Category: Counterfeit Kits

CKC Kit Build, March ’25

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

Welcome to a new month of kit building. Ryann is our hostess this time. She chose the Beach Tale Collection by Kristin Cronin-Barrow from Sweet Shoppe Designs to inspire us. Ryann chose this kit in honor of her first-ever trip to Hawaii! There is a lot to work with here.

Martha

Before we dive into the details of this kit, let’s give a warm welcome to our guest designer this month, Martha Saenz. Martha loves to scrapbook her family and has been at this craft for 27+ years. Be sure to read more of her story on the CKC blog.

Now for a look at this digital kit — or actually, two kits! This inspiration is a bundle! They have the same tropical vacation vibes with different color palettes. You could take inspiration from everything like I did, or focus on just one kit.

I don’t have a need for tropical or vacation vibes so I had to take this kit in my own way. That is what is great about CKC. It is inspiration. Just use what sparks your ideas for how you scrapbook! I chose elements I appreciated from all the imagery and came up with one giant kit. Well, at least one giant collections of papers, and some reasonable embellishments, LOL.

So these are the papers I chose. The bottom row captures some of the vibes of the kit in color or motif. I did have a couple of sheets of tropical paper (bottom right) but mainly I stuck with the color vibes. I swapped out the inspo Tucan for a bird print (bottom, center left). From the orange slices in the inspo I pulled out several fruit papers. Then I went wild with support colors from hot pink down to deep blues. Some of my solid cardstock pieces are even glittery to pull in some of the inspo kits’ sparkle.

That is way too much paper for me to ever use in a month, but maybe I can try a more layered style this time. That is likely to be a good idea anyway as many of these papers are from JoAnn and they are the single sided light weight papers. I’ll need to layer them up to be sturdy enough to handle embellishments.

Speaking of which, here are the items I included for embellishing. I have a wood grain alpha (plus, not pictured, a die set and scraps of woodgrain paper since this alpha is at the end of its useful life). I found some colorful rubons and enamels. Then I took on some of the more neutral elements with twine, buttons and wood grain phrase diecuts. I also made some of my own flowers, but I’ll show you more of that process on the fourth!

There is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits just like companies do. Because of the bright colors and the overwhelming amount of paper, I’m calling my kit…

Fruit Punch

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video.

I hope you can 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 Kit Build, February ’25

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

Welcome to a new month of kit building. I have the duty of hosting our kit inspiration this month. I’m excited about the kit I picked. It has some elements I love and some looks that push me a bit. Perfect! Before I talk more about that I want to welcome Sheryle Thomas as our guest designer this month. She is a retired nurse and loves to tell stories of her lovely cats. That has my heart for sure! Sheryle is sharing all her work over on our Facebook group so be sure to leave her some love over there.

So let’s move on with our kit. I chose the May ’24 kit from Kitaholics Kits in Australia. Sadly after choosing this kit, it has vanished from the website. Luckily I saved some kit photos before that happened, so we are good to go with our inspiration. Here are a few looks at what we have in store this time around.

Screenshot

Be sure to take a closer look at the Cedar House papers by American Crafts in this kit. Many of them have gold foiling. I did not realize that at first! I was drawn to the kit for the earthy vibe that reminded me of a cabin in the woods. Yet some of the embellishments are just the opposite, with young energy popping off the page. However, there are more of those nature vibe embellishments also. Finally, while I adore woodgrains I don’t often stick to monochromatic scrapping, so that is another challenging part of this kit for me.

With all that in mind, these are the papers I came up with. I did pour over both the A and B sides of the inspiration and made one-to-tone choices when I could. There are some interpretive substitutions but I am super happy with my kit.

Now remember when I said monochromatic scrapping is hard for me? This is where my kit building started ballooning into a massive kit. We’ll get to all the extras I ended up adding but let’s start with the extra pattern papers. I wanted more color so I took that striped paper in the photo above as a jumping off point to bring in more color. Not only more color, but also more gold foiling. The three papers on the right end do just that. Plus it doesn’t hurt to add hearts to a February kit, right?

Let’s take a look at the base embellishments next. I’ve got a little bit of everything from the inspiration in here, from the kid energy to the nature vide.

The inspiration also included some mixed media elements. I stuck really closely to the inspo color palette. I did choose a lot of extras in the stamp category in the woodland animal theme.

I didn’t stop there. I needed more stuff in my kit, including tons of embellishments along the nature/outdoor theme. I have all of the Simple Stories Trail Mix line, some 49th and Market, plus a bit of Jen Hadfield with gold foiling.

Okay, one more thing and then I am done. I adored the burlap ribbons in the inspiration kit. Not many kits include those details these days, so that is very much one thing that drew me to choose this inspiration. With that I added lots of texture in the form of trims, burlap paper and corrugated cardboard papers. I’m looking forward to using up these old stash items.

Whew! Now that we have seen everything, there is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits. So I’m calling mine…

Cabin Adventures

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video.

I hope you can 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 where I’ll be adding even more to this kit. Until then, have an artful day!

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), January ’24

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 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.

Since we always start our forgery projects with inspiration, here is the image we are working with this month. It is the September 2024 kit from Hip Kit Club.

It is really hard to see into all those tiny embellishments. Here are the best grabs of images that I could manage.

Here is what I ended up making. These makes were not special or complicated, but in my makes video I explain some crafting ideas behind them. For instance I talk about the advantages of alcohol based markers. I also create several things using circle punches while explaining how to see shapes differently.

You can hear all my thoughts, plus some bonus makes in my video. Remember that coffee press icon up above. I tell you how I found a similar item from

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.

CKC Kit Build, January ’25

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

Happy New Year everyone. January is always a big shift for me as I move from largely die cutting and card making back into scrapbooking. I often feel a bit rusty switching gears again. I’ll shake off that feeling and get right back to it. So… Welcome to a new month of kit building. Christine is our hostess this time. She chose the September 2024 kit from Hip Kit Club to inspire us. Before we dive into the details of this kit, let’s give a warm welcome to our guest designer this month. Jennifer Cain. You can find her on Instagram and on YouTube.

So let’s move on with our kit. Here are a few looks at what we have in store this time around.

It is a bit hard to get a closer look at all these goodies so you’ll have to trust me when I say I saw something sepcific that caught my attention, LOL.

For the papers, I only used items that sparked some interest for me. There was no specific reasons I included some papers and not others. The funniest thing about building out my papers was that I completely forgot I had this split-heart print in my stash. It was such a fun match to the inspo! Some other paper choices were more on the interpretive side, but that is how I roll.

For the embellishments I was super inspired by small little images in the kit pack. That lead me to pulling a lot of die sets and stamps sets to mimic those images. From roller coasters, to owls, to shoes, I packed in a bunch of little imagery. It’ll be a month of making embellies for each layout! Yet, I still do have my FOF (aka Forgeries on the Fourth) project coming, so perhaps I can get some work in ahead of time to pre-make some elelements.

Hope you will come back on the fourth to see what I made ahead and what I left to do in real time!

Before we go, there is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits just like companies do. So I’m calling mine…

Sky High

… in honor of the stars and rollercoasters and hot air ballon images.

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video. (This will go live 6am PST. To keep our team coordinated, our blog posts go live at midnight EST.)

I hope you can 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 Kit Build, November ’24

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

Welcome to a new month of kit building. Vikki is our hostess this time. She chose the Goldenrod Digital & Printable Kit by Traci Reed Designs to inspire us. Before we dive into the details of this kit, let’s give a warm welcome to our guest designer this month. Tamra Hunt, pictured to the left! You can find her on her blog.

So let’s move on with our kit. Here are a few looks at what we have in store this time around.

Lets take a bigger look at the papers since that is where I usually start. What caught my attention was the fact that there were plenty of everyday papers tucked in there. From plaids to polkadots, I found plenty to inspire me outside of the definite fall theme of this collection. I very much appreciate that! I also liked that the softer than traditional color palette as well as the addition of gray and gray-teals.

So these are the papers I came up with. I subbed out the black star print for a large bold multicolor star. I included one leafy print and one pumpkin print as a nod to the theme. I also subbed in one wreath print that while intended for Christmas, could work really well on a Halloween layout with porch pumpkins!

And here is a look at the embellishments. I kept my main selection of embellishments manageable. I will allow myself to draw readily from my stash of fall and Halloween embellishments as needed.

Don’t forget that each month I also create my own elements to add into my kit. Of course these are inspired by the original kit, but often have a twist of their own. So don’t miss what I will make in just a couple of days. I’m sharing some things from super-easy to fun-techniquey this time around.

There is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits just like companies do. So in honor of the wreath print I included, I’m calling mine…

Porch Decor

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video.

I hope you can 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!

October Makes

I’ve been jamming in a bunch of design team work after spending 4 fun-filled days at the Crop & Create Delivered Card making “retreat”. It is an online event if you aren’t familiar with C&C. But it is jam packed. I buy special meals, snacks and treats, clean my room and prep for a week in advance. So to me this IS a retreat. It just means I don’t have to pay for hotels or flights. 😉

At any rate, that means my other crafty life had to play catch up. On the design team at CKC we create our own products each month and offer mini kit inspiration. I was tasked with both jobs this month and combined them up nicely.

The Makes

Fist here are my makes for October. Fabric flowers created two ways. Denim was upcycled to create the flowers on the left in pleated style and rolled style. On the right, felt was die cut to create sunflowers.

If you want to see more of that in action, plus a peek at one of my fails, then check out this video.

The Mini Kit

A couple of days later I put those sunflowers to use in my mini kit. I took some of the supplies that did not make it into my main kit for the month and included them in this mini kit. I knew what I wanted to make and since I didn’t own the products to make it happen, I designed some myself. In fact I’ve already release that brand new, FREE cut file for all of you to download. It is featured in this blog post.

With my kit and cut file ready I set to work. I created these fun table decor items. But don’t limit yourself to just table decor. These would make great notecards to sent as well.

I do share some tips and tricks in the video where I created these. Check it out.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of early Thanksgiving crafting. Until next time, have an artful day.

CKC Kit Build, October ’24

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

Man, I have been so busy with a long list of stuff going on. Luckily most of it is good. Unfortunately it means multiple things have fallen through the cracks. Deep breath. Pick up the trail and move forward.

With that I am here with my October kit. The team at CKC breaks up tasks for the group by various jobs. I’m actually on the job of creating a mini kit + project this month. But… that kit & project is going to be a fun home decor idea (sneaky peek there). That means I still need a scrappy kit. So here it goes.

First here is our guest designer: Liz Ketter! You can find her on Instagram. I don’t know Liz so I am looking forward to seeing her work. Speaking of which we need to build a kit based on inspiration. Since I am behind the times, you can check out Liz’s and the rest of the team’s kits over at the CKC Blog. We are working with the An Autumn Tale: Chilly Breeze digial kit available at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

The very first thing I noticed was the demin accent. LOVE. We have had at least one other month with denim vibes during my tenure on the team. Still loving it. I also appreciate the softer takes on oranges and browns. Those are not my go-to colors at all. Yet the tones here have a bit of a glow to them that I appreciate.

So these are the papers I came up with. Apologies for the blurry photo. I had my camer in the wrong setting when I snapped this and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

And here is a look at the embellishments. Despite the chaotic look of this pile, I kept it simple. I added dies and stamps to create items as I scrap. I added textural elements of felt and cork. Then I just plopped my entire fall embellishment pouch onto my kit. Done.

Don’t forget that each month I also create my own elements to add into my kit. Of course these are inspired by the original kit, but often have a twist of their own. So don’t miss what I will make in just a couple of days. I’m loving my ideas this time.

There is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits just like companies do. So I’m calling mine…

Easy Breezy Autumn

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video.

I hope you can 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!

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), September ’24

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 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.

Since we always start our forgery projects with inspiration, here is the image we are working with this month. It is the Daily Journal Scrapbook kit from Cocoa Daisy.

I was drawn to the pattern papers right away.

In the top row, the third from the left is that striped pattern paper. I was instantly drawn to that and knew that I wanted to recreate it from washi tape. That part went as expected. When I took that paper to my sewing machine a happy accident occurred. The tension on my machine was too loose and my stitching ended up being loosey goosey. There is no other way to describe it, LOL. I loved the texture for sure and will make this a purposeful technique in the future.

Can we just take a moment to reflect on why forgeries are so fun? I took the inspiration of a flat piece of patterned paper and recreated it with physical products. The real life texture this brings is awesome. I feel like I made it better than the original.

I created a bonus set of embellishments from this project. I saved all the little tails that I cut off of the washi tape when I trimmed the straight paper edges down. Those I applied to the edges of scrap paper. I cut that paper down and formed tags!

I wasn’t done yet. My next forgery was to make that far left pattern paper in the bottom row. Zooming in on that it is a slightly distress chevron print. I wanted to try a couple of things and ended up making a double sided piece of paper with a technique on each side.

The left was straightforward stenciling. However I used a Paper Pouncer^^ from Picket Fence Studios to make the job super fast! On the reverse side I used a chevron embossing folder as a stamp! There were a couple of challenges with this technique so I ended up with more distressing than intended. While this wasn’t quite what I wanted, I think the technique is worth fine tuning in the future.

If you want all the details on creating these lovely items, check out the video.

That is it from me this month. Stay tuned for when I put these to use on layouts! For now, you can find more creative ideas at the CKC blog. 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.

^^Disclosure: I do use affiliate links to products at no cost to you. I receive a small percentage of any sales from these links. I really appreciate your support by shopping through my links. It keeps my craft room stocked with supplies for future projects!

CKC Kit Build, September ’24

I love kit building and that is why I am on the design team for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge project. We take an inspiration kit each month and proceed to replicate it, or as we say, counterfeit it. This is a free, friendly group that helps inspire you to use up supplies you already own. We are not about needing to buy the latest and greatest thing (though we won’t stop you if you enjoy new crafty goodies😉 ).

I am not ready for summer to be over. I’ve barely been outdoors this year! Maybe after ridiculously hot summer temps I can shift my outdoor mindset into fall. Until then I will continue to scrap in my basement and avoid the overwhelming heat.

That means I need to kit build once again. This time I am taking a different tack for two reasons.

  1. I’ve taken on the mini kit job this month over at CKC.
  2. I need smaller kits since I have barely made a dent in the past few kits.

With that in mind I decided to build out page kits. I have done this in the past, but I have a bit of a difference this time. I’ve chosen my stories first, then built my page kits. Kinda. Sorta. I’ll explain after I introduce you to CKC’s guest designer for the month. Welcome Amy Jo Johnston. She will be sharing her work over on the CKC Facebook group. Be sure to check her out there and show her some love.

Now we can get to the paper. Brandi Jo chose our inspiration this month. As she has boys, you’ll notice a lean toward blues and greens. Yet there is a hint of florals if you need some of that in your life! Check it out.

I love the colors and the option to add some pops of boldness. The camera icons are something I’m all about, yet haven’t done in a while. It’ll be nice to pick up some old favorites again. Plus I’m always down for some mixed media vibes.

I took different elements of inspiration and tucked them into each kit. As I mention above, the idea to choose pictures/stories before product popped into my head as I was mulling things over. This is NOT how I normally kit. Taking on this change felt good this time around. That allowed me to use the inspiration yet really define the kits. I started really by pulling a few papers that played into the kit, then my photos/stories, then more paper for balance, and I wrapped it up with embellishments. This let me take on a bit more specific theme for some things.

Kit #1: School Kit

This one starts off looking quite different than the inspiration. But if you take a look, you’ll find commonalities. The elements I pulled from the inspo: text print, bird motif, “+” motif (in my case I used “x”, but you get it, right?), cameras and frames. Then I felt free to add in extra embellishments for the story. In this case a school story.

Kit #2: Memorial Kit

For this one I leaned into the pops of black. In addition I included film strips, frames, a hint of floral, washi tape (including a bird one), and a few tabs and tags. The basics from this kit (papers, stickers, journal cards) are all from Simple Storie’s “Heart” line from several years ago. I’m sad to need this line, but glad I had it on hand already.

Kit #3: Solar Kit

Here again you can see some similarities and differences from the inspo. Floral in a bold way. Teals in watercolor. A shot of black. Cameras, film strips and frames.

Each kit is it’s own entity, while all were inspired from the same goods. That is one of the joys of kit building! I’ll be creating a few of my own items from this inspiration as we typically do for our Forgeries on the Fourth project. I will also have that mini kit project up on the 6th. As you can guess it is another page kit… but for a double page layout! So stay tuned for all of that.

Before we go, there is a tradition over at CKC of titling our kits just like companies do. So I’m calling mine…

Memorable Moments

If you want more details on my kit building thought process, check out my kit build video.

I hope you can 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!

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), August ’24

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 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.

Since we always start our forgery projects with inspiration, here is the image we are working with this month. It is the A Bee-utiful Day kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

Scrapbooking kit featuring yellow and black colors and bee icons.
A bee-utiful Day kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

There were a couple of things that caught my attention. First we have to look at the closeup of the pattern papers to get started.

Pattern papers from a scrapbooking kit.
A bee-utiful Day kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

See that bottom right corner? It is a striped hexagon yellow print on a black base. How can you get good color on top of black? My best product for that is distress oxide inks. The inks do dry a bit duller and chalkier that than bright bold color, but that’s okay. Still a fun technique.

Next up was tackling some butterflies with a balance of black and bright colors.

Mixed media scrapbooking kit add-on.
A bee-utiful Day kit from Sweet Shoppe Designs.

I used mica filled watercolor paints to get that great color on top of black.

If you want all the details on creating these lovely items, check out the video.

That is it from me this month. Stay tuned for when I put these to use on layouts! For now, you can find more creative ideas at the CKC blog. 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.