"Smile" for Stuck?! Sketches and Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog

 

This layout actually started with the sketch! I saw this sketch from Stuck?! Sketches:

and wanted to use it, so I went to the camera roll on my phone, and found these beauties from just last week, and thought they would work perfectly. From there, a layout was born!

It was really fun to get messy with this layout. I started with a plain sheet of textured white cardstock, which I spread a bit of gesso on - not everywhere, just in the areas I knew I wanted to apply some ink. I then took a piece of plastic packaging, squashed some Distress Ink onto it, sprayed with a bit of water, and smooshed it all over the gesso. I used four different colours of Distress Ink (Worn Lipstick, Shaded Lilac, Picked Raspberry, and Dusty Concord) and I love how they all blend together to make this vibrant watercolour background!

 

After that, it was just a matter of putting down some washi tape and stamped border strips from my Counterfeit Kit, layering the photos with some patterned papers, and figuring out which sentiments to place where. (I also had to cut out those bows with my cameo, because the original ones from my kit were a peachy colour, and they just were not working!

 

Some closies:

 

So I don't know if lots of schools do this, but every year Ailis gets really stoked for "Crazy Hair Day", and judging from the heads I saw at her school this year, she's not the only one! She took it upon herself to wake up super early to experiment, and she did Brenna's hair, too. I love it how they're young enough that they can participate in these fun events, because I think Nolan was just always "too cool" to let me do anything remotely fun with his hair!



 

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"Back to School" for Let's Get Sketchy and Counterfeit Kit Challenge

I was kind of in the mood to scrap back to school photos, but I didn't have any printed from this year yet. Good thing I hadn't scrapped last year's photos, right? 

This month, Let's Get Sketchy put out this lovely sketch:

 

It seemed to go with my pictures perfectly, although I decided to mirror the original.

 

Now those of you who know me are wondering, "Where's Nolan?" Well, this was the year that he did NOT want me to take a picture of him - probably said it was lame or something! - and he took off before I could force him. Kids, what are ya gonna do? Anyway, I made sure to write about that in my journaling, which you unfortunately can't see very well because my printer decided to give me grief. Instead of black, it came out kind of light brown, and I don't know why because all of my ink levels are "adequate". Again, what are ya gonna do? The amount of times I have typewritten journaling on a layout I could probably count on one hand, so I'm trying not to let it bother me! 

 

If you read my post detailing my September Counterfeit Kit, you may remember these hearts I made with my Cameo:

 

And here's a final close-up of the little cluster up in the top left corner.

I had fun doing a bit of stamping on this page, too. The little word pieces and borders were done with a CTMH stamp called "Picture Perfect" - made me realize I don't use my massive stamp stash quite enough!

I hope you enjoyed my page today, and hopefully I'll see you around here on my blog or over on Instagram where I've been posting a lot of my scrappy creations lately. Toodle-loo!

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"Today" for Creative Scrappers #298

I finished this page this morning, yay! The photo is over two years old now, and my Brenna Bean can read chapter books all on her own - she picked up reading soooooo fast! It's amazing how little kids can soak up everything they learn like a sponge, isn't it?  

Here's the sketch I used for inspiration from Creative Scrappers:

I mirror-imaged it (haha, don't think that's really a word, or a verb!) so my photo would face the right way, but other than that, I think I stuck fairly close to the original. I cut some hearts instead of stars with my Cameo - hearts seemed to go better with the digi stamp I already had on the photo - as well as the sketchy circle, which was a free cut file from...actually, I don't know where it's from, cringe! My apologies to the designer, and if you recognize this, maybe let me know in the comments and then I can giver credit to the artist.

I'm quite impressed with how the background turned out. I pressed some old CTMH ink pads (Sorbet and Creme Brulee) onto a piece of plastic packaging, sprayed with a bit of water, and smooshed that around on top of the white cardstock. I've done this before with Distress Ink and Dylusions spray, but I wasn't sure how the CTMH ink would work out, and without gesso to boot. The circle accent and hearts felt a bit too stark (I cut them out of plain white cardstock) so I dabbed my waterbrush in the same inks and traced around them all. I like that effect, too, it's kind of doodly (also not a word, but I'm on a roll, so why stop now!)

And here's a final close-up of the photo and some of the accents. I just love Brenna's pudgy little baby cheeks and cute pigtails! 

Since I used my September Counterfeit Kit and a sketch, I'm going to link this page up on the CKC blog for Challenge #1. I'm also going to put this into Mercy Tiara's 27-Day Scrappy Challenge. This is a new group for me, so not sure what it will be like to post in a Facebook group. We shall see. 

And that's it for me for today. I hope I get to create more with this kit, but now that school is back in session, it feels like life is crazier than ever - how did that happen? Tomorrow I'm helping with Nolan's cross-country team's bottle drive, so hopefully your weekend involves something more lovely than divvying up stinky beer and wine bottles in the rain! 

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September Counterfeit Kit

Wow, I'm so glad school has started up again! My kids were starting to get a bit stir crazy there, haha! But with the regular routine and cooler weather comes more time for scrapbooking, fingers crossed.

One thing I love to do at the beginning of each month, whether I have a chance to play along or not, is check out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog.  This month's kit is a beaut, and here's what it looks like:

The first thing that struck me were the colours, so I went into my stash and pulled out anything in baby blue, peach, red, or with a black and white print that seemed to go:

Then I went into a kit of Project Life style cards that I'd purchased from CTMH a while back, and pulled these ones out:

And what about 6x6 paper packs? Well, I found some wood veneer paper, as well as more of that peach/coral colour, mostly from Studio Calico and Crate Paper, I believe. The paper on the right, the black and white flowers, was a free printable (link here). Plus once I dug further into my stash, I found some other journaling cards and camera accents that I'd printed out ages ago, hoping to use them in my SMASH book:

So I was pretty happy with all that, but of course I had to forge some items from the kit. Honestly, I put in quite a lot of effort with this kit, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a few things too. For example, those bow die cuts? I made those by tracing a free clip art file I imported into the Silhouette software program. And the hearts were made in the Silhouette software as well, by choosing one of my old heart files and using the line tool to draw some cuts through it. The "HAPPY" and "YOU & ME" title pieces I made using the Impact font and welding the letters together. "Smile" was made pretty much the same way but with a free font called Sweet Pea. The flowers were simply a nesting cut file I had previously purchased from Silhouette that I thought matched those in the original kit best.

Here I have some ancient stickers and some wood veneer pieces from CTMH, as well as some brads, chipboard hearts and a flair button. 

Did you see the "Forgeries on the Fourth" post over on the CKC blog? I copied some of the expert forgers to make those stamped border strips and print out the orange labels. I also pulled some more wood veneer pieces, washi tape, flair buttons and bling from my embellishment drawer:

And finally, a boatload of somewhat coordinating scraps and journaling cards (here and here) :

So yeah, I probably could have played some more at forging different pieces from the original kit, but it's already the 9th and I haven't produced anything yet! Better to quit while I'm ahead, so to speak!

I also started a Pinterest board to keep all my Counterfeit Kit pins handy, so check it out if you wish right here. I hope you've enjoyed my kit and stay tuned here to see what I create with it!

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