Counterfeit Kit Challenge September member blog hop

Hello and welcome to another Counterfeit Kit Challenge member blog hop.

I'm kicking off the hop this month so please pop back to the Counterfeit blog to see the full list of hoppers. When you're done here, you need to go and visit Tina (here) where she is sure to have something great to share!

We were challenged with three (for me) tough challenges this time around:

1. Challenge #1 Challenge US! :Make up your own challenge for us 
2. Challenge #2 Selfie Love : Scrap a selfie  
3. Challenge #3 Mixed Media Embellies : Make some inky, painty, textured embellies

I scratched my head a bit and then jumped in to make up two layouts for the first two challenges. I'm really not much of a mixed media, get my hands dirty kind of person so I decided to leave that one for the more adventurous, and far more talented members on the team.

But making up my own challenge? Yep! Can do that.

I decided to challenge myself and therefore YOU to use a whole sheet of die-cut paper as the background to your layout. 

I often find these sheets tricky to use as I generally love them and don't want to cut them up or even cover up the detail very much! So, the challenge to use them as a background for the layout was the first step to keeping as much on show as possible and I usually use white cardstock these days, so all that colour was a second challenge! 

I had a beautiful piece of rainbow paper in my kit and knew that it would be perfect to back all those die-cut stars. I picked up that paper on my NYC trip so I knew that I wanted to really showcase it as much as possible. I think this did the trick. What do you think? This is also a special layout for me as it features me and my baby sister who is celebrating a special birthday this month. I will be writing a few happy memories of our time together.

I loved finding a way to incorporate those Silhouette shapes into the design and even as my title

While I was sat it, I decided to work directly on a second layout using the selfie challenge. You know that I take a lot of such photos so it was more of a matter of finding a reason to pick a particular one out for a creation. Looking through my pile of Instax prints, I selected one with nothing in particular to say and created a layout just about me. I'll be adding my journalling when I have a little time to breathe and consider what message I want to give myself.

I see that this isn't a perfect photo - bit dark and wrong tones. I'll have to practice  taking photos in different corners of our new flat to find the best light...

What a surprise! More gold...

Really enjoyed finding a way to use this gorgeous Scrapabilly exclusive flair button! A little German here and there goes a long way on my pages and reflects another side of me.

Even though I've only managed three layouts (so far) with my kit this month, I am very much in love with it and know that it will get much airtime next month during my third LOAD of the year starting October 1st! I can't wait as I'm hoping to be a bit more organised by then and might even have found my scrap supplies - LOL! But even if I haven't managed to get them all unpacked, I have a nice pile of Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits from the last few months that will most certainly make my chances for a successful month more likely.

Watch this space for more shares...

As mentioned at the beginning, next on the hop is Tina (here) and the full list of this month's bloggers can be found at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog (here). Happy hopping!