15 loves {February 2015}

Welcome to the next in the series {15 loves} for 2015 based on the original concept by my beloved friend, Pam, back in January 2013. I shared my loves (mostly late) all through 2014 and now it's time to see if I can continue the series through 2015. I hope you will come back each month to see if there is anything in my list to inspire you. You can see all my {14 loves} {here} and now all my {15 loves} {here}

I hope there's something in here to inspire you or maybe just make you smile.

Yes, another late {15 loves} post for February but I'm writing my March {15 loves} to go up on the blog tomorrow so it seemed right to get this done today, no matter how late it was :-)

one

I am not a shopper. Really, not at all. I have a very boring style in clothes and just don't enjoy going out and going through the process of picking things out, trying them on and then actually paying for them! But that doesn't stop me being inspired by things I see online! Such as this pair of shoes which I totally adore and can totally see me wearing. I won't be buying them, but if I was walking past a shop and they were in the window, I might just go in and take a look!

Available at ModCloth.com

two

I find myself drawn to Ashli Oliver's pages again and again. This one is no exception. I love it. All those layers and "messy" stuff. I think I need to hang out at her blog more often and see if I can learn some of her talent through osmosis. Just gorgeous!

Ashli Oliver at the Purple Mailbox here 

three

Saw this on Pinterest and it just made me smile. I think this would make such a great little joke to send to someone. Available through Etsy but so simple to create yourself. Saving this idea for when I think it is needed!

Pinterest find here

four

One day I'll need this. Another Pinterest find but available through an online printing service. So simple, so perfect.

Available at Sun Frog Shirts here

five

This simple but effective card caught my eye - yes on Pinterest! Cards like this make me realise that I am lacking in the card making department but luckily, inspiration is out there.

Stephanie Berger at Be More Creative

six

In a nutshell... I love you! What a perfect little inspirational idea for an anniversary gift. I definitely want to try this out one day! I will have to look at what the coming anniversaries are and see if I can make a connection.

Pinterest source here

seven

We finally made it to the Museum Folkgang to see the Inspiration Japan exhibition that had been on for the previous four months on its last weekend! It was great to get back to this fantastic museum and be inspired by the incredible art they had on display. I had no idea that artists such as Monet, Gaugin or van Gogh had been so influenced by Japan and its culture. So enjoy learning more about the world of art. Came home with the book of the exhibition for a little light night-time reading (when I'm much older and greyer no doubt!) 

eight

At the beginning of February, I was in full anticipation mode for my trip to NYC and of course, no  {15 loves} would have been complete without something featuring the city. This art from Debbie Powell at The Art Works Inc is something that I could see myself hanging on my wall along with the other small prints and photos I've picked up. The Art Works site doesn't have any sort of print ordering service so I might have to do some more investigative work to track this down to see if it's available anywhere to order.

Debbie Power at the Art Works can be found here

nine

Citrus Twist always have such great sketches and I love to turn to them when I need a little help when I sit down to scrap. I especially love this format for all those square IG photos or even my ancient 1970s square shots.

Citrus Kits sketch from June 2014

ten

February brought LOAD of course and it was a lot of fun. Knowing that I probably wouldn't manage a full 28 layouts in 28 days due to my travels, I set a target of 20 and actually made 24 which made me very happy. A LOAD month is always a good month. It's such a super way to connect with those scrappy friends again and to get a daily dose of creativity!

eleven

We didn't celebrate Valentine's Day this year - with us both being on our travels, it seemed a little redundant, but this card is certainly something I'm saving for another time. We do this type of thing all the time - counting the number of days since XXX and then having a mini-celebration! 

Available from Jenny Collier here

twelve

The countdown was running and my second adventure to NYC was now just a few hours away!

thirteen

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, Pam was trying to freak me out by warning me how cold it was.  She sent me this which made me giggle and I tried to reassure her that my excitement would keep me warm! 

fourteen

It may not have been as cold or as snowy as New York, but after a winter of no snow whatsoever last year (winter 2013/14), I was thrilled to get some this time around. There was never very much and it never lasted very long but this last of the season snow was lovely to see.

fifteen

One to keep in mind at the end of a hard week. I know we shouldn't wish the week away but Friday is so very welcome!

Pinterest source here

I’d love you to share your own {15 loves} lists with me. Why not link up in the comments below?

{15 loves} is a series that will feature on my blog each 15th of the month

Scrapabilly March kit shares (part 2)

I shared the first three layouts I made using this fabulous kit on Wednesday, so welcome back today for my remaining layouts.

Let's just remind ourself about the Kaisercraft Blue Bay filled kit we were given to work with:

And don't forget that you can see all the Design Team layouts in the Scrapabilly shop gallery and I always recommend that! We all have such different styles and there's a lot of inspiration over there.

This layout was made using a Simple Scrapper sketch - I really loved the block on the left with all the layered up frames and elements to the left. Sketches can really help to give you balance and often gets me out of making all my layouts the same!

Just a simple one to mark our move to Essen. And yes, I am considering changing the name of my blog to reflect this! Again, the die cuts and word stickers provided loads of perfect little elements to include on my layout to add to the journalling or meaning of my page.

To be honest, I think my title is pretty awful German grammar and I might have mixed up what I think is a good German phrase with my English but it says something to me so I'm running with it!

And last but not least, I used the remaining elements of the kit to make up my final LOAD page. This has become a tradition with me taking a photo of my stack of pages (this time a full 24 layouts) and summing up what I felt LOAD had provided this time around. In February, it was all about being relaxed. I knew I wouldn't do a full month with a layout every day and decided that it was totally fine!

I still managed to exceed my own personal target of 20 pages for the month which made me happy and the highlight was definitely getting to scrap with Pam - in person! Again, a Simple Scrapper sketch was loosely used for this design. I like the banner flag in the contrasting colour. I've also added in some Thickers by Amy Tangerine for my title.

I can't get enough of these Scrapabilly exclusive flairs! I love that they add a little German to my very English pages and Sylvia has the best phrases and colours! I think I pick up one or two every week when I'm there!

All in all, a fabulous kit full of beautiful colours, a lovely selection of paper designs and die-cuts, a really lovely, easy to use alpha set and so many wonderful word stickers that you'll be looking to add them everywhere.

You can find this kit over at the Scrapabilly shop - I highly recommend it!

Scrapabilly March kit shares (part 1)

This month's kit from Scrapabilly was really interesting to use because it wasn't my usual style although many of the colours are ones I'm loving right now - greens, aquas, greys and navy.

But this is exactly the reason I love working with kits as much as I do - it really stretches me to find a way to incorporate papers and products that maybe don't shout my name out as much as others into my regular style and make the kit - and resulting layouts - mine.

First up, let me show you Scrapabilly's March collection of goodness:

Chock full of papers, a sheet of specialty paper covered with glossy frames, a word and border sticker sheet and die cuts from the Kaisercraft Blue Bay collection, buttons, twine, October Afternoon Daily Flash alphabet, a Scrapabilly exclusive flair and an eye-catching metal arrow embellishment as well as the matching cardstocks, this kit had a lot to offer.

I added in a very small amount of stuff along the way - mostly cardstock and inks

I made 6 layouts in total with the kit and that left me with a few scraps and a handful of die-cuts which would be great for cards or even home-made pocket page cards.

But for now, let me share with you the first three layouts.

All the papers were double sided (except the design with the glossy frames) which gave a lot of choice for which colour scheme should be dominant in each layout. There was also a whole sheet of photo-realistic doors which I tried to use in a thematic way. Sometimes, you just have to let the papers talk to you and in this case, as soon as I saw all those gorgeous doors and shutters, this saying sprang to mind. My mum first said this to me as I left home back then at the age of 18 to go off on my South of France adventure and it's stayed with me all those years. It's as relevant today as it was back then.

A little hidden tag for my journalling to sum up those memories.

Some of the papers were very dramatic and I especially loved all that navy so I just let the papers do the talking on this one. The pack of die-cuts was perfect for adding little touches here and there as well as the border stickers I used top and bottom for interest. One of the sheets of papers was a cut apart sheet of 3x4 pocket page style cards and I found that the sayings on many of them were the perfect embellishment and would save on my alphabet!

One last one for today and again featuring "stolen" IG photos from my sister of my beautiful niece! I created the whole page here before going off to find pretty photos. I had an image in my mind of all those border strips creating a central block and am happy with how this came out. My usual splats - nearly always going from bottom left to top right! - and a few embellies were all this needed. The work stickers in the collection were the perfect addition for a bit of extra journalling.

Come back on Friday for the second part of my Scrapabilly March kit shares and then I will also be posting next week with my layouts from the Scrapabilly February kit which I haven't got around to showing yet. Most of the layouts were created during LOAD and it would appear that LOAD and blogging do not mix!

Don't forget that you can see all the Design Team creations over at the Scrapabilly shop gallery and the links to the team's blogs can be found in the right hand side bar here. I'm sure they'd be delighted if you went over to say hello!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge March kit reveal blog hop

Welcome to this month's Counterfeit Kit Challenge March kit reveal. Another month and another wonderful kit for us to be inspired by so settle in for the next few minutes and let's go.

Hopefully, you've been hopping along and have arrived here from Leslie's blog where she no doubt delighted you with the contents of her magical blue box! But if you are here direct and would like to catch up with the whole blog hop, you can find the full list at the end of this post or pop back to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and start right there at the beginning!

Don't forget to say hello to our lovely Guest Designer, Janine. We are delighted to have her with us this month and I'm looking forward to spending the month with her.

Our inspiration kit comes from A Piece of Cake Designs - their January Cupcake kit is full of lots of scummy My Mind's Eye goodies. Take a look at it. Isn't it lovely?!?

I didn't have a single item which matched the original kit which really made me really scramble through my stash to put together a kit which I'm really looking forward to dipping into. I didn't manage to finish off my kit last month during LOAD but I'm feeling really inspired to create at the moment so this will certainly keep me going in the right direction.

So, here's my take on the Cupcake kit, Drift.

Instead of matching up each piece of paper with the exact colours or designs, I once again turned to my Pinterest board (you can find all the items in the inspiration kit listed on my CKC March board here) for general directions or patterns to match up.

I included two different woodgrain papers and several spots as well as a small floral design, some bold chevron stripes and some more solid, smaller patterns in colours in similar colours to the original. I noticed that I have very few orange tone papers in my collection so my papers are a bit more in the softer brown and beige direction. A map paper and a balloon design from BasicGrey stand in for those designs in the inspiration kit and of course, I've included a hint of gold in the form of a foil polka dot and a vellum because that's got my name written all over it! Last but not least, I've included a grey polaroid paper instead of the black and white print. Theres a good mix of older and newer papers and prints from Studio Calico, BasicGrey, Echo Park, Webster's Pages and Crate Paper.

As always, I've included more embellishments than the original kit because you know that that's my thing! But I did work through the original kit and match up the items piece by piece. I will add in twine and ribbon as I need for individual pages but I couldn't anything that was perfect for the kit as a whole - I love that woodgrain ribbon in the inspiration kit. I wish I had something like that or even some washi in woodgrain effect. I'm sure I'll come up with something as the kit gets used up!

Instead of the wood frames, I included this gorgeous pack of Martha Stewart rosette flowers in woodgrain effect and a whole array of pretty, bright doilies. I was sad to find that I didn't have any sequins in yellow or orange but a few matt gold as well as gold doily "ribbon" will be a good substitute.

The pack of woodgrain polaroid frames are replaced by these pretty die cut frames and then I discovered a whole pack of BasicGrey die cuts to match up with the MME pack in the original as well as a part pack of die cuts from Jillibean Soup which I thought would go well with the papers I had picked out.

A few of my precious A Flair For Buttons flairs will be very carefully used and hopefully find a happy home on a layout.

I'm not a big one for mixed media and don't include many colour techniques on my layouts so, instead of the two Gelatos, I've added in two Glimmer Mists in the same colours. I've added some alphas in both smaller and larger font and some mistable Thickers to remind me to use the mists in a  way other than just splatting! And there in the corner? That's a sheet of cork paper which I am going to use to forge some labels. I'll try and pull a blog post together about that.

I always leave making my kit up to the very last minute but once it's made, I feel so virtuous and then inspired to get scrapping. I very rarely scrap a page without using a kit of some sort these days and probably 80% of the time, that kit is one of my Counterfeit Kits. I make them big to give me lots of variety within the selection I've picked out and know that because it's MY kit, then it's all ME! I love to see all those products which I've so lovingly bought, find a happy place in a kit that's got my style written all over it!

The whole Counterfeit team are sharing top tips for making and working with our kits today and I thought long and hard only to come up with not one but two:

• So first up, don't feel like you have to match up the kit completely or make a kit that's full of pink, for example, if you use every colour in the rainbow other than pink! Find something that speaks to you and work from there. Make a kit you know you will use that is "inspired" by the original and don't be afraid that the kit-making-police will drop by your door. (Ps: they are not really real, just in case you were worried - LOL) You are the one who will be using the kit so make sure it is something you will love using. For example, I always add way more embellishments into my selection than the original because that's what makes me happy. And don't feel you need to forge all the elements in your kit that you don't have if that's not your thing. Creating parts of the kit is a whole lot of fun if that's what you like to do but if the idea of hand-stamping a full sheet of 12x12 fills you with trepidation, try a smaller scale for example, or simply marvel at the creations you see in the CKC team and find something in your paper collection which fits, then move on! 
• One last tip would be to watch how you use your kit for a few months and see what gets left in the bottom of the box when you realise you are done with it. It's likely that these items just don't rock your boat any more and maybe it's time to give them a new home with someone who will love them more than you do. I've really streamlined my whole stash - reducing my total by about 50% in the process - by letting go of those items which just don't get used through the kit. That way, I now know that what I pull from my stash makes me happy and is more likely to find its way onto my pages. It's definitely a win-win for me and my niece who gets all my donated items.

What's your top tip for making or using up your Counterfeit kits? I'd love to know!!!

Thanks for making it this far. Next on the hop is the very adorable and wonderful Lynnette who will astonish and astound you with her incredibly staged kit. As you know, I got the chance to meet her in February and what a delight that was, She is every bit as lovely and sweet as she seems. :-)

And here's the full list in case you get lost along the way.

Janine:  http://rachauscratchpad.blogspot.com

Jemma: http://just-jimjams.blogspot.co.uk

Julene:  http://julenebydesign.blogspot.com

Leslie:  http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.ca

Lisa:  http://lisahausmann.blogspot.ca

Lynnette  http://www.sassyscrapper2010.blogspot.com

Margie:  http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com

Susanne:  http://snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com