Hi everyone! Christine here, hosting a week about hybrid scrapbooking and crafting! You may have heard the term "hybrid" scrapbooking before. But what does it mean? It sounds kind of mysterious! I'm here this week to demystify "hybrid" for you! Simply put, "hybrid" just means combining digital + paper to create a scrapbook page, cards, or any other craft project.
So why would anyone want to do hybrid scrapbooking? Here are some reasons.
- You don't need to buy a bunch of physical supplies like traditional scrapbooking. All you need is a computer, a printer, and some digital graphics. You print what you need and you don't waste paper. It's actually quite environmentally friendly!
- It's inexpensive. Buying only the digital graphics you need and printing only what you need for your projects saves money.
- It's instant gratification. It is 11pm and you finally have some time to yourself to make a page. You don't have the exact graphics you need, but you find it online at a digital scrapbooking store and purchase and download it right away.
- You can make highly customized and personalized projects using digital graphics, such as custom digital cut-outs and t-shirts.
- You are already using your computer to process and print photos, why not take it to the next step?
For me personally, I started scrapbooking digitally in 2006. It wasn't until 2011 that I integrated traditional paper scrapbooking into my life. Just like in life, I don’t like to limit myself or pigeonhole myself into categories that can be counter-productive to creativity. I love to use whatever tools are available to me to be creative, whether that means digital or physical items. I am a scrapbooker and life-documenter. It doesn’t matter to me whether I’m documenting my life on my blog, on a digital layout, a paper layout, a hybrid Project Life album, or any combination of the above and more. I use digital tools like Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Silhouette digital cutter, and even my iPad to help me create both digital and physical products to put on my pages. It’s exciting to me that we live in a time where we have all these tools at our disposal to create anything our heart desires. The line between digital and paper scrapbooking is very blurry for me. Almost all photos are digital now. So if you process your photos digitally, and add some journaling on it and print it out, are you paper or digital? Both!
A very simple way of hybrid scrapbooking is just typing journaling onto your photos before printing them out. You can also use digital brushes, or just doodle on the photos yourself using Photoshop or PSE, or even your iPad. I do this for photos in my Project Life album a lot.
Using Ali Edwards Beach Outline Banners.
My own handwriting using a Wacom Bamboo Tablet on my computer, plus typing the day and date.
A combination of my own handwriting and typed journaling.
What do all these projects have in common? They all involved a computer and some digital tools!
I'm very excited to host this week of hybrid scrapbooking/crafting with you! I can't wait to show you more projects using digital + paper, including Project Life, cards, layouts, Silhouette print & cut, and other fun crafts!
Hybrid Week header graphics made using digital graphics by Kate Hadfield.
