Category: Techniques & Tips

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), March ’23

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.

We are being inspired by this kit called Time to Thrive digital and printable kit by Traci Reed.

Did you notice the accordion folded hearts tucked through the kit? You can click to enlarge the image and play Where’s Waldo to find them. 😁 Well, that is where I got my first idea. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out how to recreate these digital goodies in physical form. But I got it and I think they are really fun.

A brief rundown on the sizing of these is represented in this screenshot.

  • Cut rectangle of paper 4 inches long by 2 inches heigh.
  • Score it at every 1/4 inch. The final length may be off depending on how precise your scoring is. Trim down to 1/4 inch if necessary
  • Fold in half with “wrong” side of paper facing out.
  • Draw an arc at the top of the folded paper as pictured.
  • Cut along the arc.
  • Open, fold accordion style on all the score marks.
  • Pinch and glue bottom of paper folds together to form heart.

The second bit of creation involved more experimentation. I have this set of dies from Tim Holtz that creates labels. The difference with these is that they can be inked for a letterpressed cut and embossed label. I played with this just once before sitting down to really see if I could get nice results. The end results were not as crisp as I wanted but that doesn’t surprise me too much since Tim Holtz is the distress king. They are “fine” and I’ll probably keep using the dies, but I did have higher hopes for this product. Ah well. At any rate, here is how they turned out.

You can see how I went about creating my forgeries in this video if you want more details.

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.

PRODUCTS USED^^

^^ Disclaimer: I offer affiliate shopping linked products when possible. This shopping won’t cost you anything extra, but I get a small kick back from the companies for sending business their way. It is an easy way to tell me “Thank You” for the content I provide. I appreciate you using my links!

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), Feb ’23

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.

We are being inspired by this kit from the Cocoa Daisy Modern Memory Keeping kit from Feb ’22, called Elegance Blooms.

Did you notice the arrows, chipboard circles, frames and a tag in that kit? The photos below came from various add ons and kit pieces. You can see that I was inspired by quite a bit!

I used white cardstock, washi tape and various cutting tools to create all these items. Did you notice that I even included the “negative space” from die cutting the arrows as part of my embellishment set? So fun!

You can see how I went about creating my forgery in this video for more details.

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.

PRODUCTS USED

Disclaimer: I offer affiliate shopping linked products when possible. This shopping won’t cost you anything extra, but I get a small kick back from the companies for sending business their way. It is an easy way to tell me “Thank You” for the content I provide. I appreciate you using my links!

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.

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.

PRODUCTS USED^^

^^Disclaimer: I offer affiliate shopping linked products when possible. This shopping won’t cost you anything extra, but I get a small kick back from the companies for sending business their way. It is an easy way to tell me “Thank You” for the content I provide. I appreciate you using my links!

Kit Additions, Nov ’22

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. This month, I’m also one of the Master Forgers tasked with the mini kit and project segment. Since both challenges involved me making things to add to my main kit, I’m sharing both here at once.

As a reminder, we are being inspired by the October Kit, Herbstzauber (NOTE: the kit has been removed from the company site so please check out their main site listed next…) offered by a german company called Scrapbook Werkstatt.

If you know me, then you will know that I love wood elements, including those buttons tucked on the far right side. So that was they natural place to go for my forgery.

Video episode about making wood button embellishments.

The mini kit task was a perfect opportunity to pull some scraps from my paper that had elements inspired by our host kit this month and create some interactive layer items for my kit. Having these pre-made will make creating layouts just a little bit faster.

So that is it for this time around. I will be back very soon putting those tip-outs to use on some layouts!

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.

PRODUCTS USED^^

^^ Disclaimer: I offer affiliate shopping linked products when possible. This shopping won’t cost you anything extra, but I get a small kick back from the companies for sending business their way. It is an easy way to tell me “Thank You” for the content I provide. I appreciate you using my links!

Creating Alphabets—Two ways!

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.

We are being inspired by this kit from Traci Reed Designs, called Wildflower. While she does have print-then-cut files available, the alphabet set only comes in digital version. So will a bit of work I created my own. See those alphas in the bottom(ish) right corner?

I imported all the individual png letter files into my Silhouette software. (Note, if you have a Cricut, I have an older tutorial on doing a similar thing on my YouTube channel.) Now this will only work in version 4.4 and up since the software will automatically add cut lines around the files. Once every letter is open, I copy and paste them to my prepared letter size mat to get them ready for printing. I duplicate the commonly used letters like vowels, s’s and t’s etc. Then when I turn on the print-then-cut page borders I make sure all my shapes fit within the boundaries and them I’m good to go. I just realized that in order to store these cut outs I can put a piece of PressNSeal film behind my carrier sheet and then pop the letters back into place. Voila, organized!

If you don’t do digital cutting machines, it is easy to go manual. Just use your favorite alpha stamp and die set. You can decorate up each letter if you have some tiny stamps to add details.

In the video tutorial I include a few tips on how to make this process faster, including stamping all the letters at once right from the carrier sheet. I also give a tip on creating a die cut jig to make lining up the dies for cutting go smoother. If you want those details, give the video a watch.

For more creative ideas, the CKC blog has more forgery examples to check out, including other alphabet styles. 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.

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), Aug ’22

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.

We are being inspired by this kit from Citrus Twist Kits called Travelogue Life from April of this year.

What caught my attention in terms of embellishments this time were those pennants in the puffy stickers (top left) and the beachy icons on the chipboard stickers (bottom right).

With that inspiration in mind, I created all of these beauties.

I heat embossed words, icons and label shapes onto colors of cardstock that coordinates with my kit papers. I also added some hand doodling with a Quickie Glue Pen and heat embossed that as well. Notice that I also managed to get flamingos in there too? That stamp was very large so I could only use a portion of the image, but I think it works out fine!

I didn’t complete all the steps before photographing my project, but if you want to replicate the texture of chipboard, all you have to do is punch/cut out 3-4 extra blank shapes and glue them behind the image pieces. Those added layers mimic the thickness of chipboard. Likewise you can mimic puffy stickers as well. For that you need some kind of glossy liquid products, like clear Nuvo Drops, to add a layer over the top of the image piece. Let dry and the next day you’ll have the thicker glossy appearance of a puffy stickers.

If you want more details on this process, check out my video.

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 probably 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!

The World of Vellum

Vellum is a product that I love and try to keep a stock on hand at all times. I want to share my love of vellum with you with two videos. The first is all about ways you can use vellum and the second is putting together a layout using a handful of the items I created in the first video. Plus the second video has an additional little vellum technique that you may find handy. As always, if you want the blog version, please keep reading!

Vellum Techniques Video
Layout process video using vellum

So let’s take a gallery journey through the techniques I mentioned. While each photo is captioned, the gallery system’s captions are a bit hard to read, so let me list it out more clearly.

  1. Layered Dimming
  2. Pattern Making
  3. Cluster Layering
  4. Photo Mats
  5. Stamping
  6. Heat Embossing
  7. Backing Cutfiles
  8. Printed journaling
  9. Alcohol Ink (No expensive Yupo “paper” needed)
  10. Embossing Folders
  11. Pockets
  12. Windows
  13. Shakers
  14. Envelopes
  15. Home decor — Votive Holders
  16. Home decor — Stained Glass Window technique + project

Layered Dimming
Pattern making
Cluster Layers
Photo Mats
Stamping
Heat Embossing
Backing Cutfiles
Printed Journaling
Alcohol Inks
Embossing Folders
Pockets
Windows
Shakers
Envelopes
Votive Holders
Stained Glass Technique
Technique use for project

Once I had created a pile of goodies out of vellum I turned to creating a layout. If card making is your thing, these ideas totally work for that too! Now, not all the things I created are going to work on one project so the process of finding what will work, and especially giving up on what won’t work, is interesting. I tried really hard to get stamped flowers on my project and they just weren’t working. The flowers got lost in the amount of pattern shining through the vellum. In the end I colored vellum with a marker (that is your bonus technique!) and punched out solid colored flowers to sprinkle on my project.

Layout using vellum

Don’t forget that vellum can be tricky to attach since you can see the glue right through it! If you need ideas on how to overcome that, I’ve got you covered there too! This post shows off vellum attachment ideas. Of course you can take the short cut right to the source video.

I hope this post gave you lots of ideas for incorporating vellum into your paper crafting projects, and even some home decor. I’ll be back soon with more ideas. Until then, have a artful day.

How do you attach vellum?

I hear this question a lot online. Today I set out to answer that question with as many options as I could think of. I certainly may have missed some ideas (in fact I had to film pickup segments as I realized I had missed some things!!). Here is the full video tutorial and idea gallery. Read on for the quick version.

Video tutorial on vellum

Vellum is a paper-like, translucent product that adds softness and a “dimming” effect to projects. But that very translucent quality means you can see any adhesive right through the vellum! What is a crafter to do? Let’s break it down with a gallery

First up is the cover it up strategy. Glue your vellum down, then glue something on top. Here I used all papery elements to cover up the glue, but don’t forget other items like flair, cork and wood veneer will work too and add more charm to a project.

Similar to the cover it is the tuck it. I glued these tabs to the background just on the very edge. That way I could cut my vellum and slide it under the flaps of the tabs. The video is a far better demo of this one.

Next up is the staple it method. You can use staples as a stylistic choice so it doesn’t have to look utilitarian. Along the lines of staples, there is also the option of using paper clips (again, see video).

Using stickers is much like the cover it up method, just with items that have their own adhesive. Washi tape is another self adhesive “cover it” option. But there is one more idea in these two photos. Can you spot it? That’s right, it is enamel dots! They are self adhesive “cover it” items all by them selves!

Fibers and stitching are a next level idea! On the left I used my sewing machine to add both zigzag and straight stitches, but you can add whatever you like. Click on the photo for the zoomed version to really see the stitching. Hand stitching is always an option if you don’t have a machine. Not interested in sewing? Then try punching holes and threading with twine or other fibers. Still too much? Then use some fun or funky fibers and just glue it down like in the cover up method! (Okay readers, for once YOU get the bonus info. I forgot to include the pom pom pic in my video!)

There were a few other ideas covered in the video like brads and specialty adhesives. So if you want the full list you’ll have to check that out.

That is it for today. I hope you found some inspiration here. And until next time… have an artful day.

Forging Scrapbook Supplies

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.

We are being inspired by this kit from from a German kit company, Danipeuss.de . Their November 2021 kit featuring Paige Evans brings us lots to be inspired by.

An additional embellishment pack in the Paige Evan’s line include chipboard pieces with these leaf motifs.

I wanted to recreate something similar in my own color palette.

All the details for this process are included in this video.

In addition to those leaves, I also made a sheet of patterned paper inspired by this kit sneak.

I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with it yet, but I liked the string art style. Here is how my version turned out.

When I was done those projects, I kept going with creating more embellishments; this time I made layered stickers.

For more details and tips (at the end!) to consider when creating layered embellishments check out this video. The gist is that you should use at least three variations of sizes, shapes, and contrasting colors. I also like to create a mix of symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes.

Okay, that is the crafting I’ve been doing lately. I’ll be back next time with a layout process for you, using a completely different set of supplies 😉

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.