CKC Challenge 2 – Outdoors

Hello. With all that’s going on right now I completely forgot that my post was due today (actually yesterday now because I fell asleep writing this). I’ve been working from home since the back end of last week and the long anticipated school closure was announced today. Strawberry is in such a tiz because she knows her GCSEs are cancelled but has no idea what happens next. She finally decided that she has to keep on studying so it will be a weekend planning a new study and revision timetable for the weeks ahead.

Challenge 2 on the CKC blog was to use outdoor photos in anticipation of spring and being able to spend more time outdoors. Hmm – maybe we still can in our own gardens or if we practice social distancing!

I used a sketch and some photos taken at a scrapbook retreat at Woodbrooke in 2019. The weather was lovely and we ate on the terrace and walked in the garden at lunchtime. Strawberry was particularly taken by the swing suspended from one of the trees.

I used the ledger paper from my kit – I hadn’t noticed when I put it in the kit that the lines are red and yellow. My camera hasn’t picked that up but I promise that it’s true.

I used a chase the sun rub on from my kit to go with the outdoor theme of the challenge and the colours in my background. The yellow sunflower paper was a perfect match with Strawberry’s yellow jumper in the photo. Initially I stayed with the embellishments in my kit but I felt it needed more. I picked up an idea from Tara on the CKC Facebook page and added black liquid pearls to the centre of the red flower embellishment. I rooted through an embellishment tub I had on my desk and added a few extra bits. Once the title was on I thought I needed a little wood in the embellishment clusters, so I punched some butterflies from the woodgrain scraps in my kit and added blue liquid pearls. I added my journaling and that was it.

So stay safe my friends. If you’re stuck at home due to the pandemic make the most your time with family, scrap and don’t forget to step outside and feel the fresh air and the sun on your face.

Double the Challenge @ CKC

The first challenge this month at CKC is a pick three challenge; just pick three things from this list:

Stars

Enamel Dots

Chipboard

Florals – this can be paper or embellishments

Stripes

Pink

Circles

Tag(s)

Frame(s)

You can use more than three and add in other things, but you must include three things from the list. That list is so perfectly in tune with the inspiration kit I made two pages, each one using stars, enamel dots, chipboard, florals, stripes and pink.

The second page used the happy birthday banner from the chipboard sheet:

I know I scrapped that same photo with my minikit, but that smaller page won’t fit in my 12X12 album and I only have these two photos from her birthday.

I’ve been a busy scrapper this past week. I’ve done my page for the yet to be announced second challenge, done Shimelle’s starting point from last week’s Facebook Live and have started cutting squares for a page with a grid background. There’ll be more to come after that since Shimelle’s new class starts soon, which some bonus videos to watch tomorrow. I’ll be back soon with more pages from this kit. What have you been up to?

March Mini Kit

I’m not due to share a mini kit as part of my CKC Guest Designer duties, but when I realised that the 6×6 paper pads I had waiting to be put away were such a perfect fit with the inspiration kit I couldn’t resist.

I pulled these 6X6 papers, mainly from Dear Lizzy and MME collections:

In what is a complete departure for me (this is possibly a first) I grabbed an A4 sheet of white cardstock for my background and a caterpillar embellishment I’ve been saving for the perfect photo. And what better photo than Strawberry with her Connie the Caterpillar birthday cake.

What looks like a stripe paper in the first photo is actually one large chevron, which I chopped up so that I could create a strip of smaller chevrons across the full width of the page. I added some bows, stickers and stamps from my main kit and it’s done.

I’m quite liking this smaller format. Since this year is such a big one for Strawberry I’m thinking I might do a special A4 sized album just for her. What do you think?

Please Take a Bow

It’s 4th of March which means it’s time to talk about forging scrapbook stash for our Counterfeit kits. This month’s inspiration kit included fabric bows. They looked more like paper bows than ones made from ribbon, so I dug out my bow template and some paper scraps with a fabric texture pattern and got to work.

I think they work best with double sided paper; you can just about see the contrasting colour inside the pink bow in the photo below.

Before you go here’s the kit and page I made when I answered the design call at CKC.

Please come back on 6th when I’ll have a page to share from a mini kit I pulled together using just 6×6 papers and some embellishments from my main kit. See you then.

March Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop

Hello fellow scrappy counterfeiters. I was delighted to be asked to join the design team at CKC as guest designer this month and what a lovely bright spring kit Lori has chosen; perfect for brightening up all these wet, grey days we’ve been having.

The month’s kit to copy is Citrus Twist’s February 2020 kit:

And there’s also a Life Crafted kit:

I started with selecting papers. I wanted sketched florals, constellations, hearts, yellow stripes and teal geometrics and I know Maggie Holmes did a sketched bird pattern, but it was this picture which set me to pull out my Heidi Swapp, September Skies Paper pad:

It’s that floral with the bright teal background; September Skies has a paler version. That’s where I started and here’s what I ended up with.

There’s four September Skies papers there; I went for acid green stripe instead of the citrusy yellow and I love the bright floral. The constellation paper is from Dear Lizzy Serendipity; it’s darker than the one in the inspiration kit but not so dark as the one in September Skies. The rest of the papers are American Crafts, except for the journaling paper (MME Cut and Paste) and the chevron which is Pink Paisley. They’re all super old lines.

So what am I missing? Woodgrain, grey script, newsprint, aqua numbers and pink birds. I’m running out of woodgrain and I’ve used my Shimelle wide stripes, so I threw in some scraps. I’ve decided I can omit the word papers and numbers; I think I have enough paper here and enough script style words. I couldn’t find that pink Maggie Holmes bird Paper; I thought I may have donated it when I had a clear out last year, but it turned up after I had finished taking my photographs, so I’ve added it to the kit since.

Then I moved to PL cards. I had a part used September Skies cut apart sheet which gave me a few square cards. I also had three 3X4s left from a Simple Stories cut apart with woodgrain and a green to match the florals, so they went in with some stamps.

Next was alphas. The inspiration kit has script words and tiny alphas. I added plenty of those but I also need larger alphas so I threw in a couple of sets of thinkers (Amy Tangerine multi colours and Pink Fresh navy and gold) and some other alphas in co-ordinating colours.

Next was embellishments and I may have gone to town a little; enamel dots, puffy stars, cardstock stickers, flair, a whole pack of ephemera, puffy sequins and circles, enamel shapes, felt bows, fabric stickers, rub ons and a sticker book.

That Shimelle sticker book has the wrong pink, but it does have navy mini alphas, script words and lots of circles, so it’s in for those. And I have my photos now from Strawberry’s 16th birthday, so that chipboard banner will come in handy.

And here’s the (almost) full kit.

I’ll be back on 4th with my bows forgery, but in the meantime I’ll be stalking the CKC community FB page and the blog sign up sheet to check out your kits.

So now it’s time for you to hop on to the first of the Master Forgers, Cindy.

Counterfeit Kit Challenge – http://counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com/

Guest Designer Julie – https://jsquaredscrapspot.wordpress.com/

Cindy <go here next> – http://cindyscreations-cinmfoster.blogspot.com/

Julene – http://julenebydesign.blogspot.com/

Leslie – http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.com/

Lisa – http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com/

Lori –  https://loriannie670.blogspot.com/

Tara – https://kryptonite72-rambles.blogspot.com/

Tina – http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com/

Tracey – https://3obsessions.blogspot.com/

Laura – https://www.instagram.com/mrsp_scrapsandtea/

Is there anybody out there?

I haven’t blogged for so long. You know how it is, life gets busy, it’s so much easier to share pages in Facebook groups, so blogging takes a back seat. But I have reason to breathe some life back in here prior to needing the blog on 1 March. Here’s a little taster of what I’ve been up to.

1. I had my annual trip away with scrappy friends at Woodbrook.

I found out the tree that I had photographed in the grounds the previous year, along with a few others, had been cut down, so last year’s photos got this year’s story

Here’s my favourite page from the weekend

2. Purple is no longer my nemesis.

Despite buying lots of purple cardstock when I first started scrapping, it became my least used colour. Since then I bought a couple of Shimelle collections with lots of purple and suddenly I have had a purple period

 

3. Strawberry turned 16

How did that happen so fast? She’s now mid GCSE mocks and applying for 6th forms.

4. I’ve started on new creative journeys.

I’ve started sewing again. I made a quilt from Strawberry’s old T-shirts and this pincushion pot from scraps.

And I’ve started going to art classes with Strawberry

5. I’ve made some changes to my life to help my wellbeing and mental health.

I’m on a decluttering journey using some of Marie Kondo’s philosophy and I have reduced my hours at work to just 4 days. It means I’ll have a little more time to scrap and blog.

I’m not sure if anyone will get this far in my post, but if you do please leave a comment, say hello and let me know if you’d like to see more scrapbooking, sewing or art or want to know more about KonMarie. Otherwise I’ll be back on 1 March – hope to see you here then.

Filling the Scrapping Gap

Warning – photo heavy post.

Hello strangers! I had a lovely surprise this week – being picked for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog Follower Showcase.  Lisa said such lovely things about my pages and included a link right here to my blog – that’s when I realised how long it has been since I have written a blog post.  I have been scrapping – I’ve been to the GoGo Getaway 10th Anniversary crop where I met Shimelle, A Birds of a Feather class with Vicki Boutin and our annual Bloggers weekend away, as well as taking both of Shimelle’s new classes.  I’ve been posting pictures of my pages on FaceBook, but since the CKC link might send some visitors I think I should share a few pages here too.

First some pages made for Disney Scrappers International Scrapbook Day challenges:

And a pocket page for a Best of British Challenge:

Another London page made with a CKC kit for a GoGoGetaway challenge:

A selection of class pages made at the GoGoGetaway event:

And finally a couple of pages I made to finish my Disney Hallowe’en album:

Now that album is finished I intend filming a flip through – I’ll be back when it’s done 🙂

 

Challenge Yourself

Hello, I’ve been away a long time I know but there’s a very good reason for that – I’ve been very busy scrapping. I’ve been taking Shimelle’s latest course – Clear the desk. In it she presents strategies for creating and using kits from your own stash. A crash counterfeit kit course if you will!

There were 4 variations on the kit selection techniques and I’m almost through my third kit, with a total of 14 pages – all but one using Disney photos. I flicked through my 2006 album Disneyland Paris album last night and I am most certainly on the home run. I have a couple to finish on my desk and a couple in the album which need some journaling (truth be told one needs a bit more embellishment too) and then I just have just four pages left to do to finish the album. That is my scrappy goal for this Easter holidays.

In other scrap related news I held a card making class at work, as part of our Be Inspired fortnight, where we are encouraged to share our hobbies. We used a sketch from Stick it Down and one of my colleagues blogged about it here.

Before I go I should share some LOs. It’s so rare they include me that I’ll start with those. This one is for this month’s Challenge Yourself bingo challenge. I used stickers, diecut and of course a photo of me – this one is with Russell and Dug from Up.

I kept that one clean and simple, but I went with a bit more embellishment with this one of us with Pocahontas. Strawberry said I should have called it ‘Colour with the wind’ with all those leaves swirling round.  I love how the dark brown woodgrain leaves under the blue and yellow ones look like shadows in the photo.

Finally, sticking with the more outdoorsy theme, here’s my big photo LO. I love the light in this photo and if I’d stuck with a smaller size photo Strawberry would have been completely lost.

And finally, possibly my favourite LO from the class:

I treated myself to Shimelle’s offer for an annual pass for her courses, so I see a very productive scrappy year ahead of me.

P.S. Clear the Desk has left me with an even messier desk than I started with!

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Mamma Mia and Dinner with Friends

I enjoyed the coffee challenge last month at Kraft+, so I thought I’d check out this month’s challenge and what do you know? This month is to be inspired by ABBA.  I still have my photos from our trip to see Mamma Mia in Birmingham in 2016 waiting to be scrapped – perfect.

I wasn’t sure what papers to use with the kraft card stock background, until I came across the Basic Grey Adrift collection in my stash.  I thought the nautical theme would be perfect for a musical set on a Greek Island and the colours went will with the photos.

It’s a very simple page, but I’m happy to get a special memory in my album.

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Bah Humbug

The January 1 sketch at Let’s Get Sketchy is perfect for using 3X4 cards like the ones I forged for my kit.  I’ve had this LO in mind since I saw it but I’ve been distracted by other projects (including this one for Kraft+ using the same sketch).

I did quite well sticking within my counterfeit kit for this page.  I had no problem with alphas for the title, since that was provided by my 3X4 card and the only things I added were the white star stickers (I could have punched some from white card) and the Christmas tissue paper I used in my Traditions LO.  Even though they will be in different albums, I didn’t want this one to look too much like my Cocoaflakes LO, so I left a narrow border at the top left of the LO and added my journalling with white pen around the edge of the page.

I have two more large photo Disney LOs to share from this kit (both started on New Years Day) and then it’s about done and I’ll be ready for February’s Counterfeit kit.  Have you seen the sneak peaks on the Facebook page?  It looks like it’s going to be a pretty one next month.