Creating my Counterfeit kit

When I posted my May Counterfeit, I commented that I would write a post about the process I go through when shopping my own stash to create a kit. And I'm really late with this post. So, I'm sitting here in front of Germany's Next Top Model and have decided to try to get this written up. :-)

1. First of all, we receive the details from the Counterfeit girls about which kit we are counterfeiting this month and I spend a little time looking at the kit online, printing out the photos, looking at the content list and generally getting a "feel" for what the end result needs to look like. 

Here are the print outs I made of the 5 SC kits we were given this month and my first reaction was that the main kit wouldn't be my main focus but that I would probably combine a couple of the smaller kits. Looking at them laid out like this I could see that numbers 2 and 3 appealed to me directly so I put the others to one side and limited myself to these.

The next thing I did was to check out the content list just to see if I had anything matching in my supplies. If I do, it doesn't necessarily mean that I will include it in my kit, but I might take them out as a starting point, taking them out later.

This time around, I had a couple of the MME papers so I put them to one side.

This might sound like a long start up but this is a pretty quick process, the longest bit being checking out the kits online. I'm talking about 15 mins or so in total.

Once again for reference, these are the two kits I selected.

Louvre

Versailles

2. I know several of my fellow forgers find this odd, but my next step is to sort out some cardstock which will form the base colours. I don't really use much coloured card these days but I still have quite a lot in my stash so I see this as an opportunity to get some of it out and hopefully used up. I always add some white, kraft and or cream and then go with some colours. Usually six sheets seems to be a good idea. I pick out my colours and just place them next to the pictures of my selected kits to see if they go. I might take out 10 or 15 different sheets and then just reduce it to 6 or so to get the feel I want. 

Here, I knew I wanted some softer colours especially compared to the previous month's rainbow extravaganza and so I selected white and kraft, then added in a grey, a soft yellow which picked up the woodgrain and yellow stripe of the original kit, then green and a soft pink as a nice complement to the other cardstocks. This way, the softer coloured card would drive the softer colours I wanted to achieve in the kit.

3. Next up is papers. Like I said, I had some of the original kit papers so I put them out and laid them on my desk next to the cardstock and decided that I would use them after all. They seemed to go so well with the colours I'd chosen and looked so good in the original kit that it seemed the right thing to do.

Looking at the inspiration kit, I liked the butterfly paper and just happened to have one from Bo Bunny so out it came. And that drove me to select another sheet of the same range that went with it. There was a yellow spot in the SC kit so I found a soft yellow print from BasicGrey (ages old) and also a lovely greeny design that reminded me of the green in the chevron paper in the Louvre kit. In this way, I had "matched" the four papers in that kit. The Versailles kit started with the two sheets I had (mentioned before) but I didn't have the same woodgrain or floral so I selected a MME wood pattern and went through my stash for a multi-flower design that would contrast but still go with the papers and cardstock I had already chosen. If you look at the photo below, you can see several floral sheets out but none of them are anything like the original kit. But that's ok as I didn't have that strong red contrast from the original so I selected the Crate Paper floral with tones of lilac which brought another colour into the palette and which I thought was rather nice. I dragged out a few more sheets of paper in the process but after laying them next to the pile you see here in the photo, they immediately went back into my stash. 

It's all a matter of taste and feel and variety. I'm not looking (well not often anyway) for a kit that is ONLY a certain limited colour scheme. I want to get a selection of layouts out of my stash that I might not have come up with before so a bit of variety is important for me.

Another main thing for me is to combine new, not so new and most certainly old papers together in every kit. You have to try out the process to see how it works for you.

4. Once I have made my paper selection, I line them up to see how they look together. Here I decided to add in another floral paper to bring out a bit more of the pink

5. Now the main part of the work is done and I can go to town selecting my embellishments. You can guarantee that there will be more in my kit than the original as I know what I'm like with my layers and stuff!

The process starts the same way as with the papers, checking to see if I can match any of the items exactly. In this case I couldn't so I started off my selecting items that were the same type as the inspiration kit. This time around, that meant some twine, some buttons and brads, several alphabets including a white one like the kit and a couple of smaller ones like the BasicGrey sheet in the original. I didn't have a doily mask so I included several normal doilies but matched the mask idea with one out of  my stash, going for a leafy one because of the feel of my papers (with the butterflies and flowers, nature was calling). I pulled out some journalling sheets from a Making Memories book to match the Smash pages and mentally decided to make up some pennant pins like the Maya Road ones (see tutorial here) and some doily envelopes similar to the Martha Stewart ones (see tutorial here). Then I noticed the tissue paper in the SC kit and fished out some recycled tissue paper from Starbucks and decided that I had to find a way to use that too. 

The original kit had a few stamps and I'm a bad stamper so I thought it would be a good idea to sort out a few and put them directly in my kit to remind me to use them. I again followed the nature theme and chose some leaves and butterflies. 

Now I had matched the original kits pretty much item for item so it was time to see if there was anything missing. In the end, all I added in were a few more twines and a roll of washi tape as well as pulling out two Cricut cartridges to remind me to use them if possible.

I might, at this point, drag out some flowers, bling, ribbons or anything else which catches my eye when trawling my stash but not this time around. Again, it's important to me to include stash that is newer and older. I love to see my older stuff getting used up - I'm sure you do too.

6. Here is my kit all laid out willy nilly over my desk. I try to get a feel for if it's too big, too small, if anything is missing or if this is it. This was it! I move fast and make decisions quickly. It's not my aim to second guess myself and this whole process takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Taking the photos with the set up often takes longer! :-)

7. So then I took a nice photo of it!

8. Last but not least, I always reserve the right to add things in throughout the month as and when the need or fancy desires! And as I'm making up a layout using the kit, if I reach for something else to use with it, that often gets thrown in and stays there for the rest of the month - such as alphas, journalling spots or bling. This month, I've added in a mini alpha and some paper dolls I came across. Mists, inks and paints are considered to be "free" items to be used as and when and I often find myself adding in extra sheets of cardstock and using up vast quantities of string that were not in the kit.

Don't forget, there are NO rules! This is your kit and you can make up your own way of making and using it! :-)

Does this help? I hope that if you've been sitting on the sidelines not knowing where to start, this has given you some idea of my process and that it might help you to grab a piece of paper or cardstock as the basis of your next Counterfeit kit.

Let me know if you do!