Field Notes: Follow Your Rainbow or Sunset

Aloha My scrappy Friends!! It’s Hannah with you today. When I started scrapbooking I was hooked on Mixed Media. When I made a layout it always had a variety of media on it, and I may have went a little crazy. It really appealed to me in the no rules aspect. It really helped me grow and learn about about as a scrapbooker. This journey is one of the most important for a memory keeper. It helps you forage the way you end up telling your story, in the way you need to do. This is whether or not you yourself add media to your projects.

As I started growing and leaning towards cleaner layouts, I did less and less media. My products sitting lonely in my mixed media drawer.

Lately though I really have been itching to play around and get dirty. Literally. I think Mixed media is like riding a bike, once you get the hang of it and into the groove you get better with time.

Today I am going to be using the May Sorbet kit with add ons from the store to be making my Travelers Notebook. I wanted this size because I think sometimes it is a good place to start, a smaller size to fill up.

Also I hope you take quick look of the new Travelers Notebook Kit that is being added to Clique Kits. It matches the main kit and has tons of goodies play with it your Travelers Notebooks or even adding to your main kit.

 

Let’s look at what I made. I am not going to lie, this spread was my nemesis!! A real labor of love. No matter what I did, I was not sure how I felt. When I am using mixed media products I really use my gut feeling to help guide through the creating process. I think this is quite different approach from just making a layout or other memory keeping project.

Here are some tips to remember about Mixed Media :

It almost always looks bad before it looks really good.  I think this is because layers is the key. Sometimes a stencil gets smudge a little, or a paint splatter is bigger than you thought.

When making my layout I had tried using the cut file Maryam had designed, and adding that right to the page.  It was just too much paper on all the paint I had added.  I actually used my cut file to trace the triangles on top of my paint. splotches.

These splotches are through my layout and I used Shimmerz Acri-tonez in hot pink (it dry so fast and I don’t have to add gesso before, which is nice when I don’t have extra steps.) and gold paint.

When you mess up you can always cover it up.  Sometimes a stencil doesn’t leave a clear image, or you smudge paint before it dries.  When I make a mistake I always try to remember that I can always cover it up with an embellishment or photo. This helps take the pressure off so I don’t have to stress about it being perfect. Mixed Media is all about having fun and experimentation.

Also if you really screw things up, you can always start over again on a fresh new page or cover it with gesso. Since mixed media is about the layers adding gesso and another layer of paint or media it will add an unique twist to your spread.

On my spread I used a doily I had left over from last month’s kit and used it as a layer under my photo. I layered a piece of card stock with the Pretty Little Studio washi strips. I placed these over an area where my silkscreen didn’t transfer my gold paint very well.

I love the way that tab from the exclusive printable looks under my photo with some hearts from Pink Fresh Studio. The gold mirror heart was in the Add on store, and these pieces are so cute. They really help tie in all the gold I used on the background.

Mixed Media is about art expression, use things you love.  When you love the techniques, colors, products, tools or embellishments, it will show on your spread. Playing and learning is part of mixed media, but in the end the things you love that you add to your project really set your page from just okie to a LOVE page.  You may not love every page you make, but using products and elements you love will give you pieces that you love too.

On the page I made I really was eyeing the Freckled Fawn clips. They are so bold and fun. They really make a statement. I layered them with a cut part from one of the papers from the Main Kit and a stamped image I popped off the page. I stamped the image, with the Pink Fresh Studios stamp set,  on white card stock and cut it out. Adding pop dots to give it dimension off the page and making the image more of the focal point. Especially with stamped or written phrases on the inside.

Also layered under the clip was a gold doily from my stash, gold thread and some of the exclusive sequins for this month. They match this kit so well, and the flower sequins looked so cute inside my rainbow.

I added some Pretty Little Studio block alphas to finish my title and finished this cluster up with a gold mirror heart.

 

My last tip for mixed media, is Have Fun and Play, Play, Play.  Mixed media is about expression and when you aren’t having fun it shows. If you aren’t having fun, you won’t want to come back to it later. Just let go and have fun playing.

Playing and practicing also makes a difference. It will help you get better and get a feel for the techniques you get quickly and the ones you need to work on if that is the media you want to use.

These Maggie Holmes butterflies in the Add on section in the store are so fun. They worked perfectly with my spread because it’s about change. Embracing the change an flying high with it.

Here is a look at my full spread.  It’s not perfect, but in the journey of making this I really embraced it. I really kept trying until I got a look I was happy with. Even if I had to take up things off the page three or 4 times.

I hope this week you give some thought in how you can add some fun and play mixed media to you spreads. Even little things like adding some modeling paste to a journaling card, or splatter some color ink on white card stock before you start layering papers.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for this weekend, for international Scrapbooking Day, May 6th. We will be hosting tons of amazing challenges to play along in. There will be lots of chatting, scrapbooking and prizes!!

 

 

 

Guest Designer Nathalie DeSousa: Awesome Friends

 

 

Hello everyone!,

I have had so much fun creating a few projects with this beautiful RASKOG kit.     The beautiful papers, cut apart pieces, and all add ons are so easy to combine, that layouts come together rather rapidly.

For this project, I chose to cut the word ‘Awesome’from one of the Pinkfresh Studio paper, and glue it onto the nice colorful striped paper (also from Pinkfresh Studio).  Once glued, i pierced the edge of the letters, so it can be hand stitched.  I chose to use different color embroidery floss, that matched each of the respective color where the letter was placed.

 

 

The picture was printed in black and white to match the letters of the word.  I used some of the 4x4in cards to back the picture, as well as one of the glasine bags included on the kit.  I stitched one of the acetate words to the picture, and created clusters of the cut-apart  pieces, and small cut-outs (created using The Cut Shoppe’s Summer Time Circles cut file) around the page.   The title was completed by using the beautiful yellow alphabet stickers from Pinkfresh included in the kit.

 

 

I love adding small clusters around the page, so i used some of the rubber pieces and a few circle cut-outs to create a small cluster at the bottom of the large word.

 

 

Finally, i added some small details around the page along with my journal lines.  Here is the final layout

 

 

As always, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions  (you can find me in Instagram @tachita55, or Twitter @tachita55, or in my blog “Living An Inspired Life“).

It has been an honor to share a piece of my work with you.  Thank you Clique Kits for the invitation, and the beautiful RASKOG  kit.   You guys are great.  I am a fan!!

See you around!

Hello Chicago

Hello Clique Kits friends!

Marcia back today with some more inspiration for you using the awesome July Kit Raskog featuring the Pinkfresh Studios Life Noted collection. When I saw the AWESOME paper, I really wanted to use it to scrapbook a picture from a trip to Chicago with my daughter and some of her friends. How can you not think to scrap some city pics with those buildings on this paper! I find most of the Pinkfresh Studios papers to be very busy … lots of patterns, graphics, colors. It can be a bit overwhelming, especially since my style tends toward layering and combining pattern papers with digital cut files. I find it much easier to use the papers as they were designed and not try to mix pattern papers too much. I only used a single sheet of paper on this layout. It is very simple…

I merely added a little watercolor behind my photo, pulling out some of the colors from my photo. This really helps draw the eye to my photo. I embellished with one of this month’s exclusive flair buttons, an arrow clip, a rubber charm and sequins from the kit, and then a few extra add on pieces from the Pinkfresh Life Noted collection.

The Hello acetate word and alphas included in the kit were used for my title. I used my Xyron Sticker maker to adhere the acetate Hello here. It worked really well.

I wanted to share a scrap room organization tip with you today too. I don’t always use all the flair in each months Clique kit <gasp>. Sometimes they just didn’t coordinate with the photos I scrapped. I kept my extra flair in a bowl on my scrappy desk. But my bowl was getting full, and I thought I would use more flair buttons if I could easily see what I had. I decided to make a magnetic frame to store them on.

I bought this 8×10 vintage looking frame at Micheals and inserted a magnetic sheet from my Xyron Creative Station in place of the photo. I could then display my metal backed flair on the frame. It holds 63 flair buttons! You may recognize some of the Clique Kits flair, others came from Etsy stores; A Flair For Buttons,  the Flair Shop, and Paper Issues. I may have a slight flair addiction … this IS NOT even all of my flair! I love this frame so much though that I am thinking of making another one for my Cocoa Vanilla Studios flair.

Well that is all the scrappy inspiration I have for you today. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Summer Adventure

Hello Clique Kits friends!

Marcia back today with some digital die cutting inspiration using some of those awesome July kit exclusive cut files. I fell in love with the SUMMER cut file with all the variety of patterns going on in the different letters. I combined it with the adventure cut file. Now I had a perfect title for a layout to document a road trip vacation we took to the Black Hills in South Dakota! Oh, how I miss our camper! With kids almost done with college we have been talking about camping trips again, Wahooo! Here is my layout…

 

I used the yellow acetate sheet to back the cut file. Yellow is perfect for summer layouts! Here is another look at that awesome title.

 

Yes, I did a crazy amount of machine stitching on this layout. The watercolor background paper just wanted to curl up everywhere on me. Mounting it to heavy black cardstock and stitching helped immensely. Machine stitching is a great way to adhere those fabulous Pinkfresh transparency words too… Even on photos. I placed one of the exclusive flair buttons over an’O’ in the Go See Do transparent phrase. Works perfectly there!

My journaling is all about sticking heads and cameras out of car windows, lol. It’s hard to see in the photo, but that black head above my daughter’s head is my dog Satchel. You can see some of those pretty sequins from SpiegelMom Scraps and a Pinkfresh Studios rubber charm here too.

I hope I gave you some more fun ideas on how you can use your July Clique Kit! Thanks for stopping by today.

Life Is Good

Hello Clique Kits friends!

Marcia here today with some layout inspiration with the awesome July kit Raskog featuring the Pinkfresh Studios Life Noted collection. Take a look at all the amazing things included in this kit …

There are lots of ways to tell a story; with photos, with words, you can convey feelings with colors, or some combination of all of these. With my layout today I wanted to use those awesome colored acetate words to help tell my story. In this case a fishing trip my son just returned from. Check out this huge largemouth bass he caught!

In Minnesota, with over 10,000 lakes, we do a lot of fishing for fun. Since my son was going to release this guy back into the water, he wanted a picture of it so as not to be razzed about it later. It seems with the retelling of fish tales, the fish just gets bigger and bigger each time the story is told! so with photo as proof, I thought “A Real Fish Story” would work nicely on my layout for a subtitle. I used a combination of the acetate words and the Pinkfresh Studio Alphas that were included in the kit. Stitching over the acetate words worked really well to adhere them to my layout.

I wanted the Title of my layout to be Life Is Good, making use of the large LIFE letters on this page. I trimmed the “IS” from the “Go See Do” and the “Good” came from the “Good Times”.

I love those unique rubber embellishments in the kit too! I added one just below my title and another on my photo. Computer journaling finishes the details of my story. I cut these apart and scattered them around.

I added some of the cut apart pieces in the lower left along with one of the exclusive flair buttons and that awesome arrow paper clip.

I hope I gave you some fun ideas on how you can use your July kit! Thanks for stopping by today.

Yearbook: Friends

Hello Clique friends. Marcia here today with a layout to share with you that I created with the January Clique Kit featuring the fun Fancy Pants Designs Happy Place collection and plenty of Clique exclusives. I fell in love with the hedgehog PL card and the coordinating flair and knew I wanted to use them on a layout of one of my kids. I decided on this picture of my daughter with her favorite stuffed animal … Tigger. This is what I came up with.

Here is a close-up shot of the hedgehog and flair. I added a few die cut leaves along with the Fancy Pants ephemera die cuts and a bow I tied with the yellow twine included in the kit.

I love creating shakers with sequins. I die cut some hearts and a piece of vellum slightly larger, then sprinkled some sequins underneath. I carefully stitched around the edges to keep the sequins in place.

I hope I sparked some excitement for you and given you a few ideas of what to do with your January kit when it arrives. Thanks for stopping by today.

Locker Room – 2 Simple and Fast Christmas Cards

Hello everybody! How are you today? Are you done with your Christmas shopping and gift wrapping? As for me, I’m done with shopping and wrapping, but I still need to make few more cards to give to friends and family, so I used my fabuous Clique Into December Kit and started working.

The first card I made is quite simple, I stamped the bear from the lovely stamp set of Christmas Wishes collection (featured by the kit) and then added a little fram and a sentiment from the ephemera pack.

The final touch was some round and star shaped sequins, because everything looks better with few sequins! And that’s all! Super fast and yet cute, I bet you can make some of this in seconds 😉

For my second card I used circles. I punched few circles from one paper included on thr kit and then used foam dots for giving dimension to one of them. Also, I used the little mouse (isn’t that the cutest embellishment ever!!!) and a little sentiment  from the puffy stickers set, also using some fom dots.

Finally, I glued few sequins and little acrilic stars, gorgeous accent of this collection and kit.

I hope you like the idea of these cards and give them a try! They are cute and simple, the perfect option for those last minute gifts.  Have a lovely day and Happy Holidays!

 

Winter Hike

Hello Clique friends! Marcia here today. I am sharing a layout I created with the December Kit Girl Cave featuring the Pink Paislee Memorandum collection. I focused on the blue papers from the kit as I thought they would work well with some snow photos I had of my daughter and myself. These photos are from a few years ago. Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis had frozen over because it had been so cold. We decided to hike to the Falls and check it out. It was well worth the hike.

I used a couple of cut files from JustNick for my circles and snowflakes. I even added a few snowflakes on my photo using a PNG file and my Adobe Photoshop Elements photo editing software.

I love the Pink Paislee washi sheet which has shapes like these gold arrows as well as the normal strips. The Jillibean Soup self adhesive sequins are another fun embellishment included in the kit.

I used the Bella Blvd sticker alphas for my title.

and check out the exclusive flair included in this month’s kit!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Pursue Whatever Sets Your Soul On Fire

Hello Clique Kits friends! Marcia here today, sharing a layout created with the December Girl Cave kit featuring the fun Pink Paislee Memorandum collection. I don’t think we have shared the kit here on the blog yet, so let me show you…

One of my favorite parts of any Clique Kit are the exclusive digital cut files. I thought I could use the “Pursue Whatever Sets Your Soul On Fire” title on a graduation layout. I decided to enlarge the title to make a dramatic statement. My daughter graduated from college with a degree in English with the hopes of someday becoming a writer or an editor. The label paper at the top of my layout worked well to record this. Her passion has always been writing since she was a little girl. Now she is soon to graduate with her Masters degree … yeah!!!!

There are lots of fabulous embellishments this month, like these wood veneers from My Mind’s Eye, the Pretty Little Studio acetate tags, and these self adhesive sequins from Jillibean Soup. Oh, and I love the Pink Paislee Memorandum washi tape sheet.

I challenge you to use a big title on one of your next layouts too. Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to shop the Clique Store’s Black Friday sale for some awesome deals!

Study Hall: Bookworm

Hello! It’s Justt here with a new layout for you. During summer I had some free time to read. I actually read a lot just to relax in the evening after a long day. And this layout is all about it. 🙂 Bright and quite simple, but sometimes I really have problems with adding some more embellishements so it stayed as it is. I used some turquoise papers and die cuts from October Funfetti Kit and add-on alphabet from Pinkfresh Studio which you can purchase in the shop!

Tell me in comments if you like it! Hugs!