Clique Kits October Wrap Up

Happy Friday Clique Kits fans!  Erica here with you today and I am excited to be bringing you the October wrap up!  This is a new post that will happen each month where I take you back and highlight some fun and exciting moments that happened over the month and also give you a peek at what is coming up!  We had an exciting month starting with the kick off of our very first Varsity Team (design team).  They have all done an amazing job so far and we can not wait to share more of their amazing talent with you!  You can check out the Varsity Team HERE and remember to follow their blogs and grab their special discount code to use in the Clique Kits shop!  We also have our October Challenge going on right now that you will want to link up to for your chance to win this fabulous prize sponsored by Fancy Pants Designs!

We hope you enjoyed all the amazing projects, tutorials, and inspiration that the Varsity Team shared with you so far this month!  Now lets take a look at a few of the amazing projects created this month by our fabulous Varsity Team!

 

Danielle created this gorgeous layout and shared how she used created custom backgrounds using the Clique Kits exclusive cut files!  Click on her layout to go directly to her blog post.

 

Sophie pulled out this amazing tassel tutorial that you just have to check out!  I love how she added them to her layout and it adds so much interest to her page.  Check out her full tutorial HERE.

 

And last but not least Aliza takes us for a walk through her hometown with this fabulous mini album she created using the October 2014 kit!  For more tutorials and projects using the October kit please head on over to the Clique Kits blog!  Another highlight this month was our Designer in the Spotlight Kelly Purkey!  We were all so thrilled to have her share a little bit about herself on our blog!  If you missed the Q&A with Kelly you have to check it out HERE!

 

Of coarse no month would be complete without our Clique Kits Blog Share and this month was our biggest blog share ever!  Our subscribers and Varsity Team wowed us this month sharing their projects using this months kit.  In case you are not familiar with our monthly Blog Shares let me give you the details!  Each month our subscribers have the option to join the Clique Kits founders and Varsity Team in sharing what they have have created using the current Clique Kit.  There is always an optional challenge to go along with the blog share and a winner not only for one randomly chosen blog share hopper but also for one of our subscribers.  Subscribers participating in the blog shares are also awarded honor credits that can be used in the Clique Kits store!  Each blog share is 5 honor credits and each credit equals $1.00 and these credits can be rolled over!  Just a perk of being a Clique Kits subscriber!  We would love to see your name in our next blog share line up so subscribe today!

As I wrap up this post I want to leave you with what is coming up for November!  We are so excited to be bringing you our November kit HOMECOMING and subscriptions are now open and each new subscription will include a free paper pack from Studio Tekturek.  This kit is jam packed with a full paper collection from Lemon-Owl, vellum from Studio Calico and cut apart sheets from Websters Pages Nest collection.  The embellishments in this kit are not only beautiful but unique and this month we have a special treat for you with cut files from 17turtles!

We are so excited to be teaming up with 17turtles to bring you some custom cut files that coordinate beautifully with this months kit and also they will be sponsoring our November Challenge!  Stay tuned to the blog as the Varsity Team begins sharing projects using the November 2014 Kit Homecoming!  I leave you today with two promo codes that run from today until the end of November! Enjoy 25% in the Clique Kits shop using CKNOV25 and take 25% off your order at 17turtles with CK17TURTLES25.  Make sure to also stop by the 17turtles blog and Facebook page for more inspiration!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  We look forward to a creative November and we hope you will join us!  Enjoy your weekend!

 

 

Geek Lab – Photobooth Apps

Hello! It’s Caroli here and I’m so happy to post for the first time on the Geek Lab 🙂  Today I want to tell you about some cool apps I use once in a while for editing the photos I use on my layouts or minis.

One of my fave effects is Photobooth.  I love photobooth pics, evenmore if I can make it at home or wherever I feel like it!

I use the PiciBooth in my iPhone and PhotoBooth on my tablet for creating photo strips, which look pretty cool on layout or mini albums.

The way of using these apps is very easy, you just need to follow the steps they ask and that’s all!

As you can see, I used this photobooth strip for this layout I made with October Kit. I used black and white pics because I think they make a fab contrast with all the color on the papers, but the apps also allow you to make strips with color.

Since the photo strip is long and thin I placed it in the middle of the page and tried to balance the composition by placing a grid on the left and an embellishment cluster and journaling on the right.

Hope you liked the idea and try it sometime, if you have funny hats or wigs it would be even better 🙂 Have a lovely Thursday!!

Art Studio: Moonlight Misting with CDs

Hello All!  Wendy here to share up my first post for Clique Kits!

On a side note, I’m honored to be the Design Team Captain for Clique Kits and we have SO much planned in this first Clique Kits design team term.  We are packing lots of amazing product and planning lots of techniques for you too!

I have a passion for mixed media and I’ve always had the artistic bone to dabble with paint. So, with my first post here on the Clique Kits blog I wanted to bring you a fun technique with using something you can probably find around your house (or in your car).

Now in the days of the highest tech of the latest phones and mp3, CDs are becoming perhaps quite obsolete in your playlist.  I know I transferred all my CDs to my iPod that I use on Bluetooth in my vehicle.  So, I have no need for all the CDs left behind…until now…so search your stash of scratched CDs and/or some you plan to trash and let’s create!  Shall we just call it creative recycling. Yes.

I wanted to have a moonlight effect to my layout as creating a page about New Orleans (aka ‘The Big Easy’).  So, immediately I thought to use the CD to create a ‘moon’ on my layout.

I chose to use a black cardstock as my base for a little extra pop to the white misting ink.  Lay down the CD on your cardstock.  Make sure to put a scrap piece of paper on the hole of the CD or your circle will have a hole in it after misting.

Mist away…and there you have your misted ‘moon’.  Allow to dry completely.

Now I am ready to embellish the rest of my page.

I used the skyline paper from Second City in the October kit as the central focus among the misted moon.  I hand cut the skyline from the pattern paper and attached to the cardstock with pop dots.  This little bit of dimension really pops the skyline away from the misted moon for more emphasis and interest to the page.

I love the October Afternoon letter stickers in the October kit.  They were the perfect simple lettering for the title work on my layout.

I’m on the Gulf Coast where Mardi Gras kicks into full swing early in the year.  I love looking at all the different masks and decor so intricately detailed for display.  I really wanted to capture the vibe of the ‘Masquerade Ball’ (perhaps with intention on the name of the October kit) typical of New Orleans and Gulf Coast in the celebration of Mardi Gras.

As a finishing touch, I used the perfect accent of blingy stars matched up as an October Add-On to the October monthly kit.  And that’s it!  A simple technique that can bring some pow-wow to your next project!

Now I know you are dying to go and find a CD to work some magical misting on your next project! Right?! Ha!

I hope you were inspired and enjoyed my project!

Supplies

Clique Kits Product | October ‘Masquerade Ball’ Kit (Paper:  Basic Grey – Second City – Kelly Purkey – Ashland #sec-4705; Letter Stickers:  October Afternoon – Daily Flash – Flash Alpha Nightfall ‘Shop Front’ #SS-1121; Sequins:  CK Exclusive).

Other | Cardstock, Spray Mist -White, Rubons.

Locker Room: Tassels Anyone?

Salutations! Sophie here and thank you for taking the time to join me today. Love tassels? I do! I think they make a great embellishment for scrapbooking projects and I love creating my own from scratch.

I love the twine that was included in this month’s kit. Using it, a pair of scissors, a piece of cardboard and some other embroidery floss, I made tassels for the following page:

Here’s how you can make your own too:

1. Cut a piece of cardboard (length of cardboard = length of tassel). Cut a small slit at the top of the cardboard and attach one end of the twine through the slit.

2. Wind your twine around the cardboard about 12 times (more rounds = fuller tassel).  Ensure that the last round ends at the bottom of the cardboard.

3. Using a short piece of floss (about 15cm), slide it under all the loops and pull it to the top.

4. Tie a secure knot at the top.

5. Remove the tassel from the cardboard. Be careful to keep the shape of the tassel.

6. Using another piece of twine, wind 3 rounds near the top of the tassel, before securing it with a knot. Cut through all the twine at the bottom.

And you are done! Cluster your tassels to add greater dimension to your page. If you rather they not swing around too much, staple them on. Here, my tassels help to draw attention to all the tiled black triangles on the page, while adding some playfulness at the same time.

I love how tassels add color to a page and soften the overall feel of the layout.

 

Tassels can be made from other materials too – like the glassine bag I found in my kit. On this page, I stringed the tassels in a row to resemble poms-poms and stapled them at the bottom of the page.

I love how it appears as if the tassels are swaying pom-poms, to cheer my little girl on, as she learns to write.

 

To create these glassine tassels,

1. Cut a strip of paper along the length of the bag (wider strip = longer tassel). If you want to add color to your tassels, now is a good time to paint them.

2. Snip along the length of the paper, leaving a little margin at the top. To save time, you can fold your paper in half or thirds before doing this.

3. Unfold your paper if you have folded it. Roll paper into a coil tightly and seal the end with a little glue.

4. Finish the tassel by wrapping the top with a little washi tape or patterned paper if you like.

 

There you have it. Handmade embellishments ready to grace your next page. Have fun making your own tassels and do leave a comment and share your projects that include tassels too!

Geek Lab: custom backgrounds

Hi everyone, it’s Danielle here with you today from the Geek Lab! As you probably know, each month you get some fabulous exclusive cut files with your kit. I’m a total cut file addict and I always try to get the max out of the cut files and not just using them as they were meant to be. Today I’m sharing with you how I like to make complete backgrounds with cut files.

Let me start with the triangle border cut file, which I used on the layout I’m sharing today. I fell in love with this triangle design right away and I knew it was perfect for my picture of the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. I copied the border a couple times and placed two of them starting on the left edge of the paper and two on the right, as I didn’t want them to cover up the entire width of the paper.

I used white cardstock for my background and backed it up with the Ashland paper.

Of course it might be easier when I had cut out the borders with the Ashland paper and place them on the white cardstock, but for some reason I like this effect better. You just need to complete the design now by placing the white leftover pieces back into it. There for I place (don’t glue!) the borders back in the shapes to exactly know where to glue down the white pieces.

When every piece is in place, you take away the borders and your background is finished. At the end of this post you’ll find some more designs of backgrounds made with this month’s cut files, that you can easily create yourself.

 

And here’s my finished layout that I’ve made with this background.

What I love about these October Afternoon alpha’s is the two different sizes, especially with long titles. With this title I would never have enough A’s to do the title with only the bigger letters, so this is a great solution.

Besides the triangle background, I tried to continue the triangle theme throughout the entire layout. You can find them in the flair button, the paper behind the photo, the element stickers and also the Pinkfresh Studio wood veneer chevrons can be seen as triangles.

As promised here are some more examples of how to use the cut files as backgrounds. The first one is the same as I used above, but using it vertically.

For the second one I made a tribal background design, using the feathers.

The third one is made with the skyline border and all I did was melting two of them together and placing them at the bottom of the page. You have a great design for any city or skyline picture now.

And the last one is a background with the lightbulb cut files.

For all of these designs I just use the grid that you can select in the Silhouette software, I don’t measure anything perfectly. Have fun creating and I can’t wait to see what you will make with these background designs or with ones you design yourself

Thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

 

 

Yearbook: A Hometown Mini Album

Hi! It’s Aliza here, with my first Clique Kits blog post, so you probably don’t know me too well yet. So here are some things about me. First of all, I live in New York City. Second of all, I tend to repeat myself a lot. And third, one of the things that I often repeat in blog posts and scrapbook pages is that I love and hate living in New York. City life is great for raising kids.  We walk and ride bikes everywhere. I see the Statue of Liberty on my way to work. It’s New York City! But, oh, how I miss trees and open space and air and solitude.

As soon as I saw that Kelly Purkey’s line would be in this month’s kit, I knew exactly what I would do with it, before it was even in my hands. This summer, I was able to participate in Big Picture Classes’ iPhone Photography class. When I first saw everyone else’s photos, my heart hurt a little bit as they shared photos of big open spaces, and so. much. nature. But, then I became determined to use the opportunity to find beauty and love for New York city again.  Seriously, looking at the world through a camera lens can change everything. I was pretty happy with how some of my photos turned out, so I used this kit to compile my favorites into a mini album.

  

I wanted to keep my album pretty simple, so I used just a few embellishments and letter stickers from the kit to express a general reminder to look around and find beauty.

 

 

 Taking photos is a great way to look at your usual surroundings with fresh eyes. And mini albums are a great way to collect some photos that you love, just because.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Using the Printables in the Kit

Hello everyone!  It’s Marcia here today in the Geek Lab and I’m very excited to be on the Clique Kits blog sharing a layout I created with our fabulous October kit, Masquerade Ball!  I just love all the colors and patterns in the Second City paper collection by Basic Grey. I also love the digital Print and Cut files that were included in the kit. These are tangibles you can use over and over again even after your kit papers are gone.

I thought I would focus on triangles in this layout about a favorite place we like to go to eat with my daughter when we visit her at college. It is just off the campus where she attends school in Minneapolis. Now because I hate my writing, I prefer to journal on my layouts using my computer. So I used one of the printables from the kit to create a journaling spot. I did this with Adobe Photoshop Elements. Here’s how…

and here is my layout…

Repeating shapes throughout gives my layout a cohesive feel. It pulls everything together. Here are some close-ups…

 

So lets see you use those Print and Cut files. We would love for you to share them with us.

Adding Sari Cloth to layouts

Happy Monday ya’ll!  It’s Jody hanging out in the Art Studio and I’m very excited to be back on the Clique Kits blog sharing a layout I created with our fabulous October kit, Masquerade Ball!  The colors in this kit really inspired me to be bright & bold, which is way outside my comfort zone. When I saw all the purple in this fabulous Second City paper line by Basic Grey, I immediately thought of our daughter Sari’s first dance recital a couple of years ago.  The song with “Wild Child” and her outfit was purple leopard print and totally wild!  Here’s my layout and tips for creating with the gorgeous add-on ~ Recycled Silk Sari Stripes!

Did you happen to catch my daughter’s name??  Sari, which is pronounced SAY-REE, similar to Sarah with an “E” sound at the end.  So she’s not to be confused with the lovely Recycled Silk Sari Stripes in our School Store lol!

I also added a large smattering of purple, yellow and black sequins to add some more texture to the layout.  I love using them on a variety of projects.  I find one of the best ways to attach them is using one of my go-to adhesives by Scrapbook Adhesives, DOTZ, which are similar to your commonly called ‘glue dot.’  These babies are sticky to the max!!

At first, I didn’t really know how I wanted to use the Sari Stripes on a layout.  They’re just beautiful and bold!  I decided the best way for me to use them on this layout is to add them in layers just like I do small pieces of paper or die cuts.  To make it easy to add layers in my layouts and cards, I always position my adhesive towards the middle of my piece to be adhered down.  This leaves plenty of room along the edges of my photo, patterned paper, etc. for me to tuck other embellishments behind.  To actually adhere the Sari Stripes, I tucked them where I wanted them and used my Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher to staple them right down.  This creates an interesting, dimensional and texture packed project!  Check out some close-ups!

Alright, now that you’ve seen these fabulous Recycled Sari Stripes up close, I encourage you to try them on a project!  You get 5 feet of each purple, gold, green, aqua, and red for only $2.50!!  That’s a steal!

Don’t forget to about the Clique Kits October Challenge!  Fancy Pants is this October’s sponsor and they have a great prize for one lucky challenge participant!  You can check that out and link your projects to win HERE!  Until next time friends ….

Click. Connect. Create.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art Studio: Masquerade Ball Kickoff!

Hi there and thanks for stopping by the Art Studio this lovely fall Sunday! I am super excited to be kicking off our October Kit Reveal Party showing my first layout using Masquerade Ball. This is a layout reflecting my new found keep-it-simple style which is made even easier by having a mojo box delivered to my doorstep once a month!

To create this layout I started out with American Crafts solid white textured cardstock which I can’t have enough of in my stash. You can have some added to your kit very inexpensively from the school store. I used some of the Basic Grey Second City ephemera from the kit. I also used one of the Clique Kits exclusive 4 x 6 cards included in the kit as a matte for my photo. I just love the rich colors in this kit.

This kit also includes 4 awesome die cut files to use over and over! I used the feather die cut in this layout cut from some of the Second City patterned paper and a piece of 6 x 6 paper from the My Mind’s Eye Jubilee collection also carried in the Clique Kits store. I love the fact that 6 x 6 pads come with so many papers and so many designs- a whole collection- even if they are small. It makes me feel more free to experiment with them for things like die cuts. I don’t feel like I am wasting a lot of money if a cut doesn’t work out or I decide to try a different pattern.

Last but not least, I still have 3 more things to highlight in this post! First, I love the black and gold twine in this kit. It is from a hip website called Knot & Bow that sells “a carefully curated collection of modern, nostalgic paper goods and supplies” featured in Martha Stewart Living and even on Oprah! Clique Kits was very excited to include it in our October Kit. Second, after laying out this page, I felt something was missing. So I pulled out some mixed media paint from Art Anthology. I chose to use the color orchid from the “velvet” paint line. It is so smooth and creamy- hence the name. It contains an acrylic gel medium mixed in already so it has a thicker body and dries somewhat glossy. After including chalkboard paint in the September Kit we heard from friends and fans that the Clique would love to see even more mixed media supplies in the kits and store. How about you? We love to get feedback from our followers and as we grow we incorporate your ideas!

Finally, I have to credit the online shop I Heart Studio (Wilna Furstenberg’s website) for my brushstroke title die cut. I cut my title from solid black cardstock for maximum contrast against my white background. You can get one also totally free! And while you are there, look around at all the amazing possibilities to make your layouts beautiful.

I know that those of you who are already subscribers are counting down to October 3-5th when Masquerade Ball is shipping. As of now we are sold out and highly recommend that if you are even considering subscribing you don’t hesitate to sign up now to start with the November Kit!

Click.Connect.Create.

-xGia