Welcome to this edition of It’s in the Cards.  I love rounded corners, so I thought I should add a couple to my template.  I hope you have fun creating!

DOWNLOAD FILES HERE

Thanks Melanie for creating this terrific.  She used Imagination Creation by Stolen Moments and Studio Flergs

Love Sharon’s stitching on her take of my template.  She used I Scream, You Scream by The Design Girl.

Here’s a closer look at my creation.  I used Rainbows and Butterflies by Graham like the Cracker and WM[squared] Designs.

Can’t wait to see what you all can do with it!!

Challenge Reminders:

- You will receive one point for posting in the It’s in the Cards thread as well as posting in the It’s in the Cards Gallery.  You can receive an additional point for using a NEW ScrapMatters product; please make note of new products in your post.  At the end of the month, you will be entered in a random drawing that could earn you some BONUS Points!

- You have until the end of August 2011 to complete this challenge to earn MOS Points

-Remember no double dipping – you creation must be unique to this challenge.

-You don’t have to use ScrapMatters products, but we love when you do; remember beginning July 8, 2011, you gallery must contain at least 50% of ScrapMatters products.

Hybrid Clocks-Tick Tock!

It  is time for another Home Matters (actually it was time a few hours ago, but better late than never).  Today I made a clock. (REALLY-just now since I completely did not know it was the 8th).

To begin you need a clock that you can re-purpose.  There are lots of clocks out there.  I really like the Re-Style clock from Target because the printed face is about 7 inches (so I can print at home), it comes apart easily, and it is reasonable priced.

You will need to take your clock apart.  Remove the hands, but make sure you remember the order because they have to go back on the same way.  The hands pop off.  It requires a little force-so don’t be afraid (but save the receipt just in case).  Then you need to measure the diameter.

Oh, I almost forgot.  You have to have a design idea.  I decided to make a clock for my husband’s mother who is an avid seamstress and has a huge sewing room. She is also hard for me to buy for- so this will be a relief come Christmas.

There are some fabulous sewing kits at ScrapMatters.  I really love this one.

Now all you have to do is design your clock face in your editing program.  I make a circle the size of my clock face and go to town.  It is also helpful to put a dot in the very center, this just helps you when it is time to punch the hole in your clock face.  I also use gridlines.  After I print it out, I just cut and add the center hole.

Put your clock hands back in order.  I like to set all my hands to 12 before I snap the plastic cover back in place. If you forget this step you may find that your clock never really reads like.  If that happens you just have to pop off the cover and do this step.

Now I have a very nice gift for my Mother-in-Law that is personal, handmade, and inexpensive.  I hope you make many wonderful clocks for your home or for someone’s home.

Hi everyone and welcome to the Getting Hybrid challenge for the month of August. For this month, we will be hanging by a string by creating a mobile to hang around the house with just a few simple supplies.

To get us started, you will need the following supplies:
- Embroidery hoop or hoop created from cardboard
- String/ thread
- Cut out elements and circles
- Adhesive

Step 1: Select and cut out elements. Punch out or cut circles in complementary colors. I used Jady Day Studio’s Summertime Fun- At the Zoo and cut out 12 copies of different animals. In order to view the animals from any angle, I made mirror images of each animal so that they were double sided

Step 2: Lay out elements and circles per string depending on how long you would like each strand to hang from the hoop. I tried to make them about 18 inches long, interchanging between shapes and circles every other time
Step 3: Attach elements and circles to each strand either by stitching them together or gluing them to the string and attach each strand to your hoop. I attached the shapes to the fishing line using glue dots and then used a gluestick around the edges. Tie a string on both sides of your hoop to use to hang your finished mobile

Here are some wonderful examples from the creative team:

Tracy used He’s Out of This World by WimpyChompers to create an out of this world mobile

Melanie used Little Fish by The Design Girl to create an underwater adventure

Ami used Spring Chicken by Erica Zane to create a beautiful spring baby mobile

Thanks for such great pieces of inspiration ladies! Happy crafting and I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

************************************************** ********
The details:
-You will receive one point for posting in this thread & in the Getting Hybrid Gallery

-You can receive an additional point for using new ScrapMatters products; please make a note of new products in your post. And at the end of the month you’ll be entered into a random drawing that could earn you some bonus points!

-You have until the end of August to complete this challenge to earn MOS points.

-Remember no double dipping…your layout must be unique to this challenge.

- You don’t have to use Scrap Matters products, but remember your SM gallery must contain at least 50% SM product beginning July 8, 2011

Hi Everyone! Cathy here with an interactive card for this “It’s in the Cards Challenge”. There is a window and a dial so that you can change up what display’s on the front of the card. I’ve included instructions in the download file.

Here is a preview of the file and a sample card.

My sample was made using the ScrapMatters Design Team Collaborative kit “Cupcakes and Candles”

Here you can see a different item showing through the display window:

Download the template HERE.

Let’s get a look at some other samples made up by our awesome creative team.

From Carina using Footloose and Fancy Scatters by Graham Like the Cracker and the Rainbows and Butterflies kit by WM Squared Designs and Graham Like the Cracker. I love the little birdie peaking through the window.

If I got this card I’d be intrigued to find out what else I could see when I turn the dial!!

Karen has created this very colorful and fun vacation greeting. She used Heat Wave: Beach Fun by Band Geek Designs I just love all the sweet treats that are hidden in the window.

Rebecca used the wonderful ScrapMatters Design Team Collab kit Tropical Float to create this ultra happy celebration card. Check out the spirits awaiting the recipient on her card!

Look at this wonderful creation by Sarah. She used Just Peachy by GeniaBeana Scraps. I just love how she changed up the template to use the window to display her sentiment!

The card that Tracy made is such a sweet way to celebrate a special anniversary. I just love all the sweet hearts! She used A Dreamy Day by The Design Girl.

Here’s a review of the challenge rules:

-You will receive one point for posting in this thread and in the “It’s in the Cards” gallery
-You can receive an additional point for using new Scrap Matters products; please make a note of new products in your post.
- since this challenge is starting so late in the month, it will run through August. At the end of July or August (depending on when your project was posted) you’ll be entered into a random drawing that could earn you some bonus points!
-You have until the end of August to complete this challenge for MOS points.
-Remember no double dipping – your layout must be unique to this challenge.
-You don’t have to use Scrap Matters products, but we love it when you do!

I hope you’ll join us for this challenge! Happy creating!

Hi Everyone!  I should probably introduce myself since this is my FIRST ever post on The ScrapMatters Blog.  Well maybe I shouldn’t since I am not following the instructions for the post to a T.  I have found the ScrapMatters team to be so much fun to work with so maybe I will get away with it.  Since I am crossing my fingers that this will be  the case, My name is Tamara and I go by tsmspt in the forum at ScrapMatters.  What part of the instructions am I choosing to greatly adapt to better fit my needs?  Well, I am supposed to be giving you some kind of detailed tutorial for creating some hybrid goodness.  But I am really hoping that by giving something away all my transgressions will just be over-looked.

What inspires my Rebellion?  A picture is worth 1000 words. So here is it.

What you see here is a big stack of Make it yourself purses that I bought 3 years ago.  In my mind, I would just make them  up for all the women in my life and give them away for Birthdays and Christmas.  I have managed to make quite a few, but still I think I need to reclaim some of the closet space.  So as we visit my project, start thinking of a great Purse idea that you would make and leave a comment for a chance to give one of my Purses a “purse”pose.

I really have been stumped with ideas.  And just found my inspiration a few days ago.  One of my best friends in the whole wide world just had a Birthday (thank you FaceBook for the reminder).  She is a wonderful wife and mother for 3 great kids.  The oldest of her bunch has Autism.  She is definitely a strong advocate for her child and I love and respect her so much.  Now I am halfway through with my project-I have found a recipient.  Next I needed a fabulous kit worthy of the daily joys and struggles my great friend goes through.  I found this Gem of Elements by Amy Stoffel, which was inspired by her family life.

Pretty exciting!  The purse I have has two 8×10 top loading slots. So all I needed to do was create two 8×10 landscapes and print.

Next, I just loaded the print in the protective sleeve and added a bow.

I really hope she will love it.  If you have an idea for a purse, please leave a comment here and I will come back on 7/24/11 at 9pm MST and pick and winner.  Can’t wait to see what your “Purse”onality is!

Good morning and happy Sunday, everyone! I’m sorry I’m so late with the blog post from last Thursday – I put the challenge up in the forums and completely forgot to add it to the blog!

I hope you enjoy this template I put together. Use it for inspiration or use the layers as clipping masks, replace some or all of the elements with physical embellishments, and most of all have fun!

You can download the template HERE.

and here’s a preview:

My sample, using Ice Cream Dreams Papers and Elements by Jennifer Labre, part of July’s ScrapMatters Mix-a-Kit Collection.

And here are some gorgeous samples from our fantastic team members:
By Rebecca (reboscraps), using Amused by Erica Zane

By Tamara (tsmspt), using Summertime Play – Backyard Fun by Jady Day Studio

By SylviaB, using Serenity by Happy Scrap GirlBy Karen (bydelstorp), using Forget Me Not by Andilynn Designs

By Carina (cinna), using Sultry Summer by Erica Zane and LDrag Designs and Typewriter Alpha by Graham Like the Cracker

I hope you enjoy and find some good uses for the template!

With summer at its peak, there are many opportunities to get together with family and friends. Then why not make the gathering more joyful by preparing some custom hybrid decorations? Check out the many options in the shop and get inspired!

Krisi’s Kreations has some fabulous templates to decorate the table:

and a fun idea to spruce up bottles and glasses:

And check out these adorable flag templates by Simply J Studio, they are perfect to decorate cupcakes, sandwiches, fruit or cheese!

I hope you’re enjoying the summer! Come share your hybrid creations in the gallery!

Happy summer every one! Melanie here with July’s Getting Hybrid challenge. Ever since the first time I saw one in a kit, I have had a love affair with banners. I love using them on my layouts and it’s even more fun making them! So this month we’re going to be making banners, banners or flags. I made mine for our 4th of July fun this year and I styled it after one I saw online while looking for new ideas. The base is brown paper bags! I love the way it turned out. Here’s how I made it:

First off I got my digital pieces printed, cut out and all my supplies together. I know it looks like a lot, but this really wasn’t hard. Oh and for my digital pieces, I used Yankee Doodle by WM[squared] Designs & Band Geek Designs and Basic Stamped Alpha by WM[squared] Designs. My other supplies included:
standard card stock, brown paper bags
Pop-up glue dots, glue stick, string
Ribbon, silver glitter glue, small brads and staples

The first thing I did was glue my letter block onto the brown paper bags. I used the glue stick for this step.

Next I used my finger to spread the silver glitter glue all over the paper stars I printed and cut out. Once those dried I attached them in different spots on the bags – one on each bag – using the pop-up glue dots.

Next I took two of the little ricrack pieces I printed and cut out and stapled them together, adding a small piece of ribbon behind them. Then I used the stapler to attach these to the top left corner of the letter blocks on the bags.

And my last step was to attach the bags to the string. I started at the end and worked my way to the left. I simply turned the bag over, folded down the top and put the string inside the fold. Then I used two staples to secure the fold and hold the string.

Then I took two small pinwheels I made and hung the finished banner up!

Banners are so much fun and can be used for just about any occasion. Need help getting started? Our hybrid designers have to perfect templates to get you going. Check them out:

And here’s some awesome inspiration from the CT. They totally rocked this challenge!

Rebecca made this super cute banner using Timless Elegance by Kim B. and Krisi’s Banner Template

Sarah made this awesome little flags for muffins using Simply J Studios Cupcake Flag Template V.1 and Yankee Doodle by WM[squared] Design & Band Geek Designs

Ami got ready for birthday fun using Simply J Studio’s Bunting Template V.2 and Haynay’s Yum Yum Paper pack

Sharon made this super cute banner using Fabulous 4th by Meredith Cardall

And Tamara got ready for her hubby’s return home using Simply J Studio’s Pennant Banner and Yankee Doodle by WM[squared] Designs & Band Geek Designs

So come join us in the FORUM and add some fun color to your house this summer with a banner! I can’t wait to see what you create!

The fine print:
-You will receive one point for posting in this thread & in the Getting Hybrid Gallery

-You can receive an additional point for using new ScrapMatters products; please make a note of new products in your post. And at the end of the month you’ll be entered into a random drawing that could earn you some bonus points!

-You have until the end of July to complete this challenge to earn MOS points.

-Remember no double dipping…your layout must be unique to this challenge.

-You don’t have to use ScrapMatters products, but we love it when you do!

When Cristina asked me if I would like to take this month‘s Hybrid Corner I gladly agreed, because I absolutely needed to get started on my vacation planner if it was supposed to be useful for the planning process of our summer vacation at all. And it was a good thing I did! Life is so busy at the moment, that I had to put in some nightshifts to get it done for today.

To justify the investment into my Bind-It-All I made my planner from scratch, but if you do not have the tools or want a quicker project you can just as well take spiral notebooks apart to decorate the covers and to add a few custom pages/dividers, and put it back together after. Or you could use a ring binder and decorate the front, or bind your book with binding rings or even ribbon.

So, let’s get started. I first searched a kit that I wanted to use and found Jady Day Studio’s wonderful new travel kit: Summertime Fun – On Travel . I just love the vintage feel to this kit.

The next step was to figure out the size I wanted my planner to be so I knew what the right size of my canvas for the covers would be. – I chose international size A5 which is about half a legal size page. And this is what my digital cover looks like.

I copied this image onto a new blank A4 (~ legal size) canvas to print.

On the back cover you can see the shadowed part in the middle. That’s the actual cover. The extra width is to wrap the cover paper around my chipboard. I shadowed the actual cover part so I could better see the boundaries of my cover for the placement of embellies and such. It would be good to remember to take the shadows out before printing, though. (*cough cough) Fortunately they are not really visible on the finished project.
One thing to remember is that the canvas for the back cover needs to be decorated on the opposite side from the cover page. On the cover the binding will be on the left, and on the back cover it will be on the right side.
But I also just now realized that I actually flipped the document over for the back cover and did not renew the background paper so the printing is now a mirror image *lol* . What is the saying, a few mistakes make a project more charming?

After printing my cover sheets, I sanded the edges of my chipboard so the edges would be a little smoother in the hope that the wrapped paper will not break so easily at those edges, positioned my chipboard on the printed cover sheets and adhered it with Modpodge.
I then cut the corners off, put strong sticky tape on the edges of the printed sheet and wrapped the paper around to the back…

…decorated it with a strip of another of the kit’s papers, and covered the inside with a piece of matching cardstock.

The same with the back cover

I then printed some extra pages that I scored and folded down the middle of the long side to use as dividers.
And I also made two pocket dividers to store receipts, tickets and other stuff you collect during trips. To make these I also printed on whole sheet of paper that I scored down the middle. But instead of just sticking the two sides together like with the divider pages I glued one strip of paper between the fold to close the bottom of the pocket.

Then I took a longer strip that I punched with a border punch, put sticky tape right next to the punched edge and aligned this with the edge of the pocket page. That way the pocket will be wider than if you just glue shut along the edge, and will also stick out a bit so that it can be used as a section divider as well.

I alreaday designed the inside pages for last year’s book, and I was quite happy with that book, so this part was easy as I just needed to print out some more of them. Two of the inside pages fit on one sheet of my printer paper and I printed double sided. The headers of the pages are: To Do, Shopping List, Packing List, The Trip (to journal about the long drive there, things to remember, and as reference for next year’s trip – good or bad rest stops etc ), This was Week…(the part where I journal about our activities etc.), Addresses, Notes, and some pages without header for anything that comes up unplanned.
On the picture the printed pages are already cut in half.

Here’s all the divider and pocket pages. For the second pocket page I used a paper that I love from Wendy’s (WM[squared]) travel kit The Great Escape. I also punched three tabs for the divider pages

Now that I had prepared all the parts needed for the book I could start the assembly. As I already said I bound my book with my bind-it-all. What I also like about this way of binding it is that I can store the pen inside the rings and always have it with my book.
And this is my finished vacation planner and journal. I have some extra papers and elements printed so I can add some more embellishments later on if I want to. A diary is a work in progress and that also goes for the decorations, right?

And some images of the inside pages

As you can see we already started using it.

It is really fun to have and use your own custom made vacation planner/diary and I hope you enjoyed my tutorial today.

Karen (bydelstorp)

Welcome all to this month’s edition of Home Matters.  Ami here with a quick little project to help spice up your fridge.

I’ve always been drawn to magnets- for the most part they are inexpensive.  Whether its a memento from travels or a sovenir for a friend, a magnet can be a quick gift that shouts “hey, I was thinking about you!”.  I have found that the inspirational magnets tend to be a little more pricey.  So today, I am going to show you how I’ve made my own using some of the wonderful product in the ScrapMatters store.

First I gathered up my supplies!  Some bottle caps, a few spare magnets, my glue, a hot glue gun, pop dots, a hammer, a block of wood and my trusty scissors.  Then I did a quick search of the ScrapMatters store for flairs.  Did you know that this turned up 181 items?  Now that’s a lot of options!  For today’s project, I am going to be using:

So after a little playing around (and some help from my husband), I found that I preferred the look of the bottle cap to be neatly smashed with the ribbed edge to be folded towards the inside of the cap.

I then measured the diameter of the cap to find it was almost an inch.  I opened my scrap program (PSE 6) and created a quick template of 1″ circles using the elipse tool and these settings -

Using the template I created I sized the flairs to fit, printed and cut them out.  For extra stability, I printed on watercolor paper and coated it with mod podge.  Once dry, it was time to affix the flairs and the magnets to the bottle caps with the hot glue gun.  Here’s my new set of magnets-

Thanks for looking!