April 2023 - CKC Challenge #1 - Celebrate all the things!

 Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge you can find out all about our latest challenge set my MF Misty!

She was inspired by the birthday theme of the original kit and asked us 

to make a celebratory layout.

I haven't been feeling creative recently and have struggled to find the time or the motivation to really get scrapping so I gave myself a talking to and headed off to my weekly crop with my summer "Easygoing" kit in hand.

I decided just to go with the flow and see where the creative process took me without considering what layout I was really making. Just happy, sunny papers and techniques/design that make me happy.

I love the tag sheets that Simple Stories seem to have in every collection these days and started the whole process by cutting those up into individual tags and deciding that there were 5 really lovely ones I would like to use on my layout. Next up was a full sheet of floral clusters that I spent a happy half hour fussy-cutting up - I didn't keep any of the background, just cut out all the flowers!

So, I knew that I wanted to use tags and some flowers and now I headed into my tried and trusted design techniques!

The obligatory distressed, overlapping paper strips top and bottom of the page with a banner of tags along the middle where I intended to fit photos and journalling if possible.

I had the basic set up of my page within a few mins and then I tied those tags together which took me forever with the bows at the end! After that, it was just a matter of tucking in some fussy-cut flowers into the bottom paper strips. At this point, I was happy with my progress and decided it would be a celebration of friendship layout. 

We (my scrappy friends and I) have celebrated National Scrapabilly Day (the LSS run by our fearless leader Sylvia!) the last two summers and so, the summer photos and the theme of friendship and celebrations all came together. I knew all of this but the layout sat there waiting for a finish up for more than two weeks!

Today was that day and of course, the final touches of the photos, the journalling and some enamel dots took a very short time - why do I ALWAYS procrastinate so much?!? 

Overall, I'm very happy with how this all came together and turned out! 

Friends are always worth celebrating!

You can find out more about what the rest of the team created for this challenge over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and of course, in the CKC FB community here and over on IG here.

We'd love it if you created your very own celebratory layout and shared it with us - see you over there 😉

Wednesday Wonderland - Jingle Belles {Look What Santa Brought Me!}

This time around on the Jingle Belles blog, we are challenged to use our crafty Christmas presents to make a card - a great excuse to get them to work straight away.

I received a voucher for my favourite local scrapbook store, Scrapabilly, and treated myself to some papers, pretty alphas, a sprinkle of Prima dots and a couple of stamps. I never buy stamps as I'm really not that good at it, but I'm determined to practice and get better. Seemed like a perfect time to start.

My stamping is still not perfect (as you can see here) but these Cats on Apple Trees stamps are so good that I'm sure I can master it before long.

I've kept them super simple as always, going for a standard design and restricting myself to my Christmas paper scraps box. I also made sure to use my stitched effect circle dies which I got just before Christmas and am determined to really make the most of them. I'm usually too stingy to buy these types of products so they really need to earn their keep for me!

Thanks for dropping by and I hope I can continue this effort, even if it's only once or twice a month!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - 2017 Trends

Welcome back to today's post for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge second inspiration prompt of the month.

Master Forger Leslie challenged us to be inspired by scrapbook trends from 2017 that were featured in a recent Scrap Gals podcast by Tracy Fox. You can find out all the 12 trends she mentioned over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog today as well, of course, at Tracy's own blog here where she's brought together all 12 trends into one blog post with links to the individual blog posts. I love that Leslie brought our attention to this and love all the names Tracy gave to the trends. I picked a few to choose from: Get Angular, Yippee Strippy!, Embedded Embellishments, Scribble It! and Decorated Seams.

Independent of the Counterfeit challenge, I realised that I had recently had a go at the Decorated Seams style with a layout I made for the Scrapabilly May Kit des Monats which features Pinkfresh Studio Be You products, This was my favourite layout of the kit and I really piled on the die cuts across the join of the two papers. I've seen this style online here and there and was happy to have a go myself. And I'm really pleased with the result.

This meant that I didn't really want to repeat the same style again so soon and went through the list once more, eventually deciding on Get Angular. I really think I'll be going back through this list to try some of the others too as they all look really fun to make - it was hard to pick just one.

There were some full sheets of paper left in my May kit, Funky which was great for this as I layered up three angular papers coming in from the same direction as Tracy's. I realise that I could have made this angle more pronounced to really get that triangular shape coming into the page but overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Sorry for the poor photos. Maybe I'll try to get some better ones in daylight and change them out!

Are you inspired by this prompt? Have you made up your own Counterfeit kit? Have you been busy using it up? We would love to see what you come up with, so please share your kits and projects with us. You can do this by using our Link-Up Page here on the blog, posting in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community or on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge and use the tag #counterfeitkitchallenge). Hope to see you there!

July at Scrapabilly (part 2)

I'm late sharing but I couldn't resist showing you the layouts I made using the Scrapabilly July Kit des Monats because it was such a lovely summer collection of paper and products and I loved what I made with it.

You can find my first three layouts in the blog post here and I'm back today to show you the final three.

Just to recap, here's the gen on the July kit:

The Scrapabilly July Kit des Monats featured Echo Park's Summer Dreams collection.

There are six summer papers from the collection, the matching sticker sheet (and there are a lot of stickers on there!), a gorgeous washi tape, a lovely slim pack of Thickers white alphas and a smooth-writing, black pen.

I added in the collection enamel dots and also added in the other two washi tape (the kit comes with one of three designs). You can find these products over in the Scrapabilly shop.

Here

Here

Here

Here

My fourth layout is another from our "Scrap & Sea" weekend and uses some less than stellar Instax shots (I have an older model and my photos seem to be much more hit and miss than others I've seen.)

This might be my favourite layout using the kit. I used three photos to represent the hanging of a love lock in Cologne when I took my family there last year. It could be that this memory is particularly sweet which makes it a particular favourite.

And last but not least, the sunny yellows in the kit reminded me of these sweet mini cocktails we enjoyed last month.

You know how much I love a banner.

I think you can still get yourself one of the July Kit des Monats over at the Scrapabilly shop and if you have any sunny themed layouts to make, this is the perfect collection of products.

I have no idea if I'll manage to keep up the sharing but I'm willing to try if you're willing to drop by from time to time to see if I do!

July at Scrapabilly - part 1

I recently shared my August makes using the Scrapabilly Kit des Monats which features the Fancy Pants Dream Big collection. You can find my posts here and here if you are interested.

It made me realise that I'm very behind in sharing here on the blog and at least I should share the July makes too because that kit was particularly lovely and I really liked what I made :-)

The Scrapabilly July Kit des Monats featured Echo Park's Summer Dreams collection.

There are six summer papers from the collection, the matching sticker sheet (and there are a lot of stickers on there!), a gorgeous washi tape, a lovely slim pack of Thickers white alphas and a smooth-writing, black pen.

I added in the collection enamel dots because you know who much I love to sprinkle. I also added in the other two washi tape (the kit comes with one of three designs) because who could resist the gold foil design and let's face it, pink, mint, pineapple, flamingos and gold? It just had to be done! You can find these products over in the Scrapabilly shop.

Here

Here

Here

Here

I received the kit just before I had the good fortune to spend a long "Scrap & Sea" weekend with Mrs Scrapabilly herself, Sylvia and another scrappy friend, Silvia at the North Sea coast in The Netherlands. Time to be creative and inspired by the sights and sounds of the sea. It was a perfect weekend.

I took along my printer and printed photos we had only just taken to use on my kit layouts. By the second day, I was finished and five layouts were ready to be photographed for the Scrapabilly shop. I don't think I've ever been that quick to complete a kit!

This page features the pen included in the kit. I love it and wanted to record that this pen-loving girl is adding it to my list of faves.

I added in some gold thread to my supplies and used it liberally here and there as well as a mini alphabet which helped me with my longer titles.

This photo was from our very first day together and I just wanted to record the fun that we had and the kit just summed up all that hot, sunny friendship we shared.

This layout #3 features a banner along the bottom edge made from lots of stickers from the sticker sheet. I was surprised to find so many ice-creams and lolly pops and they were perfect for this whimsical banner. Lots of gold thread and a smattering of ink splats complete the page which talks about how great it is to be with people who get the need for selfies!

There are another two layouts to share from this kit so come back soon to check them out.

You can still grab one of the last of these kits over at the Scrapabilly shop and other items in the Summer Dreams collection. Get it while you can!