Tag: scrapbooking

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!

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.

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), June ’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 DLS Designs, Timeless collection.

I wanted to recreate a few different elements from this inspiration. You’ll have to dive deep into all the elements to find some of this things that sparked my interests.

I want to tackle each one individually. I’ll save the best for last. The first two items I’ve shared before so we’ll zoom through them. We will start off with wood style picture frames.

I made mine by swiping the edge of an ink pad over scraps of white cardstock. By using the edge it creates streaks which mimic woodgrain. Of course this can be done with any papers, but I really like this look. My tip for making the frames look like frames is to miter the corners. If you don’t know, mitering is creating the diagonal corners. I have a video sharing tips on how to do that, as well as tips for making frames in various sizes. It really is easier to show it than to explain it.

Next up is the word art. I’ve shared this many times before. The biggest tip for this one is to use a pencil to draw guidelines on your paper. This will look much like old fashioned elementary school paper that teaches kids how to form their letters. It’ll do the same for you to help you keep your penmanship very even and tidy. Plus, pencil is very forgiving. Made a mistake? Erase it and try again. The video for this one covers all of it if you want to try this out.

Notice I only fussy cut some of the images out for demonstration purposes. Most of the time I’ll just leave them rough until I’m ready to use a specific word.

Now, we are ready for my favorite. I tell ya, I never would have thought to do this technique without having been inspired by the 49 and Market pattern paper. That is one of the reasons I love CKC. It brings in new ideas for me to explore creativity. My brain is now buzzing with more ideas!

These images are pretty much to scale. Notice that my pattern paper (right) has much larger images than the 49 and Market paper (left). That is a result of using the supplies that I have on hand. I am thrilled with how it came out regardless of the scale! In fact I want to try this technique over and over again with various images.

Deciding what images to use for this one was based on the inspiration, but you can use anything. In fact you don’t even have to use as many images as I did. You can do this with single images. Imagine doing this with balloon shapes for a birthday page. Or how about just something like hexagons for an everyday pattern paper? In fact, using a single image will make life easier when creating the paper. Let me explain.

I used a masking technique to make this paper. If you are not accustomed to stamping, masking is a very common technique for building scenes. It helps imagery sit either in the foreground or in the background. In this case, the text is “pushed” to the background. Depending on your project, masking can be a little time intensive depending on the number and complexity of your images!

If you know what masking is then feel free to skip this part. I’ll explain masking for those who need the info. To make the masks you have to stamp the same image on a thin paper and then fussy cut it out. There are specialty masking papers for this but I lost mine at the time of filming. You do want thin paper. Generic printer paper is perfect for this. You also want to trim your mask pretty closely to the outline of your image. Thin paper plus close trimming means the next step of the process will create a cleaner look to the final project.

Once the masks are cut out you can adhere then over the images on your project. I use a temporary adhesive to do this. Again, specialty masking paper has built in tackiness to make life easier. Once the mask is applied, stamp the text stamp over the icons. This allows the text to surround the image without the text ending up on top of the icons. If your mask is made with thick paper or not trimmed closely, when you remove the mask you’ll see a blank halo around the image. This can be it’s own technique for sure, but I wanted to get this detailed collage look by keeping everything tight.

Remember I mentioned above how using a single image will make life easier? That is because you only need to create one mask. Just move the one around when you need to cover the next area. Want to make life even easier? Use a stamp set that has a coordinating die. Then you can cut out the die shape and use that as your mask. You can even cut out several to speed up the process.

So this is the third video in my forgeries/makes for this month. All the videos link off to each other so if you start one, you’ll be able to access the others. The end screen of each video will lead you to the next part and even wraps around back to the beginning.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope I have shared something helpful.

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 Challenge #1, May ’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 create your own kits. Then we bring you inspiration and challenges to help you use up those kits!

I’m hosting the activities this tome over at CKC. That means I get to create our challenges this time around. So…here we are with the first challenge of the month. I adored the circle print from the first image of the inspiration. Based on that, I challenge everyone to go geometric with their layouts.

I loved this paper so much that I created a cutfile that represented it. Just take a look below. Man. I’m just loving it. This is up for free here on my blog, so you can love it too. (While you are checking that out, I also created one more unrelated cut file that is also free over there.)

So with that cut file, I pulled a bunch of papers from my CKC kit and got to work making this layout. Oh. My. Heart. I just love this. I did tone it down with vellum. I do wish I had lighter weight vellum since it was toned down a tad bit too much. Even so, I’m just pleased. (Did I say that yet? LOL)

I have a video sharing more details on this process as well.

I hope you can follow along with the other designers and see how they interpreted this challenge. For more info check out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog page, our Facebook group, or tag us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge or use #counterfeitkitchallenge.

Until next time, have an artful day.

Forgeries on the Fourth (aka FOF), May ’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 DLS Designs, Timeless collection.

I wanted to recreate a few different pattern papers from this kit, and a washi tape from the add-ons. I loved the yellow striped paper, the starry green-teal paper and the scalloped paper. I set to making each item.

Everything was pretty straight forward. The hardest recreation was the scalloped print since I didn’t have any stamps to do that one. Instead I used an embossing folder and had to figure out how to get the patterns to align over several separate pieces; twelve by twelve sheets of paper do not fit in an embossing machine! You can see everything in the 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 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, May ’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 May! It is my turn to host the activities at CKC this time! I’m excited to share what I’ve got going on for us this month. First though, let’s welcome our guest designer. My friend Alison Day agreed to share her talents with us this month. Not only is she a lovely layout creator, she also owns a scrapbook & craft store—Ladner Village Arts & Crafts located near Vancouver BC, Canada. You can find Alison on her blog, her YouTube channel and Instagram.

Now that we have given Alison some love, let’s move on to our inspiration! I was browsing the net looking for a kit when I happened upon a new-to-me company—DLS Design. It isn’t a surprise that I’d never heard of them since they are located in the Netherlands. However, when I saw their kit called Timeless, I was hooked! (Oh how I wish it wasn’t too expensive to ship their products to the US. Sigh.) That bold geometric hit all the sweet spots for me. Bold, but well balanced with softer colors and white. Plus quirky detailing to the circles. Then a deep dive into the collection lead me to fabulous icons like moths, pears, houses and so much more.

So here is what the Timeless kit looks like on their website.

Since this image isn’t full of detail, I did a bit of copying and pasting to get a better look at all the items within this kit. Here is how I put everything together. Some of the images aren’t the best as they were tricky to track down!

Note that this kit is a smaller selection of goodies from their larger collection release. If you want to see the entire line you can get even more inspiration.

So to build my kit I stared with that first pattern paper that I fell in love with. I actually had quite a few circle and half circle prints in my stash. Nothing was quite perfect but I settled on a Heidi Swapp paper that I really like (far right). From there I built out my other papers with pieces that captured the mood of the inspiration papers.

Next it was time to pull embellishments. I wanted all the cool icons, but I don’t have many of them in my stash. I had to make do with what I could pull.

On the left I have some cut-apart cards that have some of the icons, such as house plants, moths and books. I included a sticker sheet and ephemera pack from PinkFresh Studio that also had some more of the icons. The colors of those two weren’t a perfect match, but I will use the pieces that work. Phrases, enamels, hearts and stars were all on the inspiration menu and they made it in as well. Alphas are a must, but I skipped the kit stamp in favor of a die. Then, from the expanded collection I added in washi tape as well. Embellishments complete!

Don’t forget that each month I also create a few of my own elements to add into my kit. In the kit build video below I talk about some of what I have planned if you want a small sneak peek.

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

Sweet Summertime

All the bold color, fruit and moths remind me of warm summer days & nights!

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

I hope you can follow along with the other designers and see how they interpreted their own kits. I know I am very curious to see what they all come up with.

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), March ’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 [fill in blank here].

But if we take a deep dive into this kit and all it’s components, we can zoom in on these few items. In the pattern papers there is a green grid print that can be easily doodled by hand. That “plus” print pattern paper also can be super easily replicated. There are on the to-do list for sure. Next, the “rainbow” embellishments made up of little florals are not that hard. The little floral “medallions” –for a lack of a better word– from the embellishment stickers are best shown in this version from one pocket card.

So, with those tasks in mind, I set to work. I pulled out^^ my Tombow markers, my white gel pen, a Quikie Glue Pen, a VersaMarker, and my embossing supplies to bring all these to real life.

In that final pic above, I took things ever farther. I explain in the video that if you are new to doodling, you can get started by copying. Once you are comfortable, new ideas will come and you can just keep going. These are the ideas that popped to mind as I was playing. I had more ideas that I had time to make.

If you want to work with me as I walk through the process, you can follow along with this 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 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!

Final March projects

Just a couple more things to share with you as I wrap up the month. The second item is my fav so don’t miss that one.

First up I did my Mystery Box Monday project. This is where I’ve purchased a grab bag of discounted supplies and I pull out three things from the box without looking. Then I have to put all of those to use on a project. It is just a silly creativity stretcher and a good excuse to purchase a box of random supplies.

I pulled out two ink pads and I was starting to feel nervous. Luckily, the third item was a stamp set. Whew! I had something more to work with. Although, now that I think about it, I totally could have gotten inky with stencils or stamps from my stash. As it was, I pulled way more inks and other supplies and went well beyond what my three mystery ingredients were!

I had fun creating this 5×7 art piece. I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for a while to hang on my wall. This feeling of artfulness outside of the scrapbook page is growing in my brain more and more lately! I did decide to give this one away as I still have more ideas for MY walls! (More on this project in this video.)

Speaking of artfulness, the next one gets very arty indeed. But it isn’t hard! It just needs a few specific supplies. I talk all about it in the video, which is the best way to get the hang of the whole process. However, if you want the step by step blog post, that is all over on the ScrapHappy.org blog where I am a creative team member.

Oh my! Just playing with all that color is fun. Who cares about turning it to anything in the end. Yet, I did have this layout in mind, so my alcohol inked background did make it to a finished product!

Okay, that is it for March. I know Easter is in a couple of day from posting this. If you celebrate, I wish you a Happy Easter. Until next time, have an artful day!

Another Update

Yesterday I updated you on what I’ve been working on as part of my CKC design team life. Today I’m back with the other projects that have been keeping me busy in the craft room.

Community Project

Each year I create and donate Easter cards to a senior meal program. The cards go out to the seniors who are home bound and they accompany the Easter meal delivery. I’ve had such kind comments from the folks getting these cards that I’m glad to keep doing this project. I am happy to bring people a little joy through paper and ink!

Craft Shopping

I’ve been running low on certain supplies and needed a restock. Also, the February release from Concord & 9th had a few things in there that made me ooh and ahh. In fact, the Easter cards above were created from a new Turnabout stamp set. If you have never used a Turnabout, it is fun! After aligning the stamp, you ink, stamp and rotate it up to 4 times to get a background pattern. (Images from the C9 website.) This set is not an Easter set. However, with the right colors this background can mimic jelly beans or even Easter eggs. I love supplies that have this kind of flexibility!

If you want to see what else I got in my crafty shopping boxes, I do have a video.

Freckled Fawn^^

My latest FF subscription boxe reached my house and I dove into as soon as I could. Check out the unboxing and project video if you want all the details.

I played with the washi tape in the kit and made up a new washi technique. I plan on doing an small addendum to my popular 10 Ways to Use Washi video. I won’t have 10 new ways, but 3 or 4 to share!

Disaster in the Craft Room

The most recent event was the breaking of my Gemini II machine. I reviewed this machine back in March of 2023. Had I really understood then what I know now, I would have been more careful! Luckily my husband did a little surgery on it and it is now working. However, the issue lead me to create a video as a word of caution to any Gemini II owners–or potential owners. If you want to know more about what happened, check out that video.

Event Crafting

And finally, I’ve been doing some crafting inspired by the SBC Fest over at Scrapbook.com^^. They offer free online class events each year. While you don’t have to use their products, they do offer shopping lists and bundles should you want to. The bundles are even available after the event so you can take the class first and really see if you want to own those products later. I only bought a couple of small stamp sets and have worked on the projects largely from my own supplies. Here is what I’ve done so far.

That wraps things up for now. I have been doing some sewing this month as well, but I don’t have pictures of those projects yet. Maybe this will encourage me to document that process next!

I have just a couple more things coming to you for March, so until then, have an artful day!

^^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!

Freckled Fawn
They sell products individually, or in subscription kits. The kit subscriptions are a build-your-own bundle style. You pick and choose which of their standard items you’d like shipped to you each month. They carry items from wood veneer all the way up to 12×12 scrapbook papers. Take a look and see if there are any goodies you wan to add to your craft room! And… if you use the code craftysoup you’ll get 8% off your order!

Catching up on CKC

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 create your own kits. Then we bring you inspiration and challenges to help you use up those kits!

I’ve been busy at the sewing machine lately so the blog has taken a backseat not only to that, but also to getting my YouTube videos up. However, it is never too late to share some inspiration. So, let me catch you up on where we are in our monthly kit and project inspiration cycle.

Remember, this kit was our inspiration…

Forgeries on the Fourth

First, I created my forgery projects as usual. I was inspired by that pink ruffled crepe ribbon on the right. I made my own ruffled crepe ribbon out of party streamers. Super easy and super cheap!

I had fun making the ribbon, so I kept playing with the crepe paper. I used to to clip and create flowers (left). Then I glued it down to cardstock and used some punches to create even more flowers (right)

Video available.

Challenge #1

The first challenge was pretty easy for me. It was to use buttons and flowers, both of which I had plenty of in my kit. In fact those left hand flowers made it onto this layout. I did make a minor change by covering the centers with pattern paper that worked for my project better. Lovely.

Video available.

Challenge #2

The second challenge was one I have never done before. Interesting! It is called the blast off challenge where you use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 of different items. This time we had…

  • 5 enamel dots
  • 4 chipboard pieces
  • 3 photos
  • 2 fibers
  • 1 word title

It was a fun challenge and lead to a simpler layout, which was a change of pace for me.
Again, video available!

I’ll be back tomorrow with an update of my paper crafty projects. In the meantime, you can check out everythig CKC has to offer. For more info head to Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog page, our Facebook group, or follow us on Instagram @counterfeitkitchallenge.

Until next time, have an artful day.