Hi everybody!

Petra here with my first Clique blog post!
This month I created a "handmade with love" item. I decided to make a present for my mother, it has been a bit bumpy for her lately so a sweet, cute and girly gift fitted perfectly.

I made a gift bag with a notebook for her, she has a smart phone, but you know how it goes ;) an old fashioned note book is way more handy than that flat black little thing..
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I used the gorgeous Les Jardin base kit by Maggie Holmes/Crate Paper.
Those pinks are so cute! Since I love to fuzzy cut, I fuzzy cut a bunch of flowers and decided to create a shaker element on the front of the gift bag. In this kit, some super cute shaker material is included!
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I covered the notebook with a sturdy cover I enforced with tyvek. The pen can be placed in the spine so you never have to look for a pen.
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Again I put some of those gorgeous flowers on the cover, togehter with that Thanks-window, which I opened up and added a small amount of that shaker material again.

Hello crafty friends! Rita here with some new projects I wanted to share with you. I don't know about you, but I loooove to document my December in a 6x8'' album. It's such a special month and I really love everything about it, so I make an album to capture these moments and the best part: I can use all the cute christmas collections. For this year's album I chose Crate Paper's "Hey Santa" as my fave. First of all I made a cover for my album. This was kind of my first "experiment", because I haven't done something like this. I used my Ipad and the "Procreate" app to create it and I'm happy to share it with you here. My version is in german, but I changed it to english, so you can use it. 

LetI cut it out on a 6x8'' page and painted the background with watercolors. Afterwards I used the pretty stickers from the "Hey Santa" kit to decorate it. I also put some snowflake stickers on the back, so it would shimmer through. I backed the page with vellum and machine stitched around it. Let's look at some close-ups. Maybe you'll notice that I also used metallic watercolors. I love how they correspond to the golden puffy stickers.

I also made a little pocket which I included in my album. It also was kind of an experiment, because I played around and made it without instruction. First I folded it, but before glueing everything together I handstitched some of the snowflake with pink yarn, similar to the color of my album cover. 

Then I decorated the pocket with die cut pieces and stickers. 

Finally I want to show you another page I made using acrylic paint, stamps and embossing powder. The first thing I did was to use my embossing stamp pad and powder to achieve a shimmering effect. Then I used acrylic paint and a dotted stencil. While it was drying I used the stamp set by The Stamp Market on vellum and embossed it as well. Also I made some snowflakes with a die. This one is by Mintopia but everyone is suitable. In the end I used the different branch stamps to make some highlights and machine stitched around the page again. 

I hope you liked my "experiments". Make sure to follow me on Instagram to see more December Album spreads which I will post in the next couple of days. Here are some of the products I used and the download file: 
Paper Pack | Hey Santa + Falala
Acrylic Paints 
Ink Pads 
Clique Chromatics | Nordic Pine | Add-On Kit
Sweet December | Hey, Santa | Crate Paper 

Thanks for stopping by today! Wishing you all happy Holidays and a happy new year! 

 Hi there friends and yay for Friday! Gia here with another BIG photo layout! You may recall last month I showed you this one where I used a HUGE photo of my son and friends on the beach with the Studio Forty Bom Día Sampler. Today I have Part 2 of my experiment playing with bigger photo layout designs. You know how they say, "Go big or go home", right? Why not be bold and really give a special photo center stage? This time, however, I used a big photo not so much to dominate the page, but more to offer balance to a really bold paper pattern. Some people find bold, colorful patterns difficult to work with and one of the ways to offset the heavy weight of a demanding pattern is to offer some counter weight to level the playing field. A big photo with a major impact won't get lost in all that BIG color, right?

"Taffy" is one of the 12 x 12 patterned cardstocks in the recent Maggie Holmes Sweet Story collection from Crate Paper and as soon as I saw it I knew that I would design a layout just to feature it!  Some of the embellishments from Sweet Story, like the ephemera and the butterflies were included in the New Normal kit from this summer so I decided to pull those out and use them up! 

On Father's Day I got my wish of being one of the subjects in a photo shoot of a mural in our little town of Wailuku, Maui. I love taking mural photos, but I am usually the one taking the photo and not in it. I will never forget that my 12 year old boy was willing to take the time to be photographer that day and I will always cherish the photos we got that day! 

First I cut out the large arch that takes up the left 2/3rds of the paper and I enlarged my photo to about 8x8 so that it would be able to fill the entire space under the arch.  After that I went to town with the dimensional butterflies and used a piece of acetate ephemera for my title! Since the big arch photo takes up the majority of the layout, there was not much left to do to finish it off! The butterflies really add movement around the page!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you took away some ideas for the big photos and bold patterns in your life!

Hello Everyone, it's Piroska here today with my latest layout for Clique International. It is best summertime here in Europe, we also enjoy our holiday right now. As it is highly recommended not to travel abroad, we have spent some time at one of our favourite places of Hungary, at the Lake Balaton. The Lake Balaton is the largest lake in Central Europe, and a favourite tourist destination. As Hungary doesn't have a coastline anymore, people like to call this lake the Hungarian Sea. The northern shore is surrounded by mountains, there are many wineyards there. The southern part is more flat, with some hills, and you can walk long into the water, so it is perfect for families with small kids. All water sports can be find here, there are also several sailing races here. And you can ride around the lake, such a tour means more than 200 km by bike.

The water is silky and green, all colours of green. We just love to bath or swim in it, but also just to sit on the shore and looking at the water. It has so many different colours, it is amazing! It is turqouise when the weather is calm (csendes), bright green if a storm is coming (vihat előtt), and greyish green if it is stormy (mérges). For my layout I collected such photos from our last trip there, in 2 weeks there was all kind of weather!;-P

I have used the Sweet Story 12x12 papers by Maggie Holmes /Crate Paper. For my background I used the B side of the Sprinkles paper, and I fussy cut some scallops from the A side of an other Sprinkles paper. I wanted to use 3 photos of the lake and 3 selfies, and having 6 3"x4" photos on a layout was new for me! I decided to do a grid design, having the six photos in 2 coloumns in the middle and on the right, and the title on the left side.

I cut my letters from the Taffy paper using the alphabet dies of Lora Bailora. I also cut the lettersfrom foam so that the letters have some dimension on the layout.

I also cut some floral elements from white cardstock and the Taffy paper using the Floral Bouquet Die of Lora Bailora and added them under the photos. I also added some cut outs from the Hey, Hello! icon ephemera pack of Pebbles. Finally I added some crystals to the layout.

I hope I could inspire you to use more photos on a layout - and visit the Lake Balaton once! You'll like it ;-)

Hello scrappy friends! Rita here again with a new layout, using the May Kit „Great Expectations“. This time I chose to make a mixed-media background. First I used an outlined Alpha Stamp Set (this one is by Studio Calico) and stamped my title. Then I colored with black water color around the letters, along the horizontal line of my layout and made some splatters.

When my Kit arrived I instantly fell in love with the „Wild“ Paper of the „All Heart“collection. I just had to fussycut out the vertically aligned flowers. I love how their colors pop out on the dark and white colored background. 

I used some sayings and hearts from the sticker sheet and the puffy sticker sheet to embellish my title and photo. 

Hello crafty friends! Rita here with a new layout, using the beautiful May Kit „Great Expectations“ and the 6x8 Paper Pad from the Junior Kit.

When I saw the Cut File by Paige Evans in her Facebook Group „Happy Scrappy Place“ the first idea for this layout was born. I instantly knew that I wanted to use it. I backed it up with paper pieces from the „All the Heart“ Paper Pad. This is what took most of the time. Then I made a mixed media background full of acrylic paint splatters. After drying I arranged my photo, a paper strip (with tiny icons on it) and one paper from the Paper Pad with the Cut Out and glued them on. To fix them better I machine stitched along the bottom line.  

Heart stickers and some sticker words and sayings from the Sticker Sheet were used next. The last missing piece was the tag in the left corner. I like that the thread hanging down makes a reference to my photo. The photos show my Clique Kits Planner by the way. I love to use my leftover pieces in it.

I hope you feel inspired by my layout. Don't forget to share your work with us on Facebook in our Group "The Clique" or on Instagram. We always love to see what you create.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting!  

Hello scrappy friends! Nicole here and today I'm sharing a super fun layout if you love to stitch! I'm using the May main kit only for this layout...let's get started!

I loved the moons and stars included in this months kit, however there really wasn't a "moon" paper to coordinate.  I took the paper with all of the stars on it and cut a moon into it, sewing a pink layer behind it.

I added my title around the left side of the moon to give that side of my layout a bit more visual weight.

I added my photo and layers along with an embellishment cluster to the left of my photo. I used the black string in the May kit for the stitching, on the tag and as added texture on my button.

Thanks so much for joining me today! I can't wait to see what you create with the May kits!

Hello scrappy friends! Nicole here and today I'm sharing my first layout with the May kits!  This months kit features a lot of softer colors from Crate Paper All Hear collection.  I'm not going to lie, I was a little intimidated by this collection at first because I'm a bold and colorful type of scrapper. However, I find now after working with this line on a few projects that it just might be my new favorite style!!!!  Along with the May main kit, I also received the color kit this month which is the beautiful water color kit from Amy Tangerine.  On today's project, I used them both to create this cute layout featuring our new pup, Odie!

Let me start by saying this dog has a personality that I've never seen in an animal before! He has such character and is so funny! This photo was taken on Easter Sunday and he was wearing his cute bow tie.  After all the playing and visitors, he fell asleep on my dad's lap and was sleeping in no time! I just thought how he fell asleep was so stinkin cute and funny!

Ok, so on to the layout!  I loved the rainbow paper for the background and knew I wanted to match that with a larger rainbow. I pulled out the new Amy Tangerine watercolors from the color kit and created my own unique rainbow. Once dry, I cut each color of the rainbow out and stitched it with my sewing machine.

Once adhered, I sketched and cut two clouds from some off white paper I had in my stash.  I stitched it the same way.  Once those two main elements were glued to my page, I stitched around the outside boarder of my page to tie it all together.

Next,  I added my photo, layers and only a few embellishments because I really wanted the rainbow and cloud to be the star of the show, next to the photo itself.  Lastly, I used the pink Thickers in the main kit to create my title. I didn't think it really stood out, so I put it on white cardstock and then trimmed around it. I think this finishes it off nicely!

Thanks so much for joining me today!  I can't wait to see what you create with the May kits!!

Hello Lovelies! Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Clique Kits! Theresa here to share a really fun layering page I made, using the Love Stories kit! I was inspired to use the tags included in the ephemera pack and on one of the cut apart sheets, which are from Crate Paper La La Love. Have a look at the layout I created.
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I have been seeing so many layouts using cascading elements, it is quite the trend these days! And when I saw all the tags in the kit, I knew I wanted to use them all on my layout. Tags + cascading elements is an excellent combination!
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I started at the bottom when creating the layers, and added one on top of the other. I recommend removable adhesive so you can move things around. I tried to alternate colors and type with patterned cards so the page was balanced. 
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Some of the tags are adhered directly to the card stock, and others are adhered using different dimensional pop dots. Not only are there so many amazing layers, but even among the layers there are different heights that show the fun elements peeking out!
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My favorite tag might be the glitter tag, because every layout needs a bit of black and glitter. I tied the glitter tag to the red tag beneath it, and then angled the glitter on purpose so it stands out a bit from the norm. That definitely ties in with our photo!
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The photo is of me and our daughter Natalie, and in it we are being so silly. I wrote in my journaling about how I feel about her these days, as she is coming into greater awareness about the world around her. I love making these layouts special love letters to our children that they will one day look back on and treasure.
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For my title I chose to use some of the scalloped word strips, because they are a unique shape and stand out against the rigid edges of the tags. This layout was so much fun to create! Thank you for following along with me today, I hope you are inspired to use up your tags in your kits. See you again soon! 
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Hello Lovelies! Theresa here today and I am so excited to share a layout I did with the Love Stories kit, a special release from the shop for Valentine's Day! Have a look.
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This kit came with some fantastic goodies from Crate Paper La La Love and Pebbles Loves Me, and I just wanted to use them all! It also included two sheets of really cool vellum. I love working with translucent elements and adding fun layers, so I punched as many hearts as I could from the vellums. Then I punched just as many from all of the patterned papers in the kit. 
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My goal was to add as many of those punched hearts as I could, and I figured the best way to do that was via a radiating circle from the center of the layout. So I adhered the paper hearts and then added the vellum on top with my sewing machine to keep everybody in place.
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The photo of course is the focal point, and I adhered that slightly to the left of center. This photo was an accidental capture of me and my husband Alan trying to figure out the timer setting on my phone. Our expressions crack me up and that is the inspiration for my title, Are We Doing This Right?! 
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I added the title in keeping with the circle theme around the photo, and then tied that into my journaling. The journaling is all about how sometimes this is how life feels. Sometimes it feels like we don't know what we are doing, and lots of days we really don't know what we are doing (!!!) but we are figuring it out together and I can't imagine doing this life with anyone except him.
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I also really wanted to include this adorable little sloth, so he is tucked in with the heart doily and heart die cuts. Also notice how I cut the photo to fit inside one of the adorable couple photos from the La La Love collection! I am loving the pop of blue! This was so much fun to create!
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Thank you so much for joining me today! Have you been playing with your Love Stories kit? We would love to see, so be sure to share and tag us!
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