March 2023 - Counterfeit Kit Challenge Mini kit reveal and project

I find it hard to believe that this is the first time I've put anyone on the blog since the middle of January, but there you have it! Busy times - which is mostly a good thing ;-) 

Anyway, I'm back today with a post about the Counterfeit Kit Challenge mini-kit which I signed up for this month.

MF Anna picked out this kit for us to inspire us - "Time to Thrive" by Traci Reed which had a very distinct look with the embellishments and colour scheme. I was pretty unsure which way to take it.

I thought about making a mini-album but after a less than successful LOAD in February (I only managed 11 layouts in total), I decided to make another page kit from my huge Mabel kit and tell another of my "28 Days of Mabel" stories. I'm still planning on getting the full 28 Days of Mabel done as soon as I can - just a goal for myself.

Looking at the original kit, I decided to go with the yellow, blue, green colour scheme with a red/pink heart paper which could be useful and matches the inspiration. I also decided that the floral embellishments, labels, twine bows and banners were good things to include and I liked the idea of hearts, florals, stars, leaves and dots so made sure my papers or embellishments highlighted those parts of the inspiration as well. I brought together some papers (all of which are partial sheets), some tags left over from last month's mini, alphas, some floral die-cuts and a handful of dies to make some extra embellishments if needed. My "Mabel kit" is full of peach, lemon, pinks and soft pastels so it was interesting to sort through and find some items which didn't exactly fit that colour scheme and was pleased with the resulting kit. It looks bigger than it really is! I might squeeze out two pages but this was really only designed for the one layout - let's see.

Here are my papers. I thought the smaller designs would make this page come together more easily and the tags seemed to have colours that complemented the papers - more or less! The spot paper reminded me of the watercolour effect of the striped paper in the original kit. I've added it in but am unsure how I will be using it.

I also included some of the dies that I've been repeatedly using on my Mabel pages recently. They may or may not prove useful but these small shapes are perfect for tucking in under corners or creating dimensional interest here and there.

One of my strategies recently is to fully prepare pages ahead of time so when I sit to create, everything I need is there and all the decisions have been made. I even write and print out the journalling whenever I can. This page was put together in the same was so I also added in a Simple Scrapper membership sketch, some photos I wanted to use and the story I wanted to tell before I considered my page-kit to be complete. The story I wanted to tell featured Mabel's friend - a black Labrador - so I felt that this stronger colour scheme would work well and still fit into my album of mostly softer shades.

The Simple Scrapper sketch is 8.5x11" so I adapted it for my 12x12 preference and the two photos I had picked out. The bottom photo - where they are cuddling - is almost identical to one I had printed out to tell another story about how they cuddle up. I had been irritated to realise how similar they were and that I couldn't use them both on one page so I was determined to find a way to include it in another story and by adding in the photo of Luna nudging Mabel to initiate play, the idea for the story came together.

I tried to stay guided by the sketch and I think the little line of tags is super cute and the addition of some leaves and flowers, as well as keeping those stronger shades to smaller proportions, keeps the layouts looking sweet and girly! They are both gorgeous "little" girls after all!

28 Days of Mabel #12

Even though it's definitely different to the other Mabel pages I've made recently, I think it will fit into the album nicely and it was a great exercise to pull out papers and colours from a very full-on, baby pink themed larger kit to match the inspiration kit! This layout tells a very important friendship story for Mabel's album and it makes me happy! It's great to be challenged to think outside of the box of your normal scrappy go-to's. Why not give it a try!

You can see the other mini kits over on the blog here and then be part of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge FB community here.