Beat The Royal Mail Strikes With Hybrid Crafting

Hi everyone.

What is hybrid crafting? Along with “How can I hide yet more new craft supplies from my husband?” and “Why are there strips of red liner backing tape all over the dog?”, this is one of the questions that have troubled crafters ever since computers and crafting went to bed together.

There are various definitions for the word hybrid but my personal favourite is “anything composed of elements of different or incongruous kinds”. The key word here is “incongruous”. Put simply, computer and crafting should never have been bedfellows. One is mechanical, impersonal, cold and at times (usually when you’re in a hurry and need to print something out before the kids get back from school), unbearably frustrating. The other is handmade, inviting, warm and relaxing, at least most of the time. (That red liner backing tape again.)

In simple terms, hybrid crafting is just a mixture of digital crafting and non-digital crafting. Digital crafting requires an electronic device such as a computer to create cards, scrapbook pages, stationery products etc on a screen from digital graphics that can be downloaded from the internet or a craft company’s CD-Rom/USB and then printed out or left on the device. Non-digital crafting uses a collection of already manufactured items such as background papers, card toppers, embellishments etc have been bought from a shop or ordered online and require scissors, glue, red liner tape (yes, that again) etc to construct a physical product.

So what does this mean in practice? Well, instead of spending what is often quite a lot of money and only being able to use the items from a physical kit once, with digital crafting you can access an unlimited supply of printable papers, toppers, sentiments, scrapbook material etc at any time of day or night just by clicking and printing. And no having to wait for the postman to arrive either! Not only that but with a very easy to use graphics program such as My Craft Studio, you can re-colour, resize and completely personalise all the items, providing the T&Cs allow it.

Of course, no one is suggesting that the quality of a craft item you have created on your home computer and printed out on your home printer (although using high quality paper or card and the right printer inks can make a huge difference) will be as good as a professionally manufactured product. But in my opinion, having access to an infinite range of versatile craft supplies that are always available at the touch of a button and can still be used to create amazing physical products beats waiting for a striking postman to arrive, any day of the week!

But is hybrid crafting “proper” crafting? As someone who is a great advocate of both digital and non-digital crafting, I get asked this question a lot and my answer is always the same. Somebody, somewhere has originally designed your craft kit on a computer and had it professionally printed, then packaged and delivered to a retailer, ready to be sold or delivered to you. All you are doing with hybrid crafting is cutting out the middle man, or woman.

And if you are looking for unique, affordable and very easy to download digital craft supplies that you can use to make products like the ones in the image above, then look no further than my digital craft supplies Etsy shop at:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MelLawrenceCreative