Inspired by stamps

I hope I'm not alone when I say that I have a small collection of stamps (I don't consider myself a stamper at all really) but even then, I don't use them very often.

I think that it will take too long to get them out, pick out a colour, fish out the acrylic block, practice the stamping and then risk my whole project by getting the stamping wrong!

But it doesn't have to be that way. And every time I'm challenged or inspired to use my stamps, I remember how much fun it can be.

So the latest Counterfeit Kit Challenge mini challenge is perfect to blow the dust off your favourite stamp and get going!

"Pick ONE stamp (not the whole set) to inspire you and use on your project. You can use more than one stamp, but your inspiration one should be prominent.  You will tell me which stamp it was on your blog and how it inspired you."

With my November kit, Dempster, being such an autumn inspired kit and with my intention to capture some more of my Yukon memories, I went with a tried and tested leaf stamp to guide my design. In fact I saw the end result in my head before I even opened up my stamp drawer and knew exactly how I would use the stamp to make a leafy border.

The leaf is part of a pack of four that I picked up when I was making my monster Nova Scotia album back at the beginning of my scrapbooking adventure.

I didn't know anything about stamping back then and just picked up a set to add some detail to my pages.

In fact, the set has four leaves in it

 ... but the truth is I hardly ever use the others, reaching for the maple every time.

It's a really good quality stamp and the detail is so lovely that it's hard to go wrong with it.

The connection between the leaf, the maple, Canada, my kit and my travels all come together in this page and it turned out pretty close to the picture I had in my mind which is always a surprise and a delight.

"And to think I was worried there wouldn't be enough trees"

I used a whole range of different distress ink colours, stamping the leaf three times in each and then fussy cutting them out to form a layered and scattered border across the centre.

I tucked in a lot of pretty pearls, some funky wooden toadstools and a scatter of buttons to add some more dimension.

And of course the star of the show is the photo. I really was worried that there would be few trees on our travels through the Yukon and NWT but even though they definitely got smaller the further north we travelled, there were more than enough to keep me smiling. I might have more tree photos than anything else in fact!

Glad to have captured another little piece of the puzzle that is our adventure. One day I will bring all these pages together to see how full a story I've told!

Hi and welcome to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop!

It's so lovely to be here and I have to admit to being a bit nervous as this is the first CKC blog hop I've been involved in and you know the talent out there can be a little intimidating!

I'm the first stop on the hop (yet something else to be a little daunted by!) and next up is the über-talented Melissa so make sure you pop over there as well as all the other Forgers on the hop - there's a whole lot of inspiration out there.

This month's challenge for the blog hop was to use a stamping technique for your project and this one was really a bit nerve-wracking for me. But my trusty Stamping Guru Deb advised I check out You Tube or just the internet in general and gave me a whole list of ideas as well. Ideas galore and certainly several of them have been squirreled away for the future.

After a little looking around, I settled on Jennifer Maguire's "Smooching" technique.

Her video (check it out here) was excellent and described how she starts off with a standard stamped image and then "kisses" the stamp onto a background stamp which removes some of the ink from the stamp. The "smooching" comes from the kissing technique but you just slightly move the stamp a little to sort of push the ink which makes the background texture more pronounced. The video makes it much clearer than this rather doubtful explanation!

To make this a bit clearer, let me share some photos.

I decided to use a Christmas bauble stamp as it had a nice flat surface and I've used black ink to show you the technique and difference between the methods.

This is the stamp just as it comes.

This is the background stamp I used for the kissing and smooching. I used Libby's  Stampin' Up "Sanded" stamp which is unfortunately now discontinued :-( 

This is the effect after "kissing" the image with the background stamp - you can see how the ink has been lifted by the rough lines of "Sanded"

And this is the effect after I "smooched" the bauble stamp on top of the "Sanded" stamp. You can see how much more pronounced the lifted lines are.

After practicing the technique in black ink for the photos, I moved onto this pale pink ink but the smooching effect can still be seen. I decided to stamp a whole sheet of the images so that I was flexible about what to do with them when it came to my layout.

Now that I had my stamped elements, I had the idea to cut them out to use as a banner - you know how I love banners! I knew I had another challenge on my hands as I had used a Christmas image for my stamp but was going to be using my Departing Summer CKC kit!

Selecting the Sketch Support sketch I'd printed out last month to use but hadn't got around to yet (single page sketch #8), I just got to work! I used my pink paper along with the music paper and added in some bling and the silver letters to make it a bit Christmassy. I even found a use for a few of my photo corners, the old journalling spots and the green paper trims!

If you've made it to the end of this mega-post, then congratulations!

Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here before heading over to Melissa and then onto the rest of the hoppers!

Lisa (that's me!)

Melissa

Sherri

Kim

Jemma

Margie

Susanne

Lisa

Gabrielle

Meridy

And don't forget to check out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Sponsor for this month:

Ippity Chick Sherri

The prize:  a stamp set of your choice from her online store!

How to get it:  comment on the CKC blog hop post (on their site) on the 28th....and if you are participating in the blog hop you get an extra chance to win!

Having more fun with stamps

My DT month with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge and the stamping theme has been rather eye opening for me. I always shy away from stamping because I'm not really so good at it and I always think it takes a lot of time to get everything out and then cleaned and put away. But that's just not true. It's just a matter of making the time and one thing that I found useful was to use the stamps on a couple of items at the same time before putting everything away.

Challenge #3 on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site is to use stamps to create an embellishment.

I decided to make a tag that I could then use on a layout. We had done some of these in a class over at BPC with Nic Howard and I had loved them as add-ons to layouts. They take a little time, but I made three at the same time (though not deliberately - let's say that there was a steep learning curve!).

I took photos of all stages of all three tags but I'll just share the last and most successful one!

1. I started off with a plain shipping tag from my September Notes kit.

2. Then I used white acrylic paint with a Heidi Swapp corner flourish stamp.

3. I covered the whole tag with Pretty In Pink from Stampin' Up using my Tim Holtz distress ink applicator. You can see that the colour was subtle but that some of the paint picked up the ink.

4. Learning from the first tag, I then stamped a BG word stamp using StazOn black ink in the middle of the tag - the word didn't take very well to either a pre-embossed image or to the painted area.

5. Using the Martha Stewart butterfly stamp again (in love!) I stamped and then clear embossed the butterfly.

6. Now I moved onto two shades of darker ink, using Worn Lipstick Distress Ink around the edges and a little towards the middle and then just the edges using Close To Cocoa from Stampin' Up. I've learnt that you have to start with your palest colour and then work up to the darker one in just the areas you want. The kraft tag obviously affects the intensity of the colours and it would be great to try this out on a cream or even white tag. I just didn't have any.

7. I added a little extra embellishment to the tag in the form of some pearls (from August's kit) and a flower as well as a ribbon tie and then did something similar with the first two tags I'd made which hadn't turned out exactly how I'd wanted.

I'll be using one tag on a layout using Departing Summer (I'll be sure to post it when it's done), one will go into a little gift box for someone special and the other will be ready for when I need a little extra on a layout. It's always great to have things ready made for such occasions.

Two more things to remind you about.

1. This month's sponsor over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is Master Forger Sherri who will be giving away a set of her stamps from her etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShareCroppersKits). All you have to do to have a chance to win is to participate in the Counterfeit Blog Hop next Wednesday (28th) or comment on either of the blog hops - Master Forger Hop on Tuesday 27th or the Counterfeiters on Wednesday 28th.

2. Go over to this post of mine (here) and leave me a comment to be in the drawing for a small prize. I'm celebrating 5 years of blogging and I'm thanking all my blog readers for coming here and being a part of my scrapbooking life. The draw will stay open to the end of the month!

Counterfeit Challenge #1

When I was first asked to be GD over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge I was a little nervous to find out that the theme of the month would be stamping! I'm not known for my stamping skills and the first thing I did was to sent stamping guru Deb an email to ask her for some ideas!

She was really helpful and so reassuring that I soon felt lots better and ready to face up to my stamping fears! And you know what? I've had a lot of fun these last couple of days playing around and trying out some techniques.

It helps that I won a gorgeous set of butterfly stamps from the very generous Ginger and was immediately inspired to get them out and use them. And here's the thing.... they are so lovely and turned out so well, that I'm wondering if it's all down to the stamps you use? I don't know much about that but I have to say that these Martha Stewart stamps are simply gorgeous and the detail seems to come out so well.

Ok, so I'm waffling - just for a change :-)

Challenge #1 is all about stamping backgrounds. Either a scrapbook background or a card.

I decided to go large and opt for the 12x12 but wanted to do something that wouldn't overpower the layout itself. When flipping through my papers my eye fell on a piece which had same colour glossy images across it and I got the idea to use stamp my butterflies all over the cardstock and then clear emboss them. Subtle, pretty, and very effective. I decided on a pink based layout (bet that surprised you!) and the butterflies were perfect as a random image all over the cardstock.

Then the layout was easy. I decided to give the September Page Maps sketch a second go (1st version here) and stayed quite true to the orientation and design. I kept as much of the background cardstock showing as possible and ended up embossing a few more butterflies and cutting them out to use as embellishments too. The tone on tone effect, along with the limited splashes of colour is a nice combination.

One of the things I love the most about this sketch is the row of photos - you know how I love the multi-photo layout - and when I looked at all that pink, I thought of my (somewhat Diva-ish according to her mum) niece! Photos spanning the years. Perfect.

Layout #2 for Counterfeit Kit Challenge, Departing Summer kit

 Everything on the layout, except for the title Thickers, came from my two kits Departing Summer and September Notes and again, I'm always impressed at how, with the right mix of papers, it's possible to make really boyish layouts as well as pretty, feminine ones from the same kit. If anything was guaranteed to free me from the fear of stamping, this layout was it! I love how it turned out and will be more willing to pick up the acrylic block again soon!

Don't forget that the sponsor for this month's Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog hop is Master Forger, Sherri Thompson who will be sending out a set of stamps from her etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/ShareCroppersKits. All you have to do to be entered for the prize is to join in the blog hop or comment on the blog hop entries (27th and 28th September) - it's that easy!


Be sure to share your creative backgrounds with us over at the Counterfeit site.