Hi Nonnie - sorry it took me so long to find this thread, but how exciting!! I love it when a digi girl starts getting excited about hybrid!!
What I've noticed about hybrid girls is that everyone sort of has their own way of doing things and their own "style" and you just have to figure out what works best for you. That being said, I'll tell you what I do. I started out as a paper girl and then started dabbling in digi, so I tend to use my printed digi supplies just like I would supplies from my paper stash. Basically, I open up my digi papers in photoshop and "crop" them crudely into a rough size that I think will work for the card I'm making - sometimes I have NO IDEA what my finished card will end up looking like, but I know what size it's going to be (say a standard A2 size - 4.25 x 5.5 inches) and I know that I want to use these 3 digi papers on it, so I just resize and crop my papers in photoshop to 4.25 x 5.5 inches and then drag them onto a single 8.5x11 inch document (with a little white space in between each for trimming) and then print.
I print ALL of my digi stuff on double-sided matte presentation or brochure paper. And - VERY IMPORTANT - I make sure that each time I print I change my printer settings to reflect that I'm printing on this type of paper. I've found that this makes a HUGE difference in the vibrancy and quality of the finished printed stuff.
Once I've printed everything out, I use those printed papers just like I would any other "real" paper in my crafting stash - I cut it with my paper trimmer and physically layer it onto a cardstock base (I don't layer it in photoshop, but do my layering after I've printed and physically trimmed - this is a personal preference of mine because that's my style - I just prefer the way the finished card looks when I do it this way). I add either printed digi embellishments or physical embellishments from my stash (ribbon, buttons, brads, etc) to my liking. I use the same adhesive I'd use on my stamped or handcrafted cards. (Andrea recently did a Hot 4 Hybrid blog post about adhesive). I VERY OFTEN stamp on my hybrid projects. I'm a stamper and I'm on several stamping Design Teams, so I love incorporating stamping into my hybrid projects and my stamped images look just as good on printed digi paper as they do on cardstock. So have fun with your stamps if you've got 'em!!
Can't wait to see what you do!!
Feel free to ask more questions if you get stuck or PM me or any of the other Hybrid Babes - we're all happy to help! We LOVE recruiting newbies over to the "Dark Side"!!! BWAHAHAHAHA!!