Counterfeit Kit Challenge August challenge #2

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge in August is all about summer and with Challenge #2 Master Forger has prompted us to make a project about:  

"What is summer to you? What do you like to do? Do you like to read a book on the patio, garden, bird watch, or watch the kids play in the sprinkler?"

Just a reminder of my kit this month...

Find details of my kit here

I've been busy working with it and am loving the mix of colours and looks I'm getting. It's proving really versatile and this time around, I've gone with a cream based background, picking out the softer, creamier tones.

I decided to record a trip to the fair recently. Cranger Kirmes (funfair) is the second largest in Germany (after Oktoberfest) and the largest in North Rhine-Westphalia. It's a local legend and we managed to get there this year after several years of missing it. I planned our time there so that we would be able to get some great light-filled photos.

I raided the chipboard shapes as well as the Shimelle sticker book for anything that I thought could work for my theme and was really happy to find as many small items as I did to decorate the corners of my layout.

A sprinkle of mists and dots were the perfect final touches.

I like playing around with language and have mixed up English with German, even using the slang name for the area where we live here - the "Pott". It won't say anything to anyone who's not from round here but I like to show how connected to my adopted homeland I am!

I added in this alphabet after I realised that I didn't have enough of the letters I needed in the pack of Thickers that I'd included in my kit!

I wanted to use as many photos as I could and printed out 8 shots at just under 2x3 inch - 4 landscape and 4 portrait. Rather than lining them up in a standard grid, I played around to offset them into a pleasing pattern which would also give me space for the two 4x3 cards. I'm really surprised that I was able to fit so many elements onto the page including a large title in several places. I hope you can still see enough of the paper in the background too - so pretty!

Thanks for dropping by and don't forget to check out the other projects over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge - see blog post here.

We always love to see your work, so please share your kits and projects with us.

You can use our Monthly Link-up page, post them in our Facebook Community, or share them on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcaugust2019). 

Counterfeit Kit Challenge August kit reveal and blog hop

Hello to August and to what should be the height of summer even though we've been melting here in Europe over the last month or so already. We've had record temperatures and this month's Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit is just about as summery as you can get. 

But I'm running ahead of myself!

Welcome to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge August kit reveal and blog hop. 

Hopefully, you've arrived here from our power scrapper Julene and her no doubt huge, fun kit and up after me is the prolific Lori who is bound to delight with her supplies!

This month, we are delighted to have Kate Blue back as our Guest Designer and it's always a joy to see her fabulous kits and super layouts so make sure you don't miss out on visiting her too (here). (The full blog list can be found at the end of this blog post.) 

And once last announcement - this month we also have the talented Shannon Allor playing along on her YouTube channel here. She's part of the How to Kill a Kit with Style team and this month she's taking our kit - or rather our inspiration kit - for her set of videos! What fun! Check her out here.

MF Cindy picked this sweet kit for our inspiration this month - Citrus Twist's main July kit, "Best of This Life" which you can find here.

There's also an add-on kit which can be found here.

You can find links to unboxing videos over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog reveal post today.

This kit sums all the wonderful colours and designs of summer and my starting point was to find as many pretty, summer shades as possible. My kit is a little brighter and bolder than the original but first, let me show you my Paris inspired kit, Macarons.

I wanted to bring together some happy, bright, summery colours and mixed together some new and old papers to get a good, vibrant mix. Instead of the black and white diagonal stripe, I decided to include three sheets from a new Polish collection (Piatek Trzynastego) I picked up recently featuring constellations and moons. They are heaven and thought they could provide a great contrast to all those pastels. 

Once I'd pulled all the papers together, I decided that it reminded me of all the delicious macarons at Laudurée in Paris where I just happened to be a few days ago! And hence, the kit received its name.

Once I'd picked out all the papers, I added in a bunch of embellishments to give me a lot of possibilities. Two packs of die-cuts with whimsical as well as summery motifs.

Enamel dots as well as heart puffy stickers - both picked up in the UK and non-branded.

A fabulous set of Thickers, some leftover chipboard pieces, two sheets of sticker from the moon papers and the American Crafts Shimelle sticker book which I also picked up in the UK and have been itching to use up!

Last but not least is a bunch of printed and fussy cut labels to match up the items in the original kit. 

I haven't included stamps as I don't tend to use them even if I put them in the kit but you never know, maybe this month is the month! I did actually use stamps on a layout recently... And I've also resisted adding in pocket cards but let's face it, there's a whole lot of paper in here so it's a really big kit anyway.

Now, you might wonder why on earth I've made up such a big kit when I don't seem to be scrapping as many layouts as in the past?

Well, maybe this is an answer for you...

When I was making up my kit for today, this was my pile of old kits that were still "in use". I realised that I've really been uninspired by each of these recently and therefore, I decided to break them all back up into my stash and start again. I do this once a year or so and mostly decide the time is right for this action when I can't find items I know that I have but suspect that they are "lost" inside those boxes! I love my kits and am more than happy to use older kits for a LONG time (these dated back to spring of 2018) but once I find myself rummaging through the boxes for missing items and also opening up ten boxes before settling on a kit to use for a layout, it's time to start afresh again. 

So I worked through the boxes, emptying and sorting as I went and then worked on my new kit. 

I now have a single, large kit on my shelf and I hope to find a lot of inspiration in there to keep me going for some time. I realise that I have layouts made over the last month or so that I haven't shared, so maybe that will happen too. Fingers crossed.

Here's the blog hop list in case you get lost along the way:

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - https://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/
Guest Designer - Kate Blue - http://kateblue.blogspot.com  
Cindy -http://cindyscreations-cinmfoster.blogspot.com/
Julene - http://julenebydesign.blogspot.com/
Lisa - http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com/
Lori - https://loriannie670.blogspot.com/
Laura - https://instagram.com/mrsp_scrapsandtea/


Don't forget that we always love to see your work, so please share your kits and projects with us.
You can use our Monthly Link-up page, post them in our Facebook Community, or share them on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcaugust2019).