it gets dirty, I can toss it and easily print out a new one.. easy peasy.

Don't you just love digital?

Counting down...

Until Christmas!!! I cannot believe it is December already!

Which means... it is time to start counting down. I always loved our little advent calendar I had growing up. It was simple and sweet - just the way a count down calendar should be.

This holiday season I have found myself more wanting to enjoy the "season" and far less of the shopping. I have gotten almost all my shopping out of the way, and am excited to just enjoy spending some family time together. But, if you are anything like me, if it isn't scheduled, it doesn't happen.

So to help with the unplanned holiday events, I have decided to put them in my advent calendar. Everyday for the next 25 days we are going to celebrate a little bit of the holidays together as a family.

I am going to slip little notes into my envelopes with the planned activity for that day. Today's activity - decorate the Christmas Tree. Tomorrows? Read the Christmas account out of the Bible. The day after that? Ah, I haven't planned that far. I am just excited to have a little moment, every day, to think about the wonderful Christmas season!

And.. I put together this little download for anyone else who is interested in using my idea. The envelopes are just a solid plum, but are saved as a template .psd for anyone who would like to use some other digital paper.

And don't forget about my GIVEAWAY... enter until tonight for a chance to win my new "Wonderland" kit (which was featured in this post!!)

Holiday Hybrid Card

So, this is the first year that I am actually going to do holiday cards. Before this year, we have been close enough to all of our family that we always were able to see them all during the holiday break. We've decided this year that we aren't going home for christmas, so one of the perks to staying is that I get to make a bunch of cards! It really is fun, isn't it?

Problem is, is that I will probably make a dozen different styles and never, actually, get them sent out. (hopefully that isn't true!)

But, for this card, I wanted to use my Letters to Santa collection and give it a warm, homemade, vintage spin.

I decided to do two of the classic paper yoyo flowers, except on one I snipped the edges to give it more of a petal look.

I ended up not using the button I had picked out for the vintage story book flower. I just liked it better without a button, and it will make mailing easier. (any one else have problems mailing when it comes to bulky letters?)

I really liked how the papers look as the flowers. I am thinking I might make some slightly bigger ones to hang up on my christmas tree.. give it a nice vintage, nostalgic feel.

For the envelope, I printed on of the labels from my collection and a brown paper bag I had laying around. I really like how it looks, and will probably go shopping for more brown paper bags.

wouldn't it be fun to have this tape to tape up the back of the brown bag envelope? I.want.some.please!

How to ... easy thank you note

I love the holiday season! Its such a good time to reflect and think about the past year. I usually find myself so thankful for all the wonderful people in my life. So, I thought, what better way than to make little tags, attach them to some sort of gift (which I haven't discovered yet) and hand deliver these little thoughts of gratitude to the people around me.

I knew I wanted to use my Give Thanks Collection and come up with a hybrid tag.

I was able to print all three flashcards, and enough random papers for punching to make all three of these tags...

I thought I was "so smart" on this tag.. for actually punching the tag itself, along with layering butterflies on top... :D

But, I can't wait to attach these little beauties to a yummy treat and go deliever them. I always think little note of gratitude are more appreciated than we think!

For these tags I used...

Give Thanks flashcards

Give Thanks digital paper 1 - to punch butterflies

Give Thanks digital paper 2 - to punch butterflies

Give Thanks flashcards FREEBIE

Martha Stewart Butterfly Punch

and... don't forget!... the entire Design House Digital shop is on SALE all weekend... pick up my stuff here...

While running across...

...my favorite blogs, I ran into this wonderful idea via this blog and knew that I had to try it out. The original concept was to use fabric and just have a fun dry erase board, but I thought to hybrid-it-up a bit and make a calendar with my Happy Camper collection found at DHD.

I think using paper in the background was easier than fabric. It was super easy... 1st - measured the frame I wanted to use, 2nd - designed up a calendar in photoshop (or elements), 3rd- printed, 4th..5th..6th..7th - cleaned glass in frame, cut out paper, put frame back together, doodled with dry erase makers. pretty simple.

It was a very fun, cheap (I used a frame I already had and was not using) and crafty way for me to get a cute calendar out where I will actually end up using it!

Is summer here?

The weather is saying it is not summer, but I feel the tingling in my bones. Its like christmas for me. I.love.summer..

And, I cannot wait to go camping this year. It is always so relaxing to wake up in a tent and know that you are completely surrounded by mother nature.

But, since it is cold and wet outside, and yet I am stilling at home in my shorts and flip-flops, I figured I might as well do a little "planning" for the summer activities. And so I came up with this adorable little envelope. ..that would be about the extent of my planning.. I know I am a lot of help..


I printed it out with my new "happy camper paper pack 2" from DHD, as well as one of the labels from the "happy camper embellishments". You can buy the complete set here.

I am planning on printing these out and sending them off with my girls teach at church. They have a church camp they go to once a year, and I don't get to go.. boo. So hopefully, this will be just as good! Who wouldn't love one of these cute envelopes full of treats, notes and what-nots?

(Oh, and have I told you how I love the plaid in this kit? I really want to print each page out as a different envelope..)

click on the image above to download.. and don't forget to "follow" my blog

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Travel Log hybrid scrapbook...

This is my first attempt at making a hybrid-chipboard-mini-album.. whoo.. that was a lot. But, I think it ended up being perfect.. and very fun to make! I highly recommend it.. especially if you end up staying up until the wee hours of the night to finish it.. it is so.much.more.fun..

I had a bunch of pictures from when my family came to visit us (a couple weeks ago) and they matched perfectly with my new kit Travel Log. So, instead of making the usual scrapbook pages, I thought it would be more fun to dress it up a little in the way of a mini album.

I, once again, did most of the work on the computer. Laying out my pages, even figuring out what accents would go were. I was then able to easily print the layouts out on a page and the 3d accents out on another.

I did have to do a lot of cutting (since I don't have any sorts of die-cutting machine.. but I am in the market...) but most of the shapes were pretty boxy, except for the flowers.

I had planned on only have one spread for each day of the vacation, but when I came to the second day I found that I had a lot more pictures that I wanted to include. (we had actually ended up doing a lot of fun things that day, and I wanted to highlight every event) So I, cleverly.. hehe.. came up with the idea of having just a paper insert full of photos. The journalling still went on the chipboard layout, but this was an easy way to add more photos without having to go buy more chipboard.



I tried to come up with a lot of different ways I could add some 3d feel.. without it looking like I just did the same thing over and over. So I accented by mounting some embellishments on extra chipboard, I puffed some up with foam squares, I added ribbon, paper flowers, paper tags, twine, and a fabric brad. Over all I think every page is unique, but also coordinating..





So.. here are the kits I used to make this album (new today!) and I also used funky fiber ribbon from making memories, twine from divine twine, and brads from Recollections

on how to make a flower...

I have been asked how is it I make these flowers that I so love to do. It is quite simple, and simply, quite fun!

You can use any size paper, but for the flowers above I used strips that were 1/2"x5". To begin, you can do some of your distressing by inking edges, crumbling up the paper to give it more wrinkles {as seen here}, etc...

You then proceed to pinch the "accordion" fold the paper. It depends on the size of your paper, and the size of the flower you want in the end. I wish I had the mathematical equation laid out for each size of flower, but it is really just eyeballing most of it.


And this is what the end product should look like, before the button/brad/etc is placed in the middle. Smaller flowers, obviously, will have smaller holes in the middle. And I could have made this flower with a smaller hole if I had done my folding differently. Then, once you get to this point, glue everything into place!

{See more of these type of flowers here}

Get the kit used for this layout for free! Start gathering up this DHD Blog Hop Kit here

So, I hope this helps, and hopefully I will be able to post some more techniques soon. As for the little blooming flowers above, I just didn't make a whole circle of folds, and used a very short piece of paper.

is it monday?

...I still feel like I am on weekend mode. And I really do not want to clean my house.. ugh. right? I dislike mondays for that reason. So, to distract my pity.filled.soul, I decided to scrap up a hybrid with my new "tu es jolie" kit at DHD. The colors on this kit are so vibrant.. I love how they printed. And what makes it even more fun, is that this kit looks gorgeous with black 'n white photos... and I adore b&w... mmm...

This picture was taken over a year ago.. isn't my little miss so sweet...

well, I guess the crafty project helped with my depressed.because.its.monday.mood... so on to scrubbing some floors and folding some laundry!

but check back tomorrow for some more fun.. fun.. fun..

hybrid freebie...makes me happy

I love freebies {well, I actually just love designing.. so why not share the love?} and I absolutely adore hybrids. So I magically put the two together... and this is what popped out. beautiful.

Its made from my collection, tu es jolie, which is really about taking a unique look at the beautiful things of life. And, while I was designing this collection, I was reminded of all the wonderful, beautiful people that have influenced me deeply in my life, and decided to make up a fun hybrid card to send to them in gratitude. So I am going to print it multiple times and send it off to some dear people that I very much love. And, I hope you do the same.

The file format is a jpeg, all set up on a 8.5x11 sheet - ready to print! Its really easy to make. All you do is print 'n cut.. and then glue the flower together. {the brad and strawberries are not included}

wanna try a hybrid?

so, I know that there are a few dozen different meanings when I through the word "hybrid" out. I could be talking about a hybrid car, electronic, etc, etc, etc...

but, what I am actually talking about is a hybrid digital kit - which is now at design house digital!
In digital scrapbooking lingo.. a hybrid kit is a kit where you print, cut and assemble the, so said, kit. And I have been working on this hybrid kit all week... ugh... it is the first "hybrid" I have ever done, and even though it has taken me a long time.. I am so pleased with how it turned out.

..please enjoy my overload of pictures..

so, please, snatch it up while you can and be all prepared for your next birthday party, rodeo, summer bash, carnival.. and the list is endless folks.

and, while you are over at DHD, you might as well take a quick look at the other goodies that have popped up in my shop..