Hello Lovelies! Theresa here to share a most fun layout I created using the January Heart Eyes kit! I wanted to create a mixed media background and build up layers on top today, so take a look at what I created.
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One of my favorite things about the Heart Eyes kit and the amazing Whimsical products included, are all the different color options in the kit. You can literally pull any color scheme from these beautiful papers and I always say go with your favorites. For my mixed media background I pulled pinks, yellows, and greens, which are the main colors I see in my photos.
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I wanted to repeat the hexagons in my background, so I started with a hexagon stencil I had in my stash from The Crafter's Workshop/Balzer Designs. I pressed my Versamark ink pad down over the stencil and then heat embossed the design using American Crafts Zing! powder in clear. Then I used Dr. Martin's Bombay watercolor inks to apply my color. I used Yellow Ochre, Cherry Red, and Aqua. 
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When you heat emboss a design and then add watercolors, the design then resists the colors that you apply to your paper. For this layout I applied each color one by one, just dropping a tiny bit of color in different areas and spritzing water to the splotches so the colors would run across the page. I love this method so much! Watching the colors react to the water and leave the beautiful pattern behind is so satisfying!
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Once my background was complete, I layered photos and ephemera on top of a cutout from the hexagon patterned paper. I also created my title from the foam words included in the kit, and added a bit of journaling at the bottom of my page. I also used a label from the kit to add my date above one of the photos.
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My story for this layout is all about my daughter Natalie's first day of Kindergarten. The photos themselves tell the story of how excited and ready she was, and notice how tiny she looks getting on that bus! I had to much fun adding ephemera around the photos, including hearts (because of course!), butterflies, the watercolor palette, a wolf (which is her spirit animal), and a bird (which I include in almost every one of her layouts). Everything about this layout was so much fun to put together!
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Thank you so much for joining me today! Have you had a chance to play with your Heart Eyes kit this month? If so, please share with us so we can see! 
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Hello friends, Theresa here with another fun travel layout using the December Rainbow kit! Back in 2015 we took a weekend trip to Savannah and St. Simons Island, so I was inspired to create a layout for my son Nick's album. Here is my layout.
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I began my layout with the best part, the photos, which I printed at 3 inches square with white borders. In my head I was thinking two photos with paper strips behind it, so I pulled out what I had from the kit. Papers, ephemera, everything. I pulled two paints I had, Spun Sugar and Mowed Lawn from Tim Holtz, and splattered a bit of them onto the black and white patterned paper.
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Once I had my background dried, I laid out my photos and gathered some of the ephemera pieces from the Fancy Pants pack. I chose favorites that expanded the color palette of the layout. The title word Adventure stood out to me, so I began to add to that for my entire title. It needed a home base to stand out against, so the patterned paper strips came in handy here. I've used the alphabet Thickers in the kit to finish out the title, and popped the word Adventure up using pop dots.
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Once the title was down, everything else was just gravy on top! I adhered all the fun bits and pieces that I love and that were able to be tucked in behind photos, around the title, anywhere that needed a little pop of color. Each piece that I added tells a part of this story: it was a road trip that we took at the spur of the moment (hence the Just Wingin' It die cut), we drove down in the car (hence the car die cut!) and just did whatever we felt like doing, and we discovered some really awesome things along the way.
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Besides the ephemera I also have journaling, both stamped and hand written. I used the labels in the kit from Pretty Little Studio to add my hand written words. This place on St. Simon's Island, GA is home to the famous Lighthouse that Eugenia Price has written about in her historical novels. If you're looking for interesting reads about the south, look her up. Our kids had so much fun touring the grounds and climbing to the top of the lighthouse. My stamped sentiment is from the One Canoe Two rotary stamp and my date stamp is an old one from Target I've had for a few years now. Here is one last look at my layout.
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Thank you so much for following along with me today on this fun adventure on St. Simons Island! See you again soon!
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Hello Lovelies, it's Theresa here to share a mixed media layout I have created. I am working with the October Gather kit, which contains elements and papers from one of my favorite collections this year, Pink Paislee's Auburn Lane. Here is the layout I am sharing today.
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This layout was quite a process, and in the end I relied heavily on my most favorite mixed media tool, gesso. I began with a black and white patterned paper from the kit, pink solid card stock, gesso, modeling paste (both Liquitex brand), a floral stencil (Dear Lizzy), and of course my photo and other embellishments.
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I used my stencil to lay down a floral background on top of the patterned paper, using the modeling paste. This one is a gel paste and I love how light and easy it is to use. I also painted some of the gesso onto the patterned paper, so there was a transition between the stencil and the black and white. Once it fully dried I had this.
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Now, I absolutely love color and at this stage I decided to add watercolors to the stenciled image. I take a very wet paint brush and start with the lightest color first. Let the colors flow in and out and through all the cracks and crevices left by the stencil and see what happens!
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At this point it's really pretty, but the alphabets and photo got a little lost when I tried to place them on top. So I pulled my favorite trick, whenever the background is a little too much: gesso. I added another full layer of gesso right over top of all of it. Gesso has this magical quality that allows colors to show through just a bit, and it makes a busy background perfect.
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Once all that was dry, I added my photo plus embellishments to complete the layout. My photo is of our daughter Natalie, who is age 11 and went into middle school this year. I did a mini photo session with all four of our kids right before school began, and this is one of the candid photos. She looks so pretty and her pink shorts tie in perfectly with the pinks in the kit!
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My title also evolved a bit as I created the layout. All together the title reads: I will always love her and her beautiful heart. 
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As I was adding my embellishments to the page, I layered the photo on top of the grid papers and library cards that were in the Gather kit. I also added some of the florals and hearts and the adorable houses from the embellishment pack, and I stuck down the Beautiful sticker.
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The title is the working design element in this layout because now it moves your eye from the upper left hand corner down and across to the bottom right. It also serves as my journaling for this layout.  Here is one more look at the full layout for you.
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Thank you so much for joining me on a mixed media journey today! I hope this inspires you as you receive your kits this month. Be sure to share your projects with us, we would love to see what you are making as well. Use #cliquekits. See you again soon!
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Hi friends, it's Theresa Moxley here and I am so excited to share my very first Clique Kits layout here with you! I could not wait to get my first kit, the April Winter Park kit, and was delighted to find all the magical Maggie Holmes products included in the kit. The Flourish collection just calls out to me to create a layout about some beautiful flowers or a garden, so I pulled some of my favorite mixed media products and got to work! This is the layout I will be sharing with you today.

For this layout I started with some white cardstock and layered a bit of the black and white polka dot packaging that came with my kit right over top. First I used matte medium as my adhesive for the tissue paper, and then I layered gesso with the layers of tissue paper for the very subtle background effect. 

Once the background was completely dry, I decided the background needed just a tiny bit of color to tie it into the rest of the layout, so I added bits of Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Seafoam. This gave the background a tiny bit of shimmer (amazing!) and works beautifully with the greens in the kit!

My photo is of one of the geraniums we had on our front porch last year, so I printed it and cut it out to fit inside the wood veneer frame that was included in my kit. In the spirit of mixed media, I also gesso'd the frame with several beautiful coats, enough to still allow the details of the frame to show through. I added torn strips of patterned paper across the top of the layout, and then began adding my lovely embellishments!

The vellum title from Maggie Holmes fit my layout perfectly, so I've sewn it across the bottom of the photo along with tags, one of the market tickets, and other stickers. Most everything I chose has either black and white, or green, fitting with the background I created, and a few touches of pink because the flowers themselves are pink. The beauty of this kit, and of the black and white, is that you can't go wrong with any color. Simply pick your favorites.

Since I used one of the black tags from the kit on the left hand side, I wanted to balance that visually on the right hand side, so I made space for my journaling. It reads: "I seriously never considered myself a gardener or a green thumb (ha!) but our small yard is perfect for us and every time something blooms we celebrate!"

To finish off my layout I added a bit of green twine around the frame and stitched it in place with my sewing machine. Such a lovely, spring layout and I hope you have been inspired to try gesso in your process too! Happy crafting!

Aloha!! It's Hannah with you today. If your life is anything like mine, you have been really busy. In the thick of December, school projects, work parties, traffic jams and all that stress requires some special time in your scrap room. That is definitely how I have been coping with all the chaos of life. The busier things get the messier I like it on my pages. 
Today I am using both the Main Lemonade Kit and the Traveler's Notebook Lemonade Kit. These kits work together so well I couldn't help but put them together and get more layouts and projects out of them. Before I add all the pretty papers and all the cute embellishments layered on my layout I am gonna talk you through how I like to create my own background paper. 

I started off with my choice of smooth white card stock. I like the thickness of smooth card stock and how it holds up to the many different kinds of mixed media I like to use. This time I decided against using gesso. Gesso is a primer that you can use before adding any kind of liquid media. It helps less of the liquid soak into the background you are adding it too. If you add it to paper, it will help less of the liquid in the media will soak up into the paper and helping it not warp as much. It will make the media dry differently because it sits on top of the gesso and paper. 
I choose to not add gesso because I also find that sometimes the gesso itself will make the paper warp. In times when I think I won't be using a ton of media or media that is not really liquid, like acrylic paint I find it isn't as necessary. This is purely a personal choice and if you love to add mixed media to your projects playing around with gesso and without gesso is a must. This will help you figure out what your personal preference is especially with the brands and products you enjoy using.
For this layout I am using mainly acrylic paint and some glitter liquid ink from my mixed media stash.  

I added and mixed green, yellow and white acrylic paint in a paint dauber. Once I played around with the mix of colors, by adding more green and more white I got a fun mint/aqua color. I also added a few squirts of acrylic airbrush medium. This liquid will help thin my paint and help it not separate and be easier to spread through the dauber. I used the dauber straight down on the layout and splatted it on the paper in random spots. I love the way the liquid paint splats and sprays out onto the background and leave lots of little streaks of paint across the white background. This is messy but a controllable mess, I like when I can control where my mess can go. 
After I used the dauber I just dropped my liquid gold glitter ink straight from it's bottle onto the page. I am a big fan of watercolor splatters of any kind on layouts. You don't need much of it to make a huge impact. The higher you hold up the paint brush or bottle of liquid from the layout the bigger the drops will be. I wanted my drops to be a little smaller than my dauber spats. The glittery and shiny gold against the mint really adds contrast on the background. 
I still felt like it needed something else. I could have stopped, and called it good. This is something I have just learned from my own playing around with mixed media. How much I like on my pages, how much media I use until I feel the background is complete. I think each project and layout is different but playing around is really the only good way for you to know what you prefer and the look you want to go with. Since I wanted this white card stock to look like a patterned background, I knew it needed another layer or so. I find mixing patterns, shapes and sizes helps create an appealing design. These layers can really work together if you do it right.
For this background I decided I wanted black stripe. I used a paint brush to apply acrylic black paint. I didn't want my lines to straight and perfect so I just added them from the bottom to the top of the layout. I started with a thinner line at the bottom and getting a little thicker as I went to the top. I decided not to draw over the splatters and splats so I didn't cover up the texture you see with those splatters and splats. I also like the way this skip adds extra white space and breathing room on the background.  

For the last bit of mixed media on the actual background I used thinned navy/black acrylic paint in a fine line bottle to doodle circles near the splatters and splats. I left some of the circles open in the middle and fill some in. Because the paint is in a fine line bottle and thinned out it is really easy to control and doodle with, but when it dries it still adds a little dimension on the background. The circle design also repeats off of the splatters and splats and creates a really design that is unique but has a bit of structure. 
Creating my own backgrounds allows me to play with something messy, and play the stress of the week away . It also allows me to add a little bit more of me on the layouts that I make. Being creative and playing with media is my way of leaving a bit of me on my layouts and spreads for my family. When we make layouts for our families we use words but we also leave and tell more of a story with the way we arrange things on our pages. I really hope to encourage you to think about the things you do on your layouts and projects and what it tells to your family about you the creator. Do the things you love and use the things you love on the layouts you create so your family can really get to know you creatively and with the words you do leave on the spreads you make. Use your strengths to help tell your stories. 

I used some copper acrylic paint on this big chipboard words to match the copper on the stickers and die cuts from the kits. I layered this word with the die cuts and Paige Evans wood shapes. I think nestling embellishments together in clusters really leaves a big impact. Each shape peeking out a bit and creates shadows.
To back the white card stock with the mixed media on it I added a 12x12 patterned paper with a small dot pattern slightly askew. I know this will make it difficult when adding it to my page protector, but I really like the way these two patterns look hanging off of each other. I like the imperfect look it creates. I added some stitching with my sewing machine to the top and side connecting the two papers. 
I used a 3x4 sized photo with a few patterned papers from the main kit. I added the photo near the bottom of the layout. I used the stripes on the background as a shelf for the photo. This helps the photo feel more grounded. In the layers I also added a glassine bag filled with some sequins and some die cuts sticking out the top of the bag. I wanted the sheen of the bag to feel a little like the snow in my photo. 
I let the embellishment clutters trickle down the layout. The first main cluster is up at the top of the layout. I added a couple of die cuts layered with some wood pieces and stickers near the cluster. I added some copper paint to parts of the wood pieces too. 
 I will later added the journalling in the stripes before I add my layout to my album. This is a picture of the first major snow my kids have seen. The look on my son's face is priceless as he steps out into the snow for the first time. He is beaming to play in this magical thing called snow. I love that I can remember this moment forever by just looking at this photo. This is really the final nail for way I scrapbook. To remember these faces and moments, because my kiddos will grow up, they will move away from home and I will get older and that smile will fade from my mind's eye but this photo will last and I can see that cute big grin again. 

Thanks for joining me today and playing with some mixed media to create a background. I hope you play and share what you are creating with your lemonade kit on our Facebook group or on Instagram. Use the hashtag #click_connect_create. 
I will see you around, and if I don't have a post before Christmas I wish you a very special and crafty holiday season!!