I thought I’d share with you a card from my Spellbinders Design Team entry today. I love the bracket shape that is so incredibly popular right now. It just adds a bit of elegant whimsy to everything. By looking at it, this project may not seem like a hybrid card, but it is.

The 5×7″ body of it, as well as the scalloped edge was created with the Silhouette, which works really well for cutting large, unique card shapes.To create both shapes, I drew the vector outline in Adobe Illustrator, plugged the Silhouette into my Mac, and cut it right out. I’ve played with both my Windows PC and my Mac with the Silhouette, and they both work fine, I do like the software that is available for Windows better than the Illustrator plug-in. It has better pre-sets for cutting different types of material. Using the Mac gives me greater control over my designs… or at least it saves me a few steps. To create your own designs in Windows, you have to design it in Inkscape or Illustrator, export it, then import it into the Silhouette software. Cutting straight from Illustrator is a bit easier in that sense.

I love the Silhouette and the ability that it gives me to cut designs from my computer. It really appeals to the techie part of me. As shown in this card, there’s definitely room for both the digital cutter and the hand cutter. The textures (blue dot circle) and the embossing (tag) just aren’t possible with the Silhouette alone.

The stamp that matches the Spellbinders Reflections Butterfly is now retired, which is kind of a sad thing, because I really love the stamps that coordinated so well with the various Shapeabilities. They were just my style.

The dot stripe stamp has been my go-to stamp for almost a year now. I love Impress Rubber Stamps, and I definitely need more.

Thanks for looking!