Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgery on the Fourth

I'm back today with my Forgery on the Fourth for Counterfeit Kit Challenge September kit.

You can find out more links and other forgeries from the team over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog here so don't forget to head over there to see what's on offer :-) 

A reminder of our personalised curated kit for September's inspiration courtesy of Khristina Sorge from the Secret Not Secret Kit Club (you can find details about her club online here) who is also our wonderful Guest Designer this month. 

This is the kit she made for us.

My eye immediately went to the die cut viewfinders and the outline plane embellishment. I knew I could come up with something similar using my Silhouette. It took me a couple of minutes to find some viewfinders in my library so I was on a roll but a plane? I had to use a cluster embellishment and ungroup them to have a single plane to use.

Next up was to resize a bunch of them, position them in a similar way to the original in the kit and then work out how to connect them. Merging them was tricky and it took a long time to get them perfectly positioned so that they touched but didn't go "into" the neighbouring shape. While that looked ok as block shapes, once I worked out how to create an outline shape, I could see that when they overlapped too much, the outline wasn't solid but rather had openings where they touched. I went online to find out how to create an outline cut from a solid shape (apparently it's offset and I worked out that an inside offset was better). Then I kept nudging the shapes around, merging, offsetting and checking the form before undoing all those last steps to nudge the shapes around again and continue through that iterative process until I was relatively happy with the result! It's not perfect but I'm happy with it and I think that no-one would notice the imperfection. This is a screenshot of how my template looked in Silhouette before I sent it to cut.

I used a thick white cardstock and it came out perfectly. It really took a long time but I learned about offsetting shapes and am gradually building up more than just the basic skills that I've had for some time now. When I use my Silhouette, I'm always thrilled with the result and just purchasing this shape might have been a whole lot easier but I've got a lot of satisfaction from creating this die cut myself.

I also thought I'd give the epoxy stickers a go. I liked the simple white on black form with the non-uniform white outline and thought I could recreate something similar. I used an almost black paper and them white heat embossed some motifs from a travel collection stamp set and a few phrases that were the same as the original set. I cut these out using three different sized dies and then cut a set of white cardstock circles too. I mounted the black paper onto the white cardstock in different ways - sometimes using a larger white circle and sometimes, the same size. I moved the shapes around so that there was a different frame of white on each one.

Then I covered a few of them with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, laying them out on baking paper first so that they didn't stick. I tried to get right up to the edges and knock out the air bubbles before leaving them for 24 hours to dry.

The final result isn't perfect as there were definitely some bubbles still left in the glue as well as some rough edges as the glue settled and dried. I was also a little disappointed that the white cardstock appears less than white now. The Dimensional Magic is not 100% clear but at least the white of the cardstock is now the same white as the embossing!

Just for comparison, I also did the same thing to a few with Glossy Accents. As you can see, the white cardstock appears a more true white but the surface is certainly not as smooth and glossy or as dimensional.

I've left a few without the "epoxy" effect and no doubt all my faux epoxy stickers will get used up on cards at some point.

If you have some clear epoxy stickers, you can of course make your stickers in an easier way than this. I've included a YouTube link over on the CKC blog today for different ways to put your backgrounds together for these.

In the past I've also talked about making complete copies of sets of word-based Thickers using my Silhouette (you can find examples here and here).

Why not try your hand at making your own embellishments for your own kit? It can be a lot of fun learning new techniques and trying different things out to achieve the results you're looking for. Not all of my "forgeries" are successful, but I love giving it a try!

Don't forget that there's a whole load of inspiration over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and we always love seeing how you've been inspired. 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 #ckcseptember2019).

April 2019 - Counterfeit Kit Challenge prompt #2 - Hidden!

I'm back with a challenge layout today and am thrilled to be able to say that I not only used my April kit for layout #2, but I also fulfilled the challenge on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog - Hidden!, and also my own Whimsical Musings prompt WM#325 - be inspired by a blue-toned necklace.

I do love it when I get multiple challenges completed in one layout - although there are others out there much better at it than me.

Here's a reminder of my take on the Hip Kit Club March 2019 kit, "Balconia" and you can find all the details for the inspiration kit over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog here.

Right, back to business...

I challenged the team with the following:

Challenge #2 - Hidden!

Easter is coming and many little ones will be participating in Easter Egg Huts in the garden. Create you own "hunt" on your page by including some hidden elements on your page such as journaling, symbolism or more photos. Let the hunt begin!

I decided to go for lots of hidden symbolism as well as a truly hidden-in-plain-sight element to my page. 

Can you see it? 

It's right there in the middle and I have to admit to being rather proud of it and ever so grateful for my beloved Silhouette Cameo which has earned its keep this week in more ways than one. When I use it, I truly love it and don't know why I don't use it more often!

So... if you didn't notice, here are some of the elements I included in my page.

• I splatted gold and blue onto the background to mirror the state flag of Alaska where I bought this gorgeous necklace
• the title is a nod to the flowers in the necklace which also happens to be the state flower of Alaska too. The actual words of the title are of course, double meaning as I really don't ever want to forget my trip and experiences during the holiday of a lifetime.
• I also used blue and gold with the messy thread elements 
• the softer colours of the patterned papers I used reminded me of the autumnal colours I experienced during my travels around the Yukon and my short stay in Alaska
• I've included the constellations you can find on the state flag - subtle but clear to see if you know where to look!
• and the best bit... I've cut out the state of Alaska from my favourite constellation covered Studio Calico vellum and laid it underneath the photo. You have to really look carefully to notice it and that's the effect I wanted. The focus is on the photo and the bead elements I've attached to the page as embellishments but the negative space on on the vellum is there to discover. 

I've been including hidden symbolism on my pages for a long time - colours, motifs, patterns etc - and find myself going back to this technique over and over which makes me happy. I hope you'll give it a try if this is something new for you. Make sure you link up to let me know how you get along!

Head back to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog so that you don't miss any of the other shares today and of course, there's heaps and heaps of inspiration and community shares over on Instagram here and the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community here.

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - piling up the techniques

Challenge #2 is up over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge and it's all about the techniques - at least three different ones on your project.

Now, many of you might have noticed that I'm a very lazy scrapper! No really! I love to layer and potter around on my layout clustering up bits and pieces which takes me a long time. But getting all techniquey is guaranteed to take an awful lot longer for me and runs a high risk of going wrong! Add to that the fact that I need to actually get stuff out - paints, mists, masks, sewing machine, die cutting machine etc - and it's likely that I just won't.

However, never one to shirk a challenge, I decided to see how I could manage to incorporate some (easier) techniques into my standard process but still have some fun along the way.

I took out my second July Counterfeit Kit Challenge July kit, Relax (see here) and the lovely rich aquas and teals grabbed my eye directing my colour choices for this predominantly monochromatic layout.

July kit, Relax - layout #1

As I was at the Scrapabilly crop, I first scrounged borrowed the Heidi Swapp Colour Shine mist from Sylvia and a Tim Holtz woodgrain mask from Charly to get a base layer down on my cardstock. (I never remember to pack things like that - doh!) as well as using the mist to splat across the diagonal and spraying my vintage (manu?) frames to match. There, three techniques in one go!

As well as the different misting techniques, I dragged out the sewing machine to frame the page as well as making some stitched details. When you add in my usual distressing, layering and clustering I think I nailed the challenge - don't you?

Thanks for stopping by. Why not leave me a comment and tell me a few of your favourite techniques - you never know, I might just try to be a bit more adventurous on layouts to come.

Getting messy

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge mini-challenge #2 is up and if you like getting messy, then this one is right up your street.

It's all about paint this time around and if you are anything like me, you get it everywhere! Many a time have I found a big blob of (usually pink, let's face it) paint right at the end of my nose, or in my hair, after playing with colour while scrapbooking. So that's where the messy comes in!

I had included a rich coral paint and crackle medium in my kit and just added in some cream to make my painted element work for me and my page.

I often forget to use paint, and I really like the end result so I need to try to use it more often. What is really sad is that many of my paints are so neglected they are really dried up already :-(

Anyway, I picked out one of the coloured cardstocks, determined to get through them, and layered up papers and fussy cut items along with some of the other little embellishments from my kit to form a place for my wonderful vintage photo of my Granny, her sister and a friend at the beach. I need to check the details of the photo as I think there's more story than I can remember, but I think this classic 1930s photo is so wonderful that I was happy to see it on paper.

I dry brushed the cream paint around the edge of the cardstock and then a little on the paper and background - just to give it some texture and to calm down the blue a little.

I then found a small chipboard element and used the coral paint with a thick layer of crackle medium and a top coat of cream which cracked really well. I have a lot of small chipboard that doesn't get used so often so I really need to remember this simple technique to give it a new lease of life.

I'm a little slow with my kit this month (this is layout #2 only) but I'm enjoying seeing how different elements can be combined to work in different ways.

Don't forget to join in the fun over at the Counterfeit blog and to share your painted elements.

“The totally non-patented, nothing new here, Lisa method of clustering!”

You might have noticed that there are things that I do on my scrap pages that I repeat over and over and over again. Clustering is one and since I really started to get to grips with all that layering (thanks to BPC classes with Nic H), I hardly do a layout without some sort of cluster or grouping – no matter what the topic.

To help explain my way of doing things, I took some photos of my developing cluster when I was making a  layout back in October. At the time, I shared this with my fellow LOADsters but I've been asked if I could post it here again. (The photo quality isn't good as I was scrapping in the evening and the light is really bad but I hope you bear with me.) This is a really long post with lots of photos so apologies for that upfront!

1. I layered up some papers across the middle of the page, inking all the edges to give definition. I realised there would be a perfect cluster spot on the left hand side, under the photos.


2. Before anything else, I added my twine around the layout and tied it in a simple knot. This way, it will peek out from under the cluster.

3. Then I laid out some fussy cutting that I’d done from the tropical flower print BasicGrey paper as well as some ribbon roses to roughly see how the main elements would work.


4. First down are the flat, larger pieces – directly attached to the background papers.

5. Then come the rest of the flowers raised using foam squares, and in some places, double foam squares (my layouts are very rarely flat LOL). I carefully place all these elements and adjust them before giving them a press to attach them.


6. I attached the ribbon rose strip along the bottom of the photos, bordering the fussy cut flowers. Now I have dimension, texture, contrast. Next up were a couple of word strips just placed to peek out of the flowers. A sparkly button finished off with a bow filled a little empty looking spot.


7. And just to finish this part off, I remembered some word strips and I made a small banner out of the word “dream” which I then nestled into the flowers.

8. Next up, I also wanted to add one of my “signature” (not sure if this is really so but one or two people have commented on it!) bows to extend the clustering across the page. I cut a small piece of ribbon and a smaller piece of jutte type ribbon (which I actually bought in the Philippines which is the reason I HAD to put it down on this layout.) and then squeezed them together in the middle so that they formed a bow effect. I tied this off first.


9. Then I ran the loose ends of the twine through a button and pulled really tight to gather up that centre point. Another knot and bow to make sure its secure. At this point, I sometimes apply a glue dot or just liquid glue to keep it in place.


10. A swirly rub-on fills in some of the space above my bow.


11. And to finish, I picked out a couple of the colours from my photos with pins stuck under the button.


12. It’s at this stage that I might have a rummage through my embellishments and take a few things out to see if they have a place. Or I might notice a corner which doesn’t look balanced and need something to place there. Or I might decide that I want to enhance one of the elements or colours. I do a lot of button, brad or bling sprinkling too. In the case of this cluster, I left it as it was.

13. As you can see by the completed layout, it takes up quite a lot of the bottom third of my page and I think even for me, that’s probably enough.


So the basic principe remains the same if you are making a small or an extravagant cluster – biggest, flattest pieces first, followed by smaller, more dimensional items, finishing off with the very small buttons or bling or whatever last, on top, peeking out or in the middle. Remember to start small and build up. Don’t be afraid of repurposing/cutting/altering items, fussy cutting or looking in your local haberdashery for suitable items so that you have a lot of possibilities when building your cluster. There is no perfect way to cluster, it’s really just a matter of try it on and see if you like it, then practice until you establish what works for you. So why not find out what your cluster style is and try one today. ;-)

It's that time of the month again

No! Not *that time of the month ;-)


Rather, time for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog hop.

If you have just landed here, you might want to go back to our über-talented Guest Designer Kerri who kicks off the hop. And if you arrived via Kim, you are on the right track and at the end of my post, you can see a full list of the hoppers and your next stop, which will be Margie.


Happy hopping.


Our challenge this month was to dress up some stickers on our projects in honour of Halloween which is now just a few short days away. What will you be? Let me know in the comments as I'm collecting ideas for costumes for future spooky days to come ;-)

Anyway, our official remit was to alter some stickers and use them in an unexpected was on our project. Not as easy as it appears at first!

I decided to break out the Halloween kit I'd made this month, Schrecklich, and pretty up some of the CC stickers I had in there. Nothing ground breaking but adding a bit of glitter to the candy and stickles to the banner and the bat meant that the stickers were much more "me". Let's face it, glitter anything and it's instantly more "me" ;-)

I transformed the bat and the matching banner to a card and the candy found its way onto a layout featuring some of the pretty decorations I made for myself last year. 

However, I did do one little thing on my layout which means that you won't even see my stickers on there! I made a title using the stickers as a mask. Black cardstock brushed over with some Stampin' Up Whisper White gives it a *bit* of a spooky look. This would have looked great with a white mist too but unfortunately I don't have one ;-( (adding it to my shopping list while I write!).

What will you do with your stickers? Do you use stickers a lot? Or more like me and just add them from time to time? 

With that, thanks for stopping by and I will send you on your spooky way to Margie and the rest of the team. 

Here's the full list:

Guest Designer - Kerri 
Helen 
Jemma 
Jen 
Jessica 
Julie Ann 
Kim 
Lisa - you are here
Margie  - this is your next stop
Milissa 
Rebecca 
Susanne


One last thing: 

This month's sponsor over at CKC is Momenta. You can see their productshere, their YouTube channel here, and their great blog here.

In order to be eligible for their prize package for this month, all you need to do is:

1. LIKE them on their facebook page (making sure you comment on their page to let them know that CKC sent you! )
2. Send an email to CKC to let them know that you did this.
3. Send a friend over too. You'll get an extra entry for each friend who also likes their page, comments on it and let's CKC know that YOU sent them!

Again, happy hopping!

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!