Friday 24 October 2014

NOT the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Member Blog hop!

If you've dropped by like you do every 24th of the month for the regular Counterfeit Kit Challenge Member blog hop, I hope you are not too disappointed to find just an ordinary post by me!

It would appear that all our followers have a busy time of year right now because no one signed up to be part of the hop :-(

So, a month off the hop but I'd already made my challenge layout so I thought I'd share with you anyway....

This month's challenges, set by Queen Laura, were:


All three of these challenges were fun and I was tempted to do them all (and still might!) but I'm in the middle of LOAD right now with daily prompts that I also want to follow using my kit so I decided to just concentrate on one! Confetti won the day for me.

I've scrapped this photo before but (and I'm not totally sure about this due to my disorganised layouts!) I don't think I've recalled this story before. This layout was a lot of fun and getting back to making a little vellum pocket again made me happy.

Counterfeit Kit Challenge October kit, Discover, lo#7





I loved making this layout with all that punched confetti. And I love the result too.

This was a fabulous prompt, Queen Laura! Thanks for challenging as well as inspiring us all month.

Have you been creating with your Counterfeit Kit? Don't forget to link up your creations over at Mr Linky if you have. We love seeing what you create with the inspiration we hope you find at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. And if you were sad not to find the regular blog hop happening today, why not sign up yourself next month? Details are posted at the bottom of the kit reveal blog post as well as the three challenge posts during the first half of the month. The more, the merrier!!

Wednesday 15 October 2014

14 loves {October 2014}

Welcome to the next in the series {14 loves} for 2014 based on the original concept by my beloved friend, Pam, back in January 2013. I enjoyed sharing my loves so much through the year that I decided I needed to continue through 2014. I hope you will come back each month to see if there is anything in my list to inspire you. You can find previous posts  {here}

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

Ok, so I missed a month. Well, not really missed a month as in the month steamrollered over me and I was pretty incapable of anything except packing and schlepping boxes, and camping out at the new place. That month will be filled in as I do try to select things that I have been loving from the 14th to the 14th. So the photos are there.... just not organised into a post.... yet.

So here's 14th September to 14th October! It's a more experience based list this month as there's not been much time for shopping or window shopping online.

one

Yes! It's really autumn now and I love it! Slightly wild, windy, wet weather swirling all those beautiful leaves around just make me happy.


two

Our new life in the city has really begun. Our balcony has a great view over the are designated as the "park" and I love watching the low autumn sun setting. Just behind that building you can see? Ikea! I can walk to Ikea which might prove a problem if the need for Swedish meatballs gets too much!


three

A lot of the advantages of our new home are focussed on the fact that everything is right there on our doorstep. Including plenty of good places to eat. One of our faves is Cha Cha which serves Thai food and a super green chicken curry which we can now get on foot "to go". Another danger point for our diet but delicious all the same!


four

And yet more food right round the corner is the American diner Star Diner. A great burger was had at the end of a long, physically tiring day and hit just the right point. We got to sit in the School Bus outside and I thought that was a lot of fun! (Are you seeing the food theme here??)


five

A Pinterest find, I need to find the time to have a go at scrap lifting this beautiful layout.

September brought a trip to the UK to celebrate some special birthdays. My baby sister and my baby, baby brother both had celebrations within the same week and we were thrilled to get the whole family in one photo. 


seven

And a visit to my granny who is amazing at nearly 93. She wowed us with perfect memories of times 70 years ago as well as engagement in current news topics. Of course, she was delighted to see her favourite German!


eight

This etsy find from Mei Origami was something I'd found some time ago and was happy to order it and find that it was even better than I thought it would be. The quality was amazing and she chose a wonderful book to use, called Angels, complete with pink inside cover paper. It was absolutely perfect and Mei's customer service was fabulous. I'll be ordering something from her again. Make sure you check her out for a special occasion - well worth it!



nine

I managed to fit a lot in to a very short time and caught up with everyone I'd planned to and more which is always satisfying. A highlight was catching up with a good friend who works for the Bournville Estate - established by George Cadbury all those years ago. And of course, you KNOW that I just can't resist that Cadbury chocolate - I bring it back with me in huge quantities as they don't sell it here! Anyway, she was kind enough to take me to the holy grail of chocolate, the staff Cadbury shop! As a child, I was always so envious of my friends whose parents worked there and they were able to visit the shop and always had vast quantitates of scrummy brown gold at home! I was literally a child in a sweet shop and am now struggling not to scoff it all at once!


ten

Many, many selfies with various goofy children were taken. This little one is growing way too fast and it's hard to believe she's almost two!


eleven

And while I was there, I received this wonderfully thoughtful care package from fellow Master Forger and LOADster, Lesley. What a lovely surprise and it was so kind of her to think of me. Very much needed at a time when I was feeling a little low. I wasn't able to make the journey north to meet her and Jemma but I've promised to make the time next time I'm over!


twelve

Round here we are ever so slightly addicted to hummus at the moment, having found that we both adore it and it can be made up in a matter of minutes. Not sure how delighted people are that we meet the following day, but garlic's healthy, right?!? So this recipe originally found on Pinterest piqued my interest straight away. I can feel roasted garlic in my near future!

Roasted garlic hummus from CookingClassy.com

thirteen

Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog, we have a Counterfeit Queen controlling things this month! Queen Laura is proving to be a very benevolent monarch and chose a wonderful kit to counterfeit (see my reveal post here)! Two of her challenge posts are already up (here and here) and there's one more to come. Why not come over and join us for this fun month? My October kit, Discover, has already produced 9 wonderful LOAD layouts and I've loved using this combination of products. A simply wonderful kit. 



fourteen

We left our sweet baby apple tree behind in our last home but managed to harvest the grand total of 5 apples before we left! They were delicious and the few extras nabbed by the local birds were probably delicious too.




Id love you to share your own {14 loves} lists with me. Why not link up in the comments below?


Wednesday 1 October 2014

Counterfeit Kit Challenge October kit reveal blog hop

Welcome to a rather neglected blog! I'm hoping to make improvements but I'm grateful that you keep coming back to visit me even if I'm not updating as often as I should.

Hopefully, you are here courtesy of Leslie's blog (here) where she will have delighted you with the contents of her blue box. If not, you must make sure to catch up on the full hop as this month, all our challenges have been set by our delightful October Counterfeit Kit Challenge Queen Laura (here), including the choice of kit! So hop back to the beginning of the hop (here) and settle back for some serious inspiration.

This month's kit, as mentioned above, was selected by Laura and is such a pretty selection of products by Hey Little Magpie. The link doesn't appear to be working any more but you can check out their site (here) and this is the kit we were given.


Now, as you might know (and be totally bored of by now!), I've been moving over September and don't have much of my stash available. So I had to be a bit more flexible in how I interpreted the kit so that I could actually select some items.

I looked at the kit and saw lashings of prettiness - softer colours, aquas and pinks, flowers, dots, bows, loopy words, die cuts, tape, stickers and frames. So that was my starting point and off I went down the prettiness road. I'm relieved to be able to present "Discover"!


I have very little paper unpacked so far, in fact just a small plastic container with some very favourite designs so that's what had to be enough. I started off with papers that roughly matched the idea of the papers of the original, and a few extras for good measure. I came up with a soft combination with a hint of gold, some stars for good measure and penty of pretty florals.  Most of the papers are, as always, double sided which will give me plenty of choice when it comes to using it up.


Quite a lot of tone on tone colours here but I think I'll still get a good amount of variety for layouts.


Then onto the embellies of which I was sorely reduced.

But there were still some scrummy bits and pieces available including this relatively new pack of Heidi Swapp words. Not quite the same pack as the original kit but certainly absolutely fine! I tracked down some die-cut frames as well as a couple of Maggie Holmes overlays and just because I can't resist a touch of gold right now, added in some glorious Martha Stewart gold leaves and some gold sequin ribbon.


I had the intention of starting Project Life on 1st September but so far have only managed to take the photos on an almost daily basis. So I included a handful of cards as a motivation to try to get started... who knows!


My back was against the wall time-wise and I didn't have anything bow related at all. But I always think that bows look like butterflies so a handful seemed a good alternative. I also added in a precious piece of Dear Lizzy butterfly vellum that I got in NYC. Let's see if I trust myself to cut it up.


Making sure I got more and more "pretty" into my kit, I included these super cute heart doilies, a handful of sequins (two sizes of gold, some aqua and some green) and then two alphabets for variety.




As always, I reserve the right to add things into my kit as I go through the month, especially as I will hopefully be unpacking the rest of my supplies and unearthing stuff I haven't seen for two months!

I now have 6 kits sitting on my shelf again - all rather neglected so LOAD is coming at JUST the right time! Today starts another crazy month of daily scrapping and you can bet that most of those layouts will be made using my rather wonderful Counterfeit kits. What would I do without them?!?

Thanks for sticking with me and I hope you have been inspired to take Queen Laura's selection and make your own box full of prettiness.

Now off you go to visit Lynette to ooo and aaah at her amazingly staged kit. Sure to please! And don't forget to let me know you were here. I love comments...

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

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