Digital Card Trick

Happy Friday, everyone! Ron from Club Scrap here today to perform some slight of digital hand with a card trick!

Last week I showed you how you can make your Facebook and email birthday wishes really stand out by using a digital card. Today, I'll show you how that digital card can serve double-duty by becoming a hybrid card! And using your digital kit goodies to created a printed card helps you get more mileage out of your paper kits, too - we don't wanna be running out of CS paper now, do we?

Here's the digital card that I've chosen to work with:

I made it using Just Dandy - one of my favorite Club Scrap® kits (I know I say that a lot, but that's only 'cuz so many of them ARE my favorites!).

(I'll be using Photoshop 5.5 to create my hybrid card, but any program that supports layers should work just fine.)

1. Create a document that measures 8.5 x 11 with a white background, 300 ppi.

2. Drag all the layers from your card PSD file onto the new 8.5 x 11 document.

3. Determine if there are some 'complex' shapes that you won't want to 'fussy' cut - you'll need to leave those shapes on a piece that will be easier to cut out (or you may opt to just leave that item off your final design completely).

4. Remove all layer styles and delete any custom drop shadow layers that you created when the original card was designed - note: if you're leaving any complex shapes layered on top of other shapes, it's a good idea to leave the complex shape drop shadows in place.

5. Move the individual layers around on your 8.5 x 11 document so that there's no overlapping - you'll be printing and cutting these pieces out, so leave a bit of space between each item, and leave enough space in the margins so that things don't get cut off by your printer. I opted to cut out the dandelion, but printed an extra copy just in case I needed it!

Note: I normally elect to not include the base 'paper' from my digital card. instead, I'll use a coordinating sheet of CS paper cut to size as the card base and just use the rest of the pieces from the card.

6. Save your file (this way you can print out more copies later and make more cards!).

7. Print out the file on CS® Basics White card stock.

8. Cut out the individual pieces.

9. Ink the edges - it adds some extra interest and hides the white edge of the paper.

10. Assemble your card, using your original digital card as a reference for where things go. Use pop dots to add dimension. You can also opt to use real ribbon rather than the paper ribbon and you can add other embellies from your stash if you'd like.


Here's the finished hybrid card:

Now, wasn't that easy? I hope you found this helpful for yet another way to use those wonderful digital cards!