Scissors Sunday - You Are a Star

Hi all, Sarah here today and I wanted to share with you the steps I take when making a hybrid card. Cards are both easy and useful so I make a lot of them and I'm hoping that if you've been putting off doing hybrid this blog post helps convince you that making cards is both easy and fun.

First I want to mention that I almost always start with a card sketch. I have a few go to sites for these and one of my favorites is PageMaps. I know a lot of you are probably familiar with this site because there are some totally fun layout sketches to be had there but in addition to these there are other sketch formats including cards and tags (both of these are totally fun for a hybrid artist). Check out the PageMaps archives for printable PDFs of these awesome sketches. For the card I made today I chose a sketch from the December 2007 CardMaps.

For this card I'm using Jennifer's fun new collab with Nikki Epperson: A Boy Named Trouble.



Once I pick my sketch and the kit I want to work with I then open up my scrapping software and create a 8.5"x11" canvas. I almost always make my cards 4.25"x5.5" (this is an 8.5"x11" sheet of cardstock cut in half width wise and then folded in half width wise). I like working with this size because you can get two cards out of a sheet of cardstock with no waste and they fit nicely in an A2 envelope (often known as invitation envelopes).

I start by cropping my background paper to 4"x5.25". If you decide to do a different sized card a good rule of thumb is to crop your background paper to .25" less both length wise and width wise to your card which will give you a nice even 1/8" border all the way around your paper. Next I layer the other papers and embellishments I would like on the card to make sure it all fits together nicely and the colors work together. Last I add a sentiment. In this case I just used my text tool and typed it in but you can also use alphas, word strips or wordart to add your sentiment. For those that are curious the font I used is His Name is Honey available at kevinandamanda.com which is a great resource for both decorative fonts and handwritten fonts.


After I'm happy with the way my card looks, I then move the items around so that they all fit nicely onto my canvas with no overlapping. Tip: Sometimes you have to rotate items to fit, like I did with the scalloped border.


Once I've done this I then print my card elements on matte presentation paper. I always wait until I print before choosing my cardstock so that I can make sure my cardstock color works well with my printed papers.


Once I've printed I start by cutting out what I can with my paper trimmer.


And then cut the remaining elements out with my scissors. For those of you that are afraid of scissors (and I know you are out there) my cuts are never perfect. In my opinion it's just part of what gives a homemade card it's charm.


Once all my papers and embellishments are cut out I then adhere everything to my card front (for this example I just used photo splits) and voila I have a cute card to send out to someone who needs to be reminded that they are indeed a star!