Jumbled thoughts

My Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit, Fall In Love, came to the rescue again last week for a fun layout using the LOAD prompt to include a list on our layout.

I was driving to work when I was confronted by one of the most stunning sunrises I have seen and I was compelled to pull over and take an iPhone photo. I promise the photo on the layout is directly uploaded out of my camera and printed! I didn't do any sort of colour editing or actions... The colours really were that incredible. Having the list idea in my head, I noticed how my brain goes off in all sorts of different directions when I'm driving and decided to pay attention to that.

When I got home I was really pleased with just how good the photo turned out and also how it would go with the bright colours in my kit. Because my thoughts had been so jumbled, I continued the theme and used lots of different blocks of paper and a mixed alpha title as well as a bullet point list that was spread out  all over the page. For me, it all tied in together.

Layout #6 for my Fall In Love kit

I'm pleased to have completed my target of 6 layouts from this kit but I have enough in there for one or two more so we'll see if that's what I do or if I just move onto making some cards and calling it a day.

The next kit is in the process of being brought together and it's a good one! You won't want to miss the reveal over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site on the 5th.

Last chance to let me know on this post (here) that you popped over to Whimsical Musings to say hello and to have a chance for the Bite-sized Scrapbooking giveaway!

Digging deep

I am busy with LOAD and have really been making the most of my Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits. At the beginning of the month, I had leftovers from August (Balmy August) and September (Departing Summer) and my new October kits (Fall in Love and Schrecklich). I'm honestly not sure if I could have kept going day after day without these kits for those days when I didn't want to scour all my papers and just grabbing a ready-made kit has been a lifesaver. 13 counterfeit layouts so far this month in fact ;-)

And here is another one from Fall in Love.

The LOAD prompt was to go for the close up. I decided not only to use a close up photo but also accentuate that with a frame and look into the story in a bit more detail.

Layout #5 from Fall In Love

I've mentioned before that I have lots of random photos that I just take because I like the subject. Then I print it and look at it and wonder why. But there's often something to say about these types of photos. Maybe they sum up a feeling or a mood or they are representative of something. In this case, I looked at these acorns and suddenly remembered playing in the park as a child. Way back when. That was the story.

That's the reason for the page and the reason I scrap.


Love moments like that!

More good company

Always up for a good challenge, I'm again joining in on a new one set by my blog friend S over at Snaps & Snippets.  

Her idea is that we should spend some time in good company with our wonderful stash and become reacquainted with the treasures we possess. I love it and was sold at once.

Week 1 was Cosmo and I posted about this 2 weeks ago. 

Week 2 was Making Memories and I missed the deadline - arghghg! I'm so busy scrapping at the moment that I've been neglecting my blogging. But not to be outclassed by mere deadlines, I'm posting it here and have every intention on linking up with this week's ;-). You don't mind, do you?

I used up some of my precious Passport collection, now severely depleted ;-( to pull together a travel layout about Salzburg. Love these papers so much that I'll be really sad when they finally give up. I may have to get some more ;-) (Yes, I know that defeats the object!)

I love MM and have quite a lot of bits and pieces of it in my stash. I don't find myself buying a lot of full collections but odd sheets and lots of embellishments. It's usually pretty, colourful and easy to use. In my top 10 for sure.


Week 3 is now almost at an end and S has challenged us to use Graphic 45. Surprising for me, I appear to have a lot of it in my stash and I have no real idea how to use it! The patterns are so "all over" and themed that I find it tricky to know how to cut, use or build with it. But I'm pleased to say that I gave it a try and surprised myself in the process.


I had a whole collection of papers and had disregarded them as too themed but when I looked through them, I found 4 or 5 sheets with simpler designs that went together beautifully. I suppose I ought to look at the papers more carefully in future!


The LOAD prompt for today was nature and I thought this photo went with the papers I'd chosen really well. 

All in all, a fabulous challenge S! Thanks for making me see my suppplies in a new way! I'd never have made this layout without your gentle persuasion :-) 


Don't forget to check out this post (here) about our new challenge blog, Whimsical Musings (very exciting!) and the chance to win a giveaway courtesy of Bite-sized Scrapbooking!

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!

An announcement and a chance to win...

I've talked about Whimsical Musings a lot recently and you might have been wondering what it's all about...

It all started when Pam (Whimsical Nature) and I set about doing a daily challenge of our own during July. We came up with the name combining Pam's screen name, and my blog. Clever, huh? :-)

When July came to an end, we decided to take it weekly. We alternately create a challenge for the week and then wait to see what gorgeousness each of us creates.

Well, now we've decided to take it one step further and have set up our own challenge blog! And we'd love to see some visitors over there. We've been working hard behind the scenes to get the blog ready and have posted all the previous weekly prompts there and are in the process of uploading our layouts. It's still a work in progress but if I say so myself, it looks pretty darned good!

The concept is simple. Each Monday a "just-for-fun" challenge will be posted and it's designed to really get those creative juices flowing. We have a week to complete the layout and then you will find two posts on Sunday night with our layouts with a small amount of thought process behind it.

And you know what they say, the more the merrier.

Why not pop over to Whimsical Musings Challenge and say hi!

If you join in with the prompts, just let us know in the challenge post comments and we'll drop by and say hello to you too.

And as a little celebration of our launch, I'd like to offer you a little giveaway, courtesy of my "Bite-sized Scrapbooking" friend, Kim. She has bundled up the first 6 months of Bite-sized Scrapbooking prompts into one PDF file - BSS Bundle #1 - and is offering it for sale on her site for $7.99. Do you remember that I had a layout featured a few months ago? My layout is #18!

However, she has generously offered me one to give away to one of my blog readers. You'll love it. So much inspiration, so many layouts and so easy to complete in three easy steps. Kim walks you through each layout right down to the size, number and type of photos you might want to use as well as ways to change it up. You'll love it (have I mentioned that already?!?) and she is now offering FREE membership subscription until the end of January 2012 when the service will come to an end. Get on board while you can!

All you have to do to win a free "BSS bundle #1" is to go over to the new Whimsical Musings challenge blog and say hello! Then come back here and leave me a comment to say you were there! Simple. I'll keep it open to the end of the month and let you know the winner next week.

Softly falling snow

It's been a long, long time since I posted twice in one day but I just made my Jingle Belles card for this week and wanted to put it up a day earlier than usual as I have a special blog post for tomorrow.

So, I'll keep this short and sweet.

This week's prompt comes from Noelle McAdams over at Paper & ICE. When she thinks of winter, she is reminded of all "softly falling snow, snuggly sweaters and socks, mittens, down parkas, warm, soft cookies and coziness in general." And the idea of setting us a soft Christmas card challenge sprang to mind.

I was looking around on Saturday and picked up some felt thinking I might cut something out and get all crafty, when my eyes alighted on a snowflake hanger made of heavy grey felt. And I knew what I wanted to do. Make a card with this element hanging off it so that the recipient can use it on their own tree or as a present tag. I know that I'd love to receive something like this so why not others?

I simply tied the hanger onto the top of the card using cream twine. Simple. I used a CPS sketch #241

I added a small sentiment underneath the snowflake so the card wouldn't look too bare once it was removed.

I'm sure I now have more cards than I need for this year. One less thing to worry about :-)

Will this kit ever end?

I am still working on my Counterfeit Kit Challenge August kit, Balmy August. But it's like Mary Poppins bottomless bag. It seems to go on forever.

I have now made 8 layouts and there's at least one more in the kit so that is a target between now and the end of LOAD.

It was also my Whimsical Musings challenge (#10) to make a layout inspired by what's directly outside your door. I was lucky that the weather was as good at the weekend as the previous because I left it quite late to actually do it and I really wanted to use up-to-date, current photos. And the weather really was good. Blue skies, sunshine, jewell-toned leaves, the lot. I struck lucky on my short photo safari.

So, wanting to use up my Balmy August kit, I set myself another challenge of making this autumnal layout with non-autumnal colours and papers.

I found it impossible to limit my photo choices so came up with a photo block to include as many as possible. The usual layering, clustering and tying ensued and the layout was complete.

I'm pleased with how it turned out and that the colours in the photos show as strongly as they do. I hardly edited the photos and didn't need to enhance the colours at all.

Ahh, autumn. Have I told you how much I love autumn? *wink* 

Summer has finally departed

Happy Monday everyone!

I had an unexpectedly short day today which makes me happy and you know what I did with it? Not a lot ;-)

I caught up on the LOAD gallery, I caught up with a gazillion blog posts in my reader and I washed a few glasses (well, there had to be SOME work in there *wink*)

I'm finding the combination of blogging, LOADing, Counterfeiting, Whimsical Musing and blog surfing a bit much at the moment and I was a week behind my reading. That makes a lot of posts that I don't want to miss out on. So those of you reading this, sorry for being slack on commenting and joining in on the fun of your blogs. I'll be back to my normal, irregular schedule in November when LOAD is over.

In the meantime, LOAD has been helping me to work through the leftover Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits I had sitting on my table.

My first focus was my September kit, Departing Summer and I managed another 3 layouts bringing the month total to 7. My usual is 6 so I was pleased with this and now I really only have some scraps to make a handful of cards from. That can wait until after LOAD now though.

So, just to share the ends of this kit:

Layout #5 following the prompt just to make a "me" layout. I was happy to find a way to use the Sassafras background paper that I really love but find tricky to use. The top left and bottom right clusters are all printed as is the gorgeous eyelet lace fabric. I found it didn't need much extra on top to look finished.

I built up my cluster just using up the little bits and pieces that were in the kit and am so happy to have used a few of these really old journalling spots. I still like them, but you know how it is with that older stuff. Gets forgotten...

Layout #6 was a combined challenge layout. I did it for LOAD day 2 to use product you have way too much of, I used my Departing Summer kit, and I fulfilled the Whimsical Musings challenge #7 to use 9 products + 9 techniques + nice words. I've already shared this one with you (here) so moving on...

Layout #7 was really just using up all the larger leftover pieces of paper and throwing them down on the page! But I did manage to use a few of those difficult photo corners (now put into the giveaway box). The LOAD prompt for this was to record a tradition. I have dozens and dozens of these self-portrait photos so it felt good to get a few used up for a reason.

Like I say, this kit has now been officially retired for scrapping and some of the leftover products have already been put somewhere to be given away.

That's another thing I really enjoy about CKC. It gives me the opportunity to fish out the older products and mix them in with the new to see if I still like them and can use them. At the end of the month, if they are still in the box I can decide if that's because I don't want to use them anymore and out they go. Or if I've rediscovered how much I like them, they can go back in the main stash. I really feel like I'm getting so much more out of my products now!

Thank you Counterfeit Kit Challenge :-)

Just layering it up

Challenge #3 over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site was all about the layering.

Did they dream this up just for me? It felt that way ;-)

I went to town with one of my "Fall In Love" papers and fussy cut a whole load of tropical flowers and leaves to match my Philippine photos and then layered up papers and a huge (even by my standards!) cluster. The white cardstock (added in to the kit) was the perfect bright backdrop to all these colours. 

I know I shouldn't say things like this, but I LOVE this layout (I know, it sounds a bit boastful!). It really makes me happy and makes me realise that I have to get more of my Filipino stories onto my pages.

This is layout #4 from Fall In Love. (I promised the CKC girls that I'd get a better photo than this scan but, as much as I love this time of year, I'm struggling to catch the light to photograph layouts - so apologies for that.)

And this one is a fun, experimental one I made (#3) to see how "whimsical" I could go. 

The answer is not all that much before it starts looking a little off! 

But I am happy to use up this AC paper that was in my kit and also some of the chipboard die cuts too. I always struggle with these types of products. I added in a couple of the alphas for this multi-alpha, multi-coloured title. 

In the future, I think I'll be sticking to the style I know :-)

Singing all the way

Do you listen to Christmas music? Do you have a favourite? When do you start piping the Christmas tunes into your home?

If you're anything like me, the answers to these questions would be, "Oh yes! White Christmas as an all time number 1, but there are so many up there as faves. Not before November 1st but I'm usually pretty tired of it all by the time Boxing Day comes along!"

I have 520 holiday songs in my iTunes library which is a bit scary! But many many of them are the same song by different artists and there are a few albums in there I don't listen to much any more. And there's LOTS of swing/Rat Pack type Christmas hits which I love!

So when Jingle Belles challenged us this week to make a card featuring our favourite Christmas song, it was so difficult to choose which one. An all white card for White Christmas, something more traditional for Peace on Earth (of course the Bowie/Crosby version) or something funky for one of my Elvis tracks?

In the end, I took the easy option and found a ready printed Cosmo card that I built my card around.

I have to admit though that the Phil Spector version of a A Winter Wonderland is also up there in my top 20 (as is the whole album - my top 20 has WAY more than 20!). It takes me back to being a child, waiting for Father Christmas to come along and fill my sack.

What memories do Christmas tunes bring up for you?