Hi friends!  I have a project life spread today in my 6x8 album, and I have a couple of things going on in this week's spread.

You might notice that the week I'm documenting is from earlier this year.  It was a tough week for my family and I knew I wanted to document it, but the time hasn't been right until now to go ahead and do that.

The other thing is that I love adding inserts into my 6x8 album, I feel like they make an album more interactive if that makes sense?  I used my favourite Clique Kits cut file as an insert this week, but I'll talk about that a bit later.

My supplies are from the May 2018 Riga Kit, with lots of beautiful pastels and that gorgeous specialty paper, the rose gold foil vellum.

I used one of the ephemera tags for my title card, and printed my week in one font and the dates in another. 

Here's a bit of an insight into what happened that week.  While our daughter and her partner were visiting us, their home which is about 800km away, caught fire.  Thankfully no-one was hurt and the fire was put out, but I can't even imagine what a helpless feeling it would be to be so far away.  The photo in the insert is a screenshot that one of our daughter's emergency services friends sent her.  Sometimes a picture tells a thousand words, and I really feel like this one does, so I wanted to make sure it was included for the week.

I've actually used two inserts in this spread, the 3x8 page plus my cut file.  You can just see the cut file peeking out further than the 3x8 and it's almost asking you to turn the page ha!

This is the centre of the spread once you turn the 3x8.  This week was actually when I found that I had been accepted as an Ambassador for my first term with Clique Kits and OMGosh, I can't tell you how excited I was!!    I used my sewing machine to stitch along some of the lines on the coffee cup in the insert for extra dimension, and let the threads hang loose.

The Lacy Mandala cut file that you can find here in the  Clique shop, is my absolute favourite cut file! It's just stunning and reminds me of a crochet doily.  Since this pattern is symmetrical you can easily fold it in half, matching the edges and patterns, to create a semi-circle as an album insert.  

First up I checked my measurements to make sure it would fit vertically in my album.  I needed to make it a little bit smaller, so I resized it in my Silhouette software before sending it to cut.  I backed some sections with patterned paper and left some unbacked.  I also sandwiched a semi circle of plain vellum as I was adhering the two halves together.  Love the semi-transparent look!

To hold it in my album I've used some old (ancient!) Basic Grey tabs from my stash, but you could easily make your own tabs by cutting a strip of cardstock, adhering it to each side of the insert and then punching a hole to slip over the binder rings.

And that's my spread for the week! Thanks for stopping by today and I hope I've inspired you to try out a cut file as an insert.

Hi  friends, it's Jodie here with you today and I have a sweet set of patchwork heart cards to share.  I love stitching on paper projects, so creating  paper quilted hearts is right up my alley, and it's really not hard to do.

I'm using the Clique Kits May 2018 Riga kit for these cards.  It's definitely one of my favourites of 2018, but then I say that for each month's kits hehe.

To give you an idea of the dimensions, these cards are 5x5 inches square, and the hearts are 4x4inches in total.

To create a heart quilt block, you need a pattern, mixed patterned papers (I chose 3 papers and the beautiful specialty rose gold foil vellum from the Riga kit), and a piece of scrap cardstock to create your heart on.

There are so many patchwork patterns available online, and all I did to find this one was Google 'heart quilt block'.

To create a similar heart to mine, start by trimming a few 1x1 inch squares from each paper, then halve them on the diagonal (just once) to create triangles.  You now have all the elements to your heart! Then it's just a matter of laying them all out in the shape of a heart, mixing the patterned papers as you go.  When you're happy with the overall look, go ahead and adhere each triangle down.  You only need a light adhesive at this point because you're going to stitch all of the joins with your sewing machine.  

Now is a good time to trim away the excess backing cardstock from around the edges of the heart, and then you can go ahead and stitch each inner line and around the outside of the heart as well, in a small zig zag stitch.  In no time at all you have an amazing stitched patchwork paper heart!

On the first card I made a cluster on one side, made up of some of the leaf ephemera pieces and a sentiment from the kit, and tucked in one of the bows underneath the cluster. 

For the second card I used the same method to create the patchwork heart, but chose papers with a warmer colour palette from the kit.  I also centred the embellishment cluster rather than having it on the side of the heart.

These patchwork hearts could be a fabulous background element to so many projects.  I've included one in a 6x4 pocket page before, you could use them in a travellers notebook spread, and you could also resize the 1x1 inch squares to make them bigger, and have a patchwork heart as a background on a 12 x 12 layout.  The possibilities are endless!

Thanks for stopping by today,  I hope I've inspired you to pull your sewing machine and patterned papers out and create some beautiful paper patchwork hearts.

Hello Lovelies, it's Theresa here to share a layout with you using the May Clique Kits kit called Riga! Our theme for this week is Anything Goes, and this layout fits that perfectly! The Riga kit came with some really awesome fabric banners, so they became my starting point for this layout. 

I was working with older photos from 2013 and came across this adorable photo of my daughter Natalie, when she was just four years old. The photo reminds me of her laughing, smiling, dancing self, and I wanted to invoke those feelings into this layout. I decided I wanted the banners to flow across the page and the photo would become a part of that banner. 
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I laid out my banner across the top of the page, allowing the banner to just flow across and create a visual line for your eye to travel. I marked on my patterned paper how the banner fell across the page, and then cut the paper along the wavy line. I have sewn that paper down onto plain white card stock so the banner would pop against the white.
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Then came the fun part: adding the banner and embellishing it. I added a few patterned paper banners from the Riga kit to fill it in, and ran my twine through the loops of the banners. I also left some loops in the twine and left the ends to flow off onto the patterned paper. I attached the photo with a little tiny clothespin I had in my stash, and now it is time to add a bit of journaling and a title.
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I decided to repeat the curved line I had created with the banner, so I created my title following that curve. My Natalie has always been such a delightful, happy, free-spirited girl so that is my title: "free-spirited girl." When I laid out the title it seemed to be floating a bit, so I added the tiny ball fringe beneath it. This really makes these curves a successful design element on the page! Once I had all that laid out, I knew my journaling had to go along that curve too.
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I absolutely adore my daughter's free spirit and often pray for her that no one will ever steal her joy, so I wrote a love letter to her expressing just that. I love using my layouts to give our children love letters, so that in the future they will read through our albums and find their love letters. This also helps my journaling process - when we write just like we would speak, the words flow conversationally. Here is one more look at this fun layout so you can see how it all came together!
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This layout was so much fun to conceptualize and share with you all! Notice how I just allowed the layout to develop, almost intrinsically, by building on those curves. I challenge you to try curves in your layouts this week, and be sure to tag #cliquekits so we can see! Thank you for following along today!
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Hi everyone, it's Theresa here sharing a layout all about encouraging myself and hopefully giving you a bit of inspiration and encouragement too! Do you ever, in your creative life, feel like you're not good enough? Or maybe just overwhelmed or even intimidated with everything that is out there, creatively speaking? Sometimes I do, and when I feel that way, I pick up my favorite kit and get busy creating. Using the Riga kit, this is my layout I did the last time I was feeling those kinda ways.

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Our product focus this month is Flair, so I gathered all my Clique Kits flair together and kept them handy as I created this layout! I love using flair as a wrap-around point for twine and other fibers in my layouts, and that is exactly what I have done here.
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I started with basic white cardstock and this photo of myself that has all the feel of bright hopes and dreams - all the things we should all remember whenever we need to encourage ourselves. I am practicing intentionally loving myself this year, and loved how the hearts in the Pinkfresh Be You collection allow me to convey that in this layout. I cut a bunch of them out and laid them out in a vertical arrangement on this page, and backed that side of the layout using the Maggie Holmes vellum.
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I then wrote myself a love note - do you ever do that? This is your challenge: create a layout about yourself and write yourself a love note on that layout! I also added a few of the embellishments from the kit, because every layout needs some beautiful florals, and I even added a few splatters using the DecoArt Extreme Sheen paint.
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Look at all the fun texture and dimension on this page! I selected three of my favorite flair and added those to my embellishment clusters around the page, and then I tied them all together using twine. I like to wrap my twine around my fingers just a few times and then let it fall across the page. Then I use the We R Memory Keepers staple board to attach the loops and keep them in place. 
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Notice that even though the twine appears to float around the page, it serves to lead your eye around the page from one flair to another. Something like orderly chaos, and the flair becomes the resting place for your eye at each of those points. Clever design.
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It was so much fun to share this happy layout with you today! Your challenge is to write a love note to yourself the next time you need a pick-up! Thanks for following along!
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​Hello Lovelies! It's Theresa here and today I wanted to share with you my favorite way to tell our family stories: in pocket pages. I have been using pocket pages for our family albums seven years now and I love how it has helped me tell our family stories all in one place! Some of my albums are complete and others I am still working on as I work through the current year, so today I am sharing a layout from our 2013 album. I am working with the May Riga kit, which features Pinkfresh Studio Be You, Let Your Heart Decide, and A Case of the Blahs collections. Perfect for story telling!

The lovely thing about pocket pages, and life itself, is how some weeks are hectic and busy, and other weeks are more quiet and subdued. That means some weeks might have tons of photos, and other weeks might have very few. For this layout I have combined two weeks, so Week 5 and Week 6.

When I do pocket pages, the photos automatically become the starting point for my stories. I love that I can snap a photo on the go, and then when I print the photo I know what story I wanted to tell to go with it.

The easiest place to start is always the date card, because I already know what my dates are. I have used heart shaped pieces from one of the patterned papers in the Riga kit to layer along with a label and a flair.

I will give you some tips today how you can include more stories in your pocket page albums!

1. Remember what was going on in your life during that time, even if you don't have specific photos for it. For example, in 2013 I was attending seminary, and while I didn't have specific photos from seminary, I knew that I had just gone back to school and that meant my creative time was replaced with study time. So that is something I included in my journaling for this layout. 

2. Remember that stories can be as simple as one small tag on a photo, just I have done on this image of my former studio. Just two words, "happy place" tell a story, along with the journal card above, of how I missed my creative time while I was in school!

Have a look here at the right hand side of the layout. The photos themselves might feel random, but it is the story telling that brings them altogether.

3. Remember to not only document things you love, but also why you love those things. In this photo below, I am documenting how we used to eat at Fuddruckers and they had the biggest rice krispy treats ever! I loved those so much. That restaurant chain is now closed, so I am happy I took that photo and now have that story documented in our album.

4. Use date cards to tell the overall feel of that time in your life. Again, on this layout I knew seminary was a big part of my life and even though there were no photos of seminary, I made it the main focus in my journaling. However, I made it relevant to the layout on this card by noting how all the people and things in my photos were the things that helped me get through school! These were all the things I want to remember.

5. Allow your embellishments to help you tell your stories too! In the photo below, my son Nick had just taken his testing for karate. The puffy sticker from the Riga kit sums up how I feel about the photo, about my son, and is an important part of these stories as well!

Telling stories is such an important part of what we do in our memory keeping, and I love that pocket pages make it so easy to tell our every day stories in such fun ways! 

It's been fun sharing this part of our life with you, and I hope you have found some helpful tips for telling your stories in your pocket pages! See you soon!

Hello, everyone!!!! Donna here today with you sharing my first layout using the  May 2018 "Riga" Main  Kit.  I love the fresh and soft colors in this kit which features different collections from Pinkfresh Studio.

And this is the scrapbooking layout I came up with for today's post:

I added a bit of texture by splattering some yellow, coral and green mists and also stamped images using teal, green and yellow inks. I used  a Vicki Boutin stamp from a previous kit.

The layout design is pretty simple but because I used a cut file and added colors to the background, I think it's safe to say it turned out really cute! To add height, I adhered the doily and photo with foam tape. Then, I embellished the left side of the photo with a small cluster of floral, leaves, and tassel bow.

The cut file is from The CutShoppe by Ashley Horton. I backed it with one of the papers in the kit that has multiple patterns. I used foam tape again to add height. Then, I alternated some of the itty bitty pennants in between the XOXO letters. 

And for the final touch, I randomly adhered sequins all throughout the layout.

That's all from me today! I hope you liked my layout as much I do. Have a blessed day! 
Happy crafting,

​Hi everyone,
My name is Angela Tombari, aka NG and I'm so excited to be here with you today on the Clique Kits blog!
What I'd like to show you is a double page layout that comes to life by chance, thanks to the beautiful 12x12 pattern paper of the Be You collection by Pinkfresh Studio, Sincere, which is in the Riga May kit.

​As soon as I saw it I've thought to un-structure it. Would you like to know how? Well, I started cutting all the stripes and sorting them by color. At that time, I didn't have the intention to make two scrapbook pages, yet.
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​Then, arranging the colors, I realized that it would be fun making two similar layouts, using the stripes divided by color, on a white cardstock.
​The first page I came up with is the bluish one.
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​As you can see in the close-up, I stitched each stripe with my sewing machine and glued them following the same design of the original paper.
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​I love stamping, so I created a frame of little words and phrases stamped all around the page to define the edge of the stripes.
​In the second page, I followed the same process as before.
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​​The shape of the stripes reflects the design of the other page, as if the pink triangle of stripe could slot into the other blue page.
The embellishments I used are always part of the Riga May kit, by Pinkfresh Studio. I didn't use a lot of them, because I wanted to focus on the design of the page.
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​On both the pages I matted the photos with a layer of stripes made of white cardstock  randomly watercolored with Distress Ink and, to make the page more dynamic, I used the same Distress Ink to break the white of the background with splatters of color.
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​Here is another close-up where you can better see all the details of stitching, stamping, splattering and layering.

​Voilà, here is the finished double page layout! 

​I hope you like this project of mine and to have inspired you somehow. Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!
Love,
NG

Join us today as we share the projects we have made with the April 2018 Winter Park Kits and celebrate the reveal of next month's kits...the gorgeous Riga kits ! Inspiration galore awaits on Instagram by searching these hashtags:
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Here are some peeks at the Clique Kits design team projects using the April Winter Park kit.

And here are some pretty cards!

Thanks to all of the sharing in the Clique Kits community on Facebook and Instagram we promise you won't run out of inspiration to get the most of your kits!

Now a little about the upcoming kits...The May kits are named after the city of Riga, Latvia because our May designer in the spotlight, Inna Moreva,  lives there! You may remember when Inna was designing many of the exclusive products for Clique Kits before she went on to design some beautiful products for our friends at Pinkfresh Studio. We decided to feature Inna's Be You collection this May, along with products from the Case of the Blahs and Let Your Heart Decide collections to round out the kits. We know you will love the soft, pretty color palette with coral, turquoise, and all of the beautiful rose gold!

You can find the full reveal of Clique Kits Riga Main and Traveler's Notebook kits on the kit pages. You will also want to stop by the Clique Kits shop and check the May release section for lots of products to add to your box that coordinate with Riga. Subscribers have until April 28th to make your add on purchases and have them ship with your May kit at no extra charge (weight totaling up to 2 pounds!)

​Here are some of my favorites!

I know that you will love the May kits as much as we do! I will leave you with a few sneaks of some of my upcoming posts.