Welcome to the August Pep Rally!  So glad you could join us for our monthly blog share showing off our projects made with this months Clique Kit- Glam Camp, where members earn product credits for participating!  In case you haven't seen it, Glam Camp has been blowing up our social media lately-thanks to the brilliant Market Street collection by August Designer in the Spotlight Jen Allyson and so many of the exclusives and special additions hand selected to go with it like the adorable vintage camper Webster's Pages vellum,  the exclusive flair and wood heart embellishments, and OMG those Fancy Pants Designs burlap bows. Not to mention some adorable Wild & Free elements like the Maya Road resin deer. 

Speaking of Wild & Free, this month's challenge was to create something with that phrase as inspiration! We'll be picking a challenge winner to receive even more honor credits this month good for product credit! I can't wait to see what each of our members in this month's honor society have created!
(Is it after 10 o'clock am Central Standard Time? Oh good, because otherwise, some of the links may not yet be 'live')

Here------->Clique Kits   
Gia
Jody
Erica
Lacey
Katie
Sarah
Cassandra
Stephanie
Mariah
Danielle
Alisha
Charity
Madge
Rosann
Tyra

Stop by each blog and leave some love- one lucky person who has commented on each blog will be selected to win a $10 store credit good for anything in the Clique Kits school store.  We are currently clearing out inventory to make room for lots of new and seasonal stuff coming in this fall! Woot! Honor credits do not expire- save or spend (or both) -your choice! 

Just a few reminders before you go off hopping on your way…

• Clique Kits has our First Design Team Call Posted and the deadline to apply is August 24th (that's this Sunday.) We have received so many amazing applications so far and are simply in AWE of the talent we are seeing! 
• The September Mood Board is up and guess what! Reveal is less than a week away! Stay glued to this blog August 25th for our full reveal of the September kit. Sneak Peeks will be starting later this week!
• We have a few subscriptions left open through October, but not many! If you haven't yet subscribed and are looking for a paper crafting community to call home please join us. Everyone is somebody in the Clique, and we love to make new friends both home (in the U.S.) and abroad!  
• Now let's all go do a little glamping!

Welcome back for our Clique Kits Student of the Month, Katie Smith's second post this month!!  She's back today with some wonderful projects for us.  I love how she mixed all the Glam Camp patterns from the My Minds Eye Market Street papers in each of her fun projects.  Katie really captured the essence of these beautiful Market Street patterns and combined them beautifully with the earthy textures and glam in Glam Camp.

Katie also rocked out the Lawn Fawn Wish You Were Here stamp set, found HERE in our Clique Kits school store.  You'll see the arrows, hearts, "wish you were here" and the fabulous states stamp.

And now for Katie's layouts!!  I just adore how she used a pen to accent the elements on her pages and how she added her handwritten journaling.  Outlining letter stickers really gives them some more dimension and makes them pop right off your page!  Such great details from Katie here. 

A huge Clique Kits thank you to Katie Smith for playing along with Glam Camp this month and sharing her creative spirit with all of us.  You can check out Katie's blog here and see more of her there.

Click.Connect.Create.

The Clique Kits Girls

Hey everyone!  Erica here with you today to talk about using busy, bold and fun papers on your layouts!  I tend to use white cardstock as my base for layouts or a very subtle paper as my layout base but I always admire when other scrabookers use the busy patterns in their layouts!  So today I am sharing a layout I created using a beautiful polka dot paper from My Minds Eye that is included in the August 2014 kit.  

Now this may not be busy for some scrapbookers but for me this would normally be cut up and used as a layer piece in my layouts but today I went for it and used it as my base!  Once my layout was complete and I stuck everything down and committed to using it I really did love how it looked!  

To keep my main focal point from looking like it was just floating on the page I adhered two strips of solid paper along the top and the bottom of my page.  This helps to ground your layout and give it more of a complete look.  I also used some cork embellishment from my stash to try and create a visual triangle to help your eye move around the page.  

You can see I also stamped out some tiny hearts from the Lawn Fawn stamp set Wish You Were Here pretty close to the cork embellishments.  The Fancy Pants corrugated paper adds some texture to my layout along with the May Arts string that was also included in this months kit!  Using busier backgrounds as a base for me will take some getting use to but I am up for the challenge!  How about you?  Do you love using a busy pattern paper as your base?  Feel free to leave your tips and tricks in the comments section below if you would like share!  I challenge you to pull out your busiest pattern paper and have some fun!  Share with us on Facebook or upload to our Flickr gallery!  If you are a subscriber and using one of your kits please upload to our Pinterest group board!  I am looking forward to seeing what you all share with us!  Thanks so much for stopping today!  I really hope you enjoyed my layout today as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you!  Our 25% off sale is still going on and some products in our store are already marked down so this is the perfect time to get some great deals on some fabulous products!  Enjoy your day!


Products used today
August 2014 Glam Camp Kit
My Minds Eye Enamel Dots
Lawn Fawn Wish You Were Here Stamp Set
July 2014 Kit

Aloha, it's Gia! I don't know if you heard this, but watercolors are a hot trend in paper crafting right now! I love to paint my own scrapbooking layout backgrounds with watercolors and today I am going  to show you a resist technique using stamps and embossing powder. 

First I stamped a feather pattern with a clear embossing ink pad. Then I sprinkled white embossing powder over the page and tapped the excess off. I used a heat tool to set the embossed feathers. Finally, I painted with my watercolors over the whole page in an ombre pattern with darker pink at the bottom.

Some of the My Mind's Eye Market Street journaling cards in the Glam Camp kit  were the perfect complement to my watercolor background with a similar soft watercolor look. 

I love the exclusive flair in this kit, and also used one of the extras in the School Store- the My Mind's Eye enamel dots. The arrow die cut was one of the cut files in this kit, and the transparency  is from the Studio Calico Wanderlust acetate card set.

I love how painting a background really stretches your supplies and achieves a totally different look. I hope you will give watercolors a try if you haven't already. The Clique Kits watercolor art set is a great way to get started right now, and is on sale for an additional 25% off by using the coupon code AUGUST25 at checkout. Thanks for joining me in the Art Studio today! 

-xGia

Hi everybody! It's Gia here so excited to kickoff our August kit reveal with some inspiration for you showing the kit in use! If you are here visiting and would like to get your hands on this awesomeness you are in luck! Go here and subscribe now before they are sold out! The full reveal of Glam Camp is shown on the Monthly Kit page. Not only is the My Mind's Eye Market Street line by Jen Allyson beautiful, this kit has been given the Clique Kits unique touch with some great exclusives that all coordinate maximizing your productivity scrapping along with us all month long! Another thing I absolutely love about Glam Camp is it is full of textures! From burlap bows to woodgrain cards, to cork embellishments, and corrugate card stock- layering with texture is a piece of cake!  Hopefully, you are one of our subbies and will soon be finding out for yourself!

For this layout I was excited to scrap some pictures from a recent family camping trip. I had a hard time narrowing down which photos to use, and decided it would be fun to challenge myself to use a lot of photos on one layout, taking inspiration from a square pocket page style grid.

To create the grid, I first cut paper into squares of different sizes, from 3 1/4 inch squares to 3 3/4 inch squares. The reason I varied the sizes was so that when layering them the different patterns would show. Next I did something I haven't done in a while- good old fashioned scissor distressing!  This helped to give my little square piles lots of depth. The exclusive Clique Kits gold wood heart embellishments (hand painted by yours truly and shared with The Clique in the Glam Camp kit) are a little thicker than regular wood veneers, about the same thickness and weight as a flair button. I love all of the gold in this paper collection and the kit adds  even more gold to glam up your projects.  

 

After I had my squares arranged in a pleasing way, I ran each one through my sewing machine just a little right through the middle, so that the edges would have a tendency to curl up just a little, for effect. Last but not least, I embellished each square pile with lots of dimensional elements such as wood pieces, enamel dots, and flair. For my title I combined both of the alphabets included in the kit (Chic Tags banner alpha and Fancy Pants Designs burlap alpha), plus a gold foil word (Pretty Little Studios) also from the kit. I used a black marker to doodle outline our family name "Lau" in the title to make sure it didn't blend into the sleeping bag in the photo making it difficult to read.

In order to make the printable 3 x 4 cards work with my layout, I simply trimmed them down to square shapes! The cards are versatile and can be used in regular 3 x 4 pockets or as layout elements, or as I did here, cut into squares. Because they are printed from downloadable files, they can be used over and over in different ways! I have a feeling I will try fussy cutting some of the elements out at some point, and using them again in a project life style layout. Having coordinating digitals such as printables and cut files every month really stretches how much you can use the kit down to the very last scrap of paper!

Here I just wanted to show you how the layered squares look from the side angle where you can see how dimensional they really are, which may not show as well in the full frontal view! The ivory burlap string in the kit was the perfect finishing touch wrapped around my central photo and title element. All of the product in this layout, except for the small piece of Pinkfresh Studios washi tape and the glittered arrow from Freckled Fawn (available in the school store) are from Glam Camp. The confetti and enamel dots and the wood veneer feather are available in the school store also as add ons that coordinate with this kit.  They are listed under school store , "Added in August" while supplies last!

If you are a designer who likes working with premium designer brand name paper products, coordinating exclusives, and unique items sourced from small businesses and even handmade, then we encourage you to apply for a spot on our Clique Kits Design Team! We are looking for friendly, enthusiastic designers ranging in a variety of styles and formats of paper crafting who believe in our club philosophy. Clique Kits also offers special kits throughout the year such as our limited edition Clique Into Summer Kit which sold out this past summer, and has many more special kits in the works for the coming year. Member blog share participation, know-how with digital files such as Silhouette cut files, and social media activity are a must for this team! If you feel you would be a good fit for Clique Kits, you are encouraged to apply. All of the details are here. Deadline for applications is midnight on August 24, 2014.

Leave a comment, we love hearing from you!

-xGia

Happy Sunday everybody! I can't believe that it is already July 20th. The summer is flying by!  It is already time to start sharing some teasers to get ready for the big reveal of the August Clique Kit! First up, I have a mood board to share. I made this board from some of my 'pins' related to the planning of the August Kit. If you are a subscriber, you may have already seen our graphic announcing "Glam Camp" coming soon.  Without giving away too much, I wanted to share a little hint about the kit!

We have some fantastic posts coming soon right here on the Clique Kits Blog! This Wednesday, July 23rd will be our fourth official members blog share, the Pep Rally, featuring the July kit A Midsummer Nights Dream. We have heard nothing but rave reviews of this kit, and to be honest, with feedback from the Clique we feel that every month our kits keep getting better and better! Our subscribers are more than just customers- they are our community and circle of scrappy friends. We love to interact with the Clique in our private Facebook group and other social media. In August we have a Guest Designer, Guest Blogger, and our Designer in the Spotlight-Jen Allyson as featured posts. Stay tuned for more details!  Possibly the most exciting news of all is that Clique Kits has put out the call for our very first Design Team.  We invite YOU to apply to help the Clique Kits girls to provide inspiration for our members and friends! 
We'd love to hear your thoughts about the mood board and anything else on your mind! Follow us to stay informed. Of course we'd love it if you subscribe now so you can be IN the Clique in time for Glam Camp!

Click.Connect.Create.
-xGia