Hi friends! Dana here today sharing a fun technique that fits with our Stamp-tember theme this month: how to emboss velvet using rubber stamps and a household iron. I love to incorporate different textures in my art and there is something about the cooler Fall months that always has me reaching into my fabric stash. Embossing velvet is a simple technique that produces beautiful results that are sure to add a wow-factor to your work.
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Lift the velvet from the stamp to reveal the embossed design. The resulting impression can appear shadowy or lustrous depending on the angle and reflection of light.
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Here are a couple more examples. I liked the branded edge of the velvet so I left it along the bottom rather than trimming it away. I'm looking forward to using these pieces on future projects!

I used bits and pieces from several kits to create my tag. I pulled patterned paper prints and colorful embellishments in a fresh Fall palette.

Clique International Supplies:
​Limited Edition Bliss Kit (Mintay Chipboard Sentiment)
Limited Edition Wind Beneath My Wings Kit (Script Patterned Paper,  Gold Washi Tape, Blue Buttons)
Over The Rainbow Clique Base Kit (Amy Tangerine Whole Lotta Love Blue Floral Patterned Paper)

Other Supplies: Shipping Tag; Velvet; Small Openline Bow Rubber Stamp (Stampington and Company); Orange Lace; Brown Seam Binding Ribbon; Yellow Twine; Ball Pin

Hi friends! Dana here today sharing a fun tutorial that uses a digital cut file as a template for wood burning. Some days I feel like the only crafter who doesn't own an electronic cutting machine. I often click through the Digitals Section of the Clique Shop to admire, with a bit of envy, all the super cool designs that are available. I selected the FREE You & Me Digital Cut File and processed it in a fun old school way. I resized and printed the .PNG file, and after a little bit of hand tracing using carbon paper (gasp!), I was ready to design with a digital file for the first time. Once I burned the letters onto a small wood plaque, I colored the piece with watercolors that I made with Lindy's Magical Shakers. I added a clip-on hook to create a key holder to share with my husband.
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Step 1. Resize the .PNG digital cut file to fit the project surface and print. I chose a 4.5 inch wood circle plaque for the base of my project. I like the size and these small wood plaques are inexpensive, less than $2 at the craft store. Place a piece of carbon paper, black side down, under the printed cut file pattern and trace around the image with a pencil.

Step 2. Use a wood burning tool to burn over the pencil lines. I needed to change tips to burn the smaller detailed areas. If you don't have a wood burning tool, try completing this step with a marker or paint pen.

Here's the completed burned design before color.

Step 3. Create watercolors by adding a small amount of Lindy's Magical powdered dye to water. Use a waterbrush or wet paintbrush to first wet the plaque with plain water. Wet wood absorbs color much better than dry wood. Color the plaque with watercolors. Don't worry about color bleeding! Once the plaque dries, dip a wet brush directly into the powdered dye and cover up any unwanted color on the plaque with more concentrated color.

Here's my plaque after coloring. The Lindy's Magical Shakers contain a low key shimmer so there is a fantastic subtle sparkle to this finished piece!

Step 4. Add a clip-on or screw hook to the top of the plaque and hang to help organize small items.

​Hello crafty friends! Rita here. Today I have a little tutorial for an easy and quickly made scrapbooking layout for you, using the gorgeous April Kit „Full Bloom“.

Here is what you need:
- the „Look Up“ Paper from the Vicki Boutin Kaleidoscope Collection
- white acrylic paint
- Vicki Boutin Kaleidoscope ephemera pack and sticker sheet
- thread and needle
- some alpha stickers for your title
- your photos

First of all, I put three thick strokes with white acrylic paint on the paper. I used an acrylic block (for stamps) instead of a brush, for a more straight line. 

After drying I put the three banners from the ephemera pack in the middle of each paint stroke.  

At each banner end I put an ephemera. Either a butterfly or a cloud. To add a little highlight, I handstitched around a cloud and a banner.  

I put my title „we were here“ on the middle banner.  

The last step: Put a photo on the top and lower banner. I cut a slight curve in my photo so it would fit better. And now you can decorate with stickers and stamps.  

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.

Amy Tangerine Plus One Embossing Folders and Rub Ons coordinate perfectly with the April Kit! Earn Honor Credits to use to buy these items and any of the Simple Stories items in stock by participating in our Pep Rally on April 23rd!!

Happy Sunday everyone! Gia here…I was thinking about calling this post, "As seen on Pinterest (Nailed It or Failed It?)" or alternatively  , "Go Big or Go Home!" But I decided to go with the more descriptive title :)  

What is masked lettering you ask? Well, masked anything means that you use a cut out image to protect the surface underneath, and with whatever medium, color all of the space around the image. When the mask is lifted, the image is defined by the colored negative space. It is easier to show you visually than to describe it, so here goes...

My quote by Emerson says, "Live in the Sunshine. Swim the Sea. Drink the Wild Air." Poetic and appropriate for this photo of my son photo-bombing my selfie against the blue sky here in Hawaii. Because my title pretty much fills the whole space, I clustered and layered all of my embellishing close in to the photo. I used a tag in a stitched vellum pocket behind the photo to add some secret journaling. I was thinking that this layout is an interesting combination of words on top of words on top of hidden words. 
The paper I used as my background is from the Simple Stories DIY Boutique collection.  There are a few things I would do differently next time-which is one reason why I decided to play with this technique on a layout before attempting to make a larger canvas for my home decor. Thanks so much for joining me in the Art Studio this weekend. I hope you are inspired to get a little messy and free your inner artist! Have you ever tried masking on a layout? Do you ever actually try ideas that you pinned on Pinterest? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

--xGia