Author: Misty Murphy

CKC Challenge #2, Jan ’23

It is challenge time over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. Our hostess for the month, Lisa, has been taking us back in time with our challenges. Remember the popularity of double page layouts from times past? That was challenge #1. This time we are heading to our old favorite techniques to bring the past back into the present.

This layout is definitely a mix of the old me and the current me. Old me used a three-photo cluster almost all of the time. Plus old me would ink and distress edges much of the time. New me adds more layers of pattern papers, homemade embellishments, and watercoloring. Both of me still turn to the classic rule of threes for embellishing.

New me also likes to use wording in my journaling that hints at some of the product selections. If you enlarge the journaling above you’ll notice I refer to how an audience “circularly reinforces” the energy of the performers. That wording is a nod to the circular elements I used on the page!

If you want to hear more of my thinking behind layout decisions, check out the video.

I hope you can check out the other designers takes on this challenge! Don’t forget to show off your stuff over on the CKC Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge. We love to see your work!

Until next time, have an artful day.

Mystery Box Monday is back!

Hello, hello! I am excited to bring back my Mystery box Monday series. I did this series back in 2020 and since it did not get a lot of views back then I had retired it. But I missed it. This project was just some weird, creative fun and I am happy to be back to it.

So, what is Mystery Box Monday? I have a “grab-bag” style box of supplies that I purchased from Piece Craft Love as part of a clearance sale back in Dec ’22. Since the box is a grab-bag, that means all the supplies in the box are a mystery. The box comes at a steep price reduction because the supplies are unknown. Who doesn’t like a good mystery?

I’m going to reach into this box and pull out three items. Much like that cooking show with the mystery basket ingredients, I have to put those items to use on one crafty project. Will these ingredients work together? Or will it be a recipe for disaster? Let’s find out…

Here is a peek at the mystery items I pulled out of the box this time around. I have a stamp set of a girl with a pirate/Halloween theme, some die cut ephemera from Echo Park with a winter theme, and some green india ink markers from Faber Castel. Hmm. How to combine pirates and snow…

With those items in front of me I was inspired to create a tag using a tissue paper technique! Here is how it came out. Notice the wrinkly looking background behind that girl? That is the tissue paper in action!

If you want to see all the details and techniques of how I went from mystery items to a finished project, you can check out the video.

So that is it this time around. What do you think? Did I “make the cut” or did I get “chopped” from future crafting?

I hope you join me for future Mystery Box Monday goodness. Until next time, I hope you have an artful day.

CKC Challenge #1, Jan ’23

It is challenge time over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. Our hostess for the month, Lisa was inspired by a double page sketch offered over at the Scrapbook and Cards Today Magazine from 2010 . You can find that post here.

Are you a double pager? I used to be a dedicated double page girl. I did not like flipping pages in my album to see two discordant layouts side by side. I have no idea how I made the switch to doing single pages. I’m sure some of the industry trends played an influence. Some of it was a slow down in my own photo process. Definitely part of it was time allotment! At any rate, I have been a single pager for many years now, with just the occasional double. So it felt good to take on a double page this time.

First here is a peek at that sketch….

And here is my interpretation. I replaced some of the photos with clusters of photos. I adjusted some of the paper blocks with mixed media (details shots below). Finally, I turned my title and journaling block to be horizontal instead of vertical. Simple changes and I have a different layout.

Here are a few more closeups of this one.

There was a lot of “making” on this layout. Not only did I use glitter paste mixed media to make a background, but I created all of the embellishments. Previously I made the snowflake paper and the title card. I die cut foliage, watercolored & stamped snowflakes, and added a bit more other stamping., If you want to see the whole process of pulling all these pieces together, I’ve got a video for you.

I hope you can check out the other designers takes on this challenge! Don’t forget to show off your stuff over on the CKC Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge. We love to see your work!

Until next time, have an artful day.

MUM, January ’23

I love a bit of mixed media every now and then. There are two mixed media inspiration groups I play along with once or twice a month. (More info on those at the bottom of this post!)

To begin the month, on the second Monday the Piece Craft Love facebook group holds a member hop. The project there is called Mix It Up Monday or MUM for short. So let’s dive into this mixed up layout…

We always start with a sketch and then add in our own mixed media bonus. Now this sketch had some messy spatters, but that isn’t enough! I turned all those strips into watercolor strips. You’ll have to look closely as my layout is jam packed and those stripes are hiding behind everything.

I did get in festive splatters and stars too. Bonus mixed media? I made those numbers with alcohol ink techniques back in December for my 2K subbie celebration hop (coming in just 24 hours!).

So. Much. Fun. I’ll have to do a video on that alcohol inking sometime soon as well.

Of course I have a process video for this layout as it was part of the monthly hop.

Hope I inspired you to pull out some paints or inks and get messy! Until next time, have an artful day.

So if you are inspired to play with mixed media, you can join in on the fun with either group.

  • Piece Craft Love Facebook group offers the Mix It Up Monday challenge (aka MUM) on the second Monday of the month.
  • Mixed Media Mayhem Facebook group is for all the love of mixed media. There is plenty of weekly inspiration over there and a once a month hop that let’s members play along.

Let’s Celebrate!

I’ve reached not just the 2000 subscriber mark on YouTube, but I’ve shot past it and landed at over 3000 subscribers in the past month. How friggin’ fun is that?!

To celebrate I invited 14 crafty friends to join me with a Social Hop on YouTube, Instagram and on blogs! And just a carrot to dangle: on my channel I will be giving away not three but FOUR prizes for the event.

Hope you’ll join all of us for the fun!

Until next time, have an artful day.

Forgeries on the Fourth, January 2023

As a design team member over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge group I play along with as many of our monthly inspiration challenges as I can. The Forgery on the Fourth, aka FOF, project is definitely one I enjoy! That is where we see a scrap product we like and set out to recreate it with supplies we already own. So let’s go ahead and dive in to what I have for you this month.

We are being inspired by this kit from e a Hip Kit Club inspiration from just this past December of 2022.. I found 3 papers very interesting in that kit, but could only get to forging two of them. This first one was a snowflake print

I pulled out a stamp set from Hero Arts called Color Layering Snowflake (just a quick tip: this set is currently on clearance sale over at Scrapbook.com for a great price!!^^ ) and my Concord & 9th inks and got to work. I added in some navy ink to match my kit a bit more and I ended up with a piece that I am very happy with.

The next inspiration up was this little paper on the far right.

Those feathery circles really grabbed my attention. I knew I had to recreate those in watercolor! I pulled out my new Grabie.cc travel watercolor palette (full disclosure I did receive this set for free to do a review of it.) and set to work. Again, I added in navy to my palette. This did take me probably more than an hour to complete, but I put on music and sang while I painted and it was very meditative.

If you want more details on how I created each of these pieces you can check out the video below.

For more creative ideas, the CKC blog has more forgery examples to check out. I hope this gave you some ideas on how you can recreate your favorite products with supplies you already have on hand. Don’t forget to show off your stuff over on the CKC Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge.

Until next time, have an artful day.

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CKC Kit Build, January ’23

I think I have gotten to the time of my life when I am surprised every single time when the calendar flips over to a new month. Plus with this being January the calendar has also flipped over to a new year. Oh how time flies. After a break in December from kitting, and largely from scrapping, it is time to get back at it.

Lisa is our Master Forger hostess for this month. She chose a Hip Kit Club inspiration from just this past December of 2022. Before we take a peek at the kit, let’s welcome our guest designer, Anandi. Anandi has been playing along with us at over at CKC for a little while now and her design sense is beautiful. She has been a part of the Simple Scrapper design team in the past so she know’s what she’s doing! 😉

Alright, now we can take a look at the inspiration piece. I grabbed this screenshot from the Hip Kit Club YouTube video kit reveal. The graphic was just much clearer that the website photos. Odd. Anyway, I took inspiration from the kit for these elements: yellow, aqua, pink, navy, grids, stripes, woodgrain, birds and foliage, chipboard, die cuts, homey icons, and snowflakes.

Hip Kit Club offers a wide range of add-ons for their kits, so I did take a look at those as well. A few things caught my eye. I liked the wood grain foliage pieces in the embellishment set, the idea of mixed media and the sweater texture of the metal die. So all these ideas got incorporated in my kit.

So here are my papers

And what my embellishments ended up being.

There were a few items I missed tucking in my kit because I forgot or because I couldn’t find them. So a few more bits will be coming. In addition I’ll have some forgeries coming on the fourth, so stay tuned for those. Finally, as a tradition over at CKC, we name our kits. I’m calling my kit Warm & Wintery for the juxtaposition of the hot pinks and yellows along side the blues and snowflake elements!

In the meantime if you like to hear more thoughts behind my kit process, then you can check out the video version.

Go ahead and follow along with the other designers and see how they interpreted their own kits.

Here’s the full hop link list

Have fun kit building and don’t forget to show off your stuff over on the CKC Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge.

I’ll be back on the 4th, for our Product Forgeries. Until then, have an artful day!

CKC Bonus Challenge

It is challenge time AGAIN over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog. Normally we have just two layout challenges a month, but since our fearless leader Lisa is hosting this month — in her birthday month! — we get a bonus birthday-inspired challenge. We are going to play with bows or ribbons.

So I grabbed my CKC kit. Here is a reminder of that…

Then I grabbed a bow die from my stash. This little bow came from a Doodle Bug holiday stamp and die set that I got as part of an online event. If I can find. Then I got to work building little bows. I lined them up and built the rest of my page around that.

And here is the full process…

You can find more takes takes on this challenge over at the CKC blog! Don’t forget to play along with this challenge and show off your stuff over on the CKC Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge. We love to see your work!

Until next time, have an artful day.

Mixed Media, Nov ’22

I love a bit of mixed media every now and then. There are two mixed media inspiration groups I play along with once or twice a month. More info on those down at the bottom of the post!

This time around I’m sharing layouts from both groups. First up I played with the Mix It Up Monday group. We had a sketch with plenty of circles. I stretched it to two pages and created a Halloween layout.

A scrapbook layout sketch featuring lots of sizes of circles in the background.
A scrapbook double page layout about halloween skeleton decorations.

You can catch the video if you want to see how I created my circles with masking, spray inks and stamping.

Next up is a layout process with Mixed Media Mayhem. Our inspiration was from Janet Fritz of Galaxy Girl Creations. You can find her at her YouTube channel. My interpretation focused in on the pattern of her mixed media as opposed to any other elements.

And of course I have a process video for that too. This video also includes some experimentation I did with a new-to-me color product.

So if you are inspired to play with mixed media, you can join in on the fun with either group.

  • Piece Craft Love Facebook group offers the Mix It Up Monday challenge (aka MUM) on the second Monday of the month.
  • Mixed Media Mayhem Facebook group is for all the love of mixed media. There is plenty of weekly inspiration over there and a once a month hop that let’s members play along.

SCT Sampler Kit Unboxing, Nov ’22

Getting my SCT Sampler kit in the mail each month is a bright spot. This small affordable package is just enough newness + surprise to keep me satisfied. This month the package contained wintery and Christmas products from Spell Binders and Lawn Fawn, plus a stamp set from Hero Arts. Take a look…

I wouldn’t want to leave you wondering just what to do with these supplies. So I almost always make a project as soon as my box arrives. That way I am sure to use it instead of just showing it off. This time around I made batches of Christmas cards. My card making tends to be simple and repeatable. This batch went together quickly

But I kept going making just a few more designs with the extra supplies sitting around after this batch.

Of course if you want more information you can watch my YouTube video to get a better look at the kit products and my project.

If you want more info on these kits, check out the links and info below.

SCT sampler kit information
Please note: you can not order the current kit. Instead you sign up for a future beginning date for your kits. Kits currently run between $14 per month (1-year commitment billed every 4 months) to $17 per month (4-month commitment billed fully). Extras not shown in the video include a private Facebook group with video shares each month, a cut file download to match the theme word and discounts for prominent online scrapbook shops.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at what these little kits have to offer and seeing it put into action with a project. I’ll be back soon with more crafty goodness. Until then, have an artful day.