A Hybrid Card

Yes, hybrid. You read that correctly. I've purchased and used individual digital images in the past, and I don't consider that "hybrid". Nope. That's printing an image instead of stamping it. I still die-cut it, color it, layer it, etc. with real crafty tools. To be truly hybrid, I believe part of your card needs to be printed and applied to the paper card untouched. That's my take on it, anyway.

So a month or so back, SU had a special on My Digital Studio, and in a Good Demo moment I caved and bought it. This past weekend, I actually installed it and played a little. My efforts resulted in this digital card:

Fun, huh? Yes, it is soooooooooo cheating on my stamps. I was riddled with guilt. Then I thought I'd try to print the card. 25 hours later ... sigh... no luck. For a computer professional, I was pretty inept. I begged the Demo of all Demos and the Queen of Tutorials - Ms Patty Bennett - for assistance, and she came through! She is awesome!

Unfortunately, now that I knew HOW to print, I got a clue and realized that I'd made a Kraft card base (I know, I know, it's Crumb Cake now, but MY package is still Kraft, so I'm going with it), and printing the whole card would use about $3545 worth of ink. Not such a great plan.

Plan B hit me Monday night. I saved the image as a jpg, then cropped only the center part of the square, copied it into a word document, and printed THAT on Whisper White card stock. SUCCESS! Whoo-hoo! I then layered that digital part on Marina Mist and Basic Black and put it on the card front. Ergo: Hybrid. Lookie:


(Oh, look, I put it on upside down. ;/) The cool thing about this is I don't have (read: cannot find) that stamp set - Best Wishes and More, and I don't have that patterned paper. But I do NOW! Let's get a closer look at the details:

Okay, maybe it's not as crisp-looking as the digital version, but I still really, really like it. Hey, you know what? I think the writing on that paper is upside down and backwards, like mirrored. Could be... could be. I blame my screen capture program - it has attitude. But who cares, really? The whole point of this card is you CAN use a digital element, in my case to fill a gap in the stash, and still make it a real paper card with layers and RIBBON and all that good stuff.

I am so pleased with this, I declare it project #4 of 4 for this weekend's Stamp Camps. I think The Ladies will enjoy making something "not Valentine's" and "not pink or red". In my world of serving suggestions, this is the palate cleanser.

That also means I have the rest of the week to play play play. :)

Thanks for stopping by!