Hello, friends! In our previous post, we talked about the Gather Collection is not your average fall collection. Today, we are picking up where we left off and focusing our paper crafting attention on the wonderful watercolor and ombre designs found throughout this collection. Whether it's the papers, washi, stickers, or pocket cards, there is plenty of fun colors to work with. Our Creative Team got to work creating some stunning spreads featuring watercolor and ombre effects. For the love of pets! Pauline used the watercolor pattern to create a stunning monthly spread in her puppy planner! "One of the reasons why I absolutely loved Cocoa Daisy for 4 years now is the watercolor designs throughout the kits. I really love all those designs, and that makes me love the kit even if the theme isn't for me at first glance. One of the masterpieces this month was the watercolor grid pattern paper in the Gather Planner Kit. I used this paper to make a monthly page in my second planner (the doggy training planner). I used a stencil in order to trace the calendar, and I use the stickers from the Gather Calendar Daisy Weeks Sticker Kit to mark days and dates. During the month I just write into the boxes. This month the sheet is really colorful, so I didn't want to add too many decorations with stickers. Instead of that, I choose to use some stamping like the Gratitude Stamp Set. I use versafine onyx black as ink.I really also love the mini tab sticker from the Calendar Daisy Weeks Sticker Kit to have the months follow each other in an organized way. Here is another look at some days of the calendar, and the banner with some stamping too. When there is some space at the bottom of my monthly page, I like to use the "this month" sticker from the Gather Weeks Sticker Kit. I use this one to write some highlights with the dogs, like online or in-person classes or vet visits to plan at some point."   The colors in Jil's 12x12 layout just pop! Adding strips of watercolor paper really move the color around the page.   "The watercolor-art paper in the Gather Collection provides the perfect complement to my fall leaf photos. I combined it with the peachy brown-toned watercolor paper from Umber & Gold Collection, adding in just a bit of red paper from my stash to pick up the red in my November leaf bouquet. I cut the papers into strips as a base for my photos and then repeated the strips, trimmed to a smaller size, on the right, and at the top, accenting each paper cluster with a punched red leaf and some pearl dots from the Gather Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit. The November tag and chipboard pieces from the Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit. helped me tell my story. I pulled stamps from the Umber & Gold Collection to embellish my journaling and add a touch of ochre to the reds and muted purples on my layout. Paper with watercolor designs adds beautiful, variegated hues to any project and is especially delightful for pages about fall with its glorious colors!"   Take a look at Evy's beautiful Simple Dori spread, courtesy of all the fun colors and elements in the Gather Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit. "I loved this Gather Collection for the many patterns with a watercolor effect and for the beautiful "ombre" pages. I love the pages of the Gather Simple Dori with the writings that already do half the work in a project. For this layout, I just used one of these pages with the ombre lettering combined with a full-page photo. I made the title by adding writing above the photo with the puffy alphabet from the Gather Traveler's Notebook Memory Keeping Kit The blue alphas were a perfect match with the shoes in the photo! On the right side, I made the caption using the stamps from the Gather Memory Keeping Stamp Sets. A simple and fast project but with great impact." Lots of great inspiration from the Creative Team! A quick¬†tip: you can always create your own watercolor or ombre effects with paints or stamping. Share your color-forward layouts with us by tagging @cocoa_daisy on social media or posting to the Cocoa Daisy Fan Page. Make sure to visit our Pinterest page for more inspiration.

Best,

Rachel, Creative Team Blog Coordinator