Counterfeit Kit August '17

Oh. My. Goodness. I cannot believe how long it's been since I blogged here! I have been minimally creative in the past few months, but most of what I make, I just snap a photo and post to instagram. Just easier, I guess. Anyway, it's about time I get into some challenges again, otherwise another year will pass by and I'll be even more behind, ack!

I always enjoy playing along with the folks over at Counterfeit Kit Challenge, so what better way to get back into the swing of things than by making myself a new kit for August? I know, I know, August is almost over, I am super late to the party, but I am convinced that I can make something with this kit in the next nine days! I've even got ideas in mind, if you can believe it, haha! So, without further ado, here is the kit that the CKC team has posted as inspiration:

Huh. It's the Gossamer Blue Main Kit from July '17, and my first thought was, there is a distinct lack of pink going on here! But no worries, I can work with this! I decided to stick with the main colours, and I even managed to do some counterfeiting as I was putting my kit together. Here's a portion of what I came up with:

Not the greatest image, I admit, but what I've put together has quite a bit of potential, what with the inks and stamps I've got available to me. I'm picturing a couple of project life spreads (not sure if you can tell from the image but there are some PL journaling cards there amongst the bits and pieces) and a mini album - the colours are going to work perfectly with the photos I took on my first ever hiking trip with Ailis.

I've also got some matching cardstock, tone-on-tone papers, and various die cuts, but the longer I take to put this post together, the less scrappy time I have. Better get to it before I procrastinate much more, am I right? Wish me luck, kids!

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"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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"Roughing It" for LOAD Mini Summer Lovin' and Stuck?! Sketches

Well, I think this is it for my first LOAD (LayOut A Day, for those unfamiliar with the term). Unfortunately, I was not able to do a page for all seven days/prompts, but I did manage to do four, and for me, that is something of a record!

I looooove how this one turned out, not gonna lie! I used up some newer supplies, including some papers from the Pink Paislee "C'est La Vie" 6x6 pad, which normally I don't think I would have thought of using with camping/fishing photos. I mean, look at all that mint green, pink and yellow! Does that scream "outdoors" to you?  But, with black and white photos, you can kind of do whatever you want as far as background colours, right?

I used this great sketch from Stuck?! Sketches and flipped it 90 degrees:

I used the packaging technique with some Cracked Pistachio Distress Spray over some gesso, and that gave me a nice minty green watercolour effect for my background.  Then it was just a matter of figuring out which paper scraps to layer and cut up in behind the photos. 

These photos are from when we were first married, 17 years ago. Oh my gosh, I cannot believe how young we look!!! The prompt for LOAD day 5 was "Lovin' the great outdoors", and if I'm being honest, I don't really love the great outdoors. But Jason does, and he's dragged me out enough that it was easy to find outdoorsy photos. Before you know it, a layout is born!

Here's a close up of the journaling: 

And because this was such a long story, here's the other piece of journaling on the other side:

And one final close up of the die cut title and accent pieces:

I made this layout while listening to and watching the last ever Tragically Hip concert, which was broadcast to all of Canada on Saturday night. For all you non-Canucks out there, Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, is dying of brain cancer. Their music is very well known here, and the concert was very emotional. Even our Prime Minister was in attendance! Jason and I had the concert streaming on Ailis's little tablet, and the bluetooth going through our stereo, and we had a great time rocking out, just the two of us. Kids probably thought we were a bit weird, but whatever! 

Anyway, that's it from me for today. Maybe now that I've completed four summer layouts in a week, I'll be motivated to continue my streak! Stay tuned to find out!  

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"Sand Sun Fun" for LOAD Mini Summer Lovin'

Hey everyone, I have some good news! I won a spot in Scrap Happy's "LOAD Mini Summer Lovin'" event this week from Alison at Alison Day Designs! How cool is that? This is the first time I've tried a LOAD, or LayOut A Day, so even though this is the fifth day, I'm still getting into the swing of things. The layout above is the third I've finished, though, so that's pretty speedy progress for me!

I used this fabulous sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for inspiration: 

First I scraped on a layer of gesso over the middle of the white card stock. Then I applied some Salty Ocean Distress Ink using the packaging technique to create that beautiful watercolour effect. The die cut is part of a freebie from Scrapbook Nerd:

The circle was fun to do. First I traced one of those Creative Memories cutting circles with a pencil. Then I took the nozzle out of a bottle of black Dylusions spray, and just drew freehand around the circle a few times, making that messy, scratchy look. I love how that turned out!

And here's a close-up of the journaling, basically telling the story of how I thought Jason was nuts to want to take the kids swimming in the river. I didn't think it was safe, but at that time of year, the water was pretty shallow - an adult could probably walk across to the other side without going in over their chest, and the current was not very strong. Still, they were the only kids with life jackets there - I guess maybe I'm a little paranoid, but better safe than sorry, I say! 

And another closeup of some of the papers, cork arrows and gems (CTMH):

I took these photos outside on my deck in natural morning light, but I don't know, the background paper looks awfully blue! It's white, I swear!

Thanks for looking, and hope you have a great weekend, whether it's summer where you are or not!

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