The Ink Road – Gia Aloha

Aloha friends! Happy fall y’all! Clique Kits has been creating with some amazing products geared toward the beautiful sights, sounds, and tastes (Pumpkin Spice yeah!) of autumn and the October kit was appropriately named “Gather”.

Today is the day we celebrate with an Instagram Hop and share all of the projects we made in October as we get a glimpse of the upcoming November Kit reveal! YAY!

The Instagram Hop Lineup

Donna – @iampinay25
Sara – @sara.scraps
Kayla – @kaylawebber88
Hannah – @dandalion2002
Marsha – @heymarshamakes
Rachel – rachellowe____
Cristina – cristina__sales
Sue – @suesmith7900
Gia – @giaaloha
Raechelle – @raebellus
Riri – @riri.creates
Theresa – @larkindesigntm
Khristina – @khristinasorge

Simply like and comment on these amazing posts and participants for a chance to win a prize from Clique Kits! Tag your friends to play along!

For this layout I used a new (to me) stamp and die set from Ink Road Stamps. It is called Bella Flora and I used black ink to stamp and then used the outline dies to cut some 2D flowers to layer with those gorgeous 3D flowers in the kit! You also might recognize that this layout follows the Clique Kits October sketch!

Here are some sneak peeks at the November Kits! They are called “Seneca Falls” which is considered the birthplace of women’s suffrage because the first ever convention on women’s right to vote took place there in 1848. This is very important to us Clique Kits girls because November 6th Election Day is right around the corner and we really want to encourage ALL of our followers to get out and use that right to vote that women once fought and died to get!

This kit features designer in the spotlight Amy Tangerine and her new collection Shine On! Loving the colors and patterns in this one! So while you stalk your mail-person don’t forget to get out there and vote in the Midterm elections!

-xo Gia

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Hi guys. Today I am sharing another traveler’s notebook spread using my Clique Kits Riga Traveler’s Notebook and Main kits and a little bit of my process using a new stamp set from The Ink Road to create some watercolored embellishments. I actually did this because I had mixed some watercolors to use on a scrapbooking layout which I shared here and had leftover paint, which of course must never go to waste.

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I started with a blank sheet of hot press watercolor paper. Some people ask what the difference is between cold press and hot press watercolor paper and it has to do with the process of how it is made, and the outcome in terms of the texture or “tooth” of the paper. Cold press watercolor paper is the most commonly used and has a bumpy texture. This paper tolerates lots of water as is needed for doing washes. Hot press, on the other hand, is a nice, plump, thick absorbent paper that is smooth and therefore is very practical for drawing or stamping in combination with watercolor paint, mists, inks, or other wet media. 133755_x

So there you have it-if you enjoy using mixed media on your layouts or in your journals, I highly recommend keeping some hot press watercolor paper in your stash. My favorite is Fluid: an economical brand that is not as expensive as a brand like Arches but for my purpose is high quality enough. It also comes in square as well as rectangular shaped pads! So you can buy 12 x 12 for layout backgrounds, and you can also buy 8×8 which you can turn into traveler’s notebook pages, and even 6×6 pads.

Another important pearl of wisdom for combining stamping with watercoloring is that you have to remember to use permanent, waterproof ink such as Ranger Archival ink. If you use regular water base dye ink your stamped design will certainly smear when you add any water media.

Once I added fun color to my stamped phrases and designs I fussy cut them with a small scissors. I also used a scrap of the painted black stripe paper that I had used in the previous layout, again waste not want not.

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Finally, I wanted to use a couple of houseplant embellishments from my Riga kits because they were gold foiled and added a little pizzaz to an otherwise very simple layout.

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