Hello friends, it's Gia again. The Creative Studio papers in the My Brilliant Friend International Series Kit inspired my to pull out some travel photos from long, long ago.

I started with one of the Aquarius collection papers in the kit as a background and used one of the stencils from the shop with texture paste mixed together with acrylic paint

One of my latest obsessions--the layered butterfly embellishments from Rosie's Studio. They are dimensional, translucent acetate, and some of them have glitter! Like I said- I'm obsessed. I decided we needed to stock them in the store because they are so versatile and who doesn't love butterflies?

The rainbow die cuts are print and cuts in the Clique Kits exclusive Amaranth collection. It is available as a digital download and the colors go well with a lot of the new kits and popular collections.

In this close up you can see all the layers and textures. For my title, I requested a custom cut file from Lacey Ann Designs on Etsy. Your custom cut file is available to download  in no time at all and she includes the outline and the solid letters plus a jpeg file to use as a thumbnail for future reference. 
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Here are some links to products used in this layout:

Amaranth Digital Kit
​My Brilliant Friend Kit
​Rosie's Studio Arabesque Butterflies

-xGia

I recently got my hands on some of the gorgeous new Doodlebug Love Notes collection and I am swooning over it! When I saw the globe and two love birds, this idea came to me and I totally ran with it! I do have to say, it was probably one of the quickest layouts I've ever put together.  Before I even started, I knew that I wanted the cut file to be the largest element on the page. I did some stash busting and found a black chalkboard paper, then coincidentally found the background paper with all of the smaller black hearts. It was PERFECT! I cut my heart cut file on my Silhouette Cameo 4, then laid it on my background. It got lost a little because there was so much going on, so I used my white gesso to smudge a heart right where my cut file would be.  After drying, I glued my cut file into place and began embellishing.  ​

​I started with my photo first.  I knew I wanted to use this specific photo and I knew I wanted to use the globe with the title "My World." For me, it's easier to start with what I know I want first, then embellish around it. 

  I spent some time fussy cutting papers from Doodlebug for added leaves and flowers. I also decided to stick the word "world" on white cardstock and fussy cut around it so it stood out a bit more.

Since my photo cluster was on the bottom right of my page, I added another cluster in the top left to balance the layout out.  I used a few die cuts and also two layered bird stickers with some enamel dots and thread to finish off this cluster.

​Lastly, since do everything in odd numbers, I added another small cluster of flowers and enamel dots. This seemed to bring the whole layout together.  After everything was adhered and in place, I added some black splatters and my journaling along one of the lines on the heart.


Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Be sure to head on over to grab this cut file along with all of the others!



Cut file used in this layout:
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You can download all of the Valentine's Day Freebies here. Share your projects with us on social media and use the hashtag #CliqueInternational so we can find them and feature you!

When I saw this bold watercolor stripe and floral paper in the Miss Mamamint Natura collection I knew it would be the first paper I used! The color combination of purple and coral is so pretty and goes so well with this selfie I took with my little boy 3 years ago on Valentine's Day. I knew that I could put together a lush layout really quickly because this paper as a background is three-quarters of the way done already.

In order to add interest to the flowers already on the background paper, I decided to use both the floral die cuts in the Natura kit which are part of the Miss Mamamint collection as well as some floral dies in my stash from Altenew and The Ink Road stamps. I liked the way the combination of solid and outline flowers created a visual diagonal across the page. 

No one said easy couldn't be pretty, right?

The X's and hearts were made with a new die I found at Flora & Fauna stamp company. I also used some word and phrase stickers from my stash. Sometimes these are a shortcut for journaling when you can find some sentiments that take the words right out of your mouth. 

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I hope you enjoyed seeing how fast and easy a layout can be when you start with beautiful supplies and a kit that has everything coordinated for you!
​-xGia

You can find the Natura Kit in the shop:
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Ciao bella! Gia here  excited to invite you to travel with Clique International to Italy where we found another amazing company in the business of designing and selling paper crafting products! Introducing Creative Studio, which is the featured brand on two of our most interesting International Series  February release kits!  "My Brilliant Friend" Kit combines papers from a number of different collections. It is named after a series of novels by Italian author Elena Ferrante which has been made into a series on HBO. (Season 2 starts in March!) Italy is a beautiful country with magnificent land and seascapes and since I have Italian-American ancestry it has a special place in my heart! The Lila and Elena Add on Kit is a bundle of more embellishments to stretch your kit even further. Make sure you place your order for these kits soon as they are selling out fast! I jumped in and used both kits to start to scrapbook some old photos I have of me back in 1994 when I was traveling through Europe by rail and spent some really memorable days in Italian cities like Florence, Pisa, Venice, Milan, and others.

For my background I used a craft knife to hand cut out parts of the watercolor floral frame paper and layered it over another paper so that the sky blue and floral pattern show through and add depth. I built up even more dimension by layering some die cut floral parts from the Aquarius die cut package around the framework. I messy machine stitched my title pieces to the layout with some black thread. In English it translates to "Florence" and "Follow your Dreams." Here are some additional close ups.

The only item in the kit that is not from Creative Studio are the little butterflies made from recycled newspaper.  I love the acrylic embellishments in the add-on kit. They are kind of like frosted shrinky-dinks and I love that they are dimensional but not too thick.

Product used in this layout:

On the other side I started knowing I wanted to use the rainbow striped cardstock. I cut down a 3x4 card out of it and used a circle punch on it. I attached a square of plain cardstock behind the square to make a space for a simple title. It’s a really easy and elegant way to feature a paper and focus on a sentiment.


Next to it I found a cardstock with a great pink next to the brand strip which had the same rainbow. I incorporated the edge I’d normally cut off and made this card with the rainbow stripes to the right to add some playful balance to the page. I then took one of my square photos and added some white cardstock underneath to make it look like an instant photo. 

​I hope you liked this look at what I did with the Fika kit and it inspired you to try some cardstock only techniques!

Product used in this project:

​Hello friends, Emma here again sharing my passport designer layout 'Escape'.


I don't know about you but I always find large print patterned papers a bit tricky to use, so I was determined to find a way to make it work for my layout. I'm super pleased with the results & I hope you like it too.

I began my layout by adding hand-stitched details to the big blue floral patterned paper from the Cocoloko Souvenir collection in 3 strands of DMC pink thread. I then selected sections of the paper to cut out so that I could create shaker windows, backing them with clear acetate. ​

​Next I used foam tape around the cut out sections to create the depth needed for the sequins to move around. Using a pink patterned paper from the same collection as my background I carefully position my sequins in place by peering through the windows before adhering the 2 pages together. 

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I then mounted my photo on many layers of patterned paper from the same collection & created a couple of tags to add to the layers. Using red-line tape I adhered my acrylic 'Escape' title to the bottom of my photo.

Products used in this layout:
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