CKC Design Team Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Design Team Blog hop! You should have gotten here from Lisa's blog.

This challenge was so easy because of the talent of our Masters of Forgery team at Counterfeit Kit Challenge! The hard part was narrowing it down to ONE designer! As soon as I visited her blog, I was immediately inspired by Lisa's artistic style. She uses a lot of paint and doodling, which I really want to use more of, and this gave me the perfect opportunity. My layout was inspired by two of her recent projects, the painted canvas and the kraft "Park Day" page.

I'm almost positive I've never used this much paint on a layout, so I was a little nervous going into it. I am happy with the way the layout turned out, though. The photo is of me as a baby, going through the dog door. It is one of those legendary stories I remember as a child, and I'm so happy to have a photo of it. I used the scanned photo as is, but it could really use some restoration.

Next stop on the hop is Meridy's blog. Have fun, and remember to leave some love on each blog!

Mini Challenge #3

Our first challenge this month at Counterfeit Kit Challenge, was to use food as inspiration for a project! I thought this was a fun challenge, but was stumped on what to do. I am not known for my cooking skills, and was not really feeling inspired by any of my meals. I do love coffee, however!! I am very good at brewing a delicious strong cup every morning. My son's teacher loves lattes, and I made her a coffee card to hold a gift card from Starbucks for teacher appreciation week, which gave me the idea for this card.

While making the card, I was suddenly inspired to make a mini album about my adventures in cooking! After getting married, I could barely boil water! I'm surprised we didn't starve that first year of marriage, because my hubby's not a great cook, either. I'd love to document how I've taught myself to cook basic meals like baked chicken (with mashed potatoes & gravy), homemade macaroni and cheese, pizza, pancakes, spaghetti sauce, and some of my other stand by recipes. It would be a funny look at my "food evolution", and also a memory of how we survived feeding four kids over the years. Obviously, I ran out of time before this project was due, but I will hopefully get to it before the month is over.

Mini Challenge #1

Our first challenge this month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is to use memorabilia on a page, which is perfect because I'm one of those people that saves everything! Birthday cards, ticket stubs, visitors maps from past trips, drawings and stories the kids made, you name it!

My oldest son, Leo, is going through a tough time right now, and I wanted to do a layout about him, and what a great kid he is. I had saved a note he wrote to me and my husband a few weeks ago. I listed some of the wonderful qualities he had. This photo was taken at the Christmas tree farm, but I liked how two of his siblings are looking up at him, and thought it would fit my title really well.

I used a sketch #103 by Creative Scrappers for this page, which called for the circular elements on the side. I cut out some circles freehand, and stitched spirals around them, and left the thread hanging. I really love that look, but rarely use it on a page. I think it gives this an artsy feeling. I also added a few items from a recent rak from Crystal! The little envelope and dictionary page came from her. Thanks again, Crystal!

Stamp of Approval and Gerber Daisy Tutorials!!

Here are the tutorials I promised for two of the patterned papers from our Counterfeit kit of the new Front Porch kits! I loved the look of both "Stamp of Approval" and "Gerber Daisy", but I had nothing like either of them in my stash. I decided to try and re-create the look each of them. I really enjoyed the challenge of creating my own patterned paper! It's definitely not something I'd do every day, but it's fun to try.

Gerber Daisy Tutorial:

Here is the real deal "Gerber Daisy" by Fancy Pants:

My kit version:

I thought this paper could be re-created by a repetitive stamped image. This was not hard to do, but was time consuming. For my example, I used a 4" X 4" piece of paper, and it went very quickly. On the sheet in my kit, I used two different flower stamps, which made things even trickier. For simplicity, I used just one flower stamp in my instructions.

You will need card stock, or other paper to stamp on, a small flower stamp, acrylic block, black archival ink pad, ink pens to color in your flowers (if desired), and a white Uniball Signo (or similar) pen to outline your flowers.

Step 1: Begin stamping your flower image in the middle of your page, but not dead center. The idea is that you want to stamp the image as randomly as possible. I've heard that if you group your stamped images in groups of three, you can avoid an obvious pattern. Remember to turn your paper and stamp to avoid the image always going the same direction. Continue stamping until you cover the entire page. If your image is light in one area, you can color over it with pen, but it probably will not show after you color the image in. Don't worry too much if you leave a small gap, or your flowers run into each other in spots. You really will not notice it later. Don't forget to have some of your flowers run off the page, for a natural look.

Step 2: Color your flowers in, if desired. I chose to color my flowers brown, because I have other browns in my kit I wanted to match. If your stamp is solid, you can skip this step. I also colored the center yellow (on the blue paper in my example, the yellow looks more green). Allow the ink to dry before going to the next step.

Step 3: Using your Uniball Signo pen, outline each flower image with a line of white. This really makes the image pop. On my large page, I used a lighter green cardstock, which did not show off the white outline as well as the blue of my example. Try to do one section at a time, because this ink takes awhile to dry, and it can smear. If you make a little mistake, don't worry about it! The overall effect will be whimsical and charming!

Stamp of Approval Tutorial:

Echo Park "Stamp of Approval:

My version:

To complete this project, you will need two sheets of paper (one darker, one lighter in color. The original has a grid pattern on the light paper, and a lined paper on the dark.), a paper trimmer or exacto knife, ruler, pencil, and a circle punch (mine is a 1"). All of the measurements I've included are with the use of a 1" circle punch. A 3/4 punch would have created a look even closer to the original, but I went with what I had. If you use a different sized punch, you would have to figure out the proper measurements. It's also helpful to use a magnetic cutting board, with lines for measuring, but it's not completely necessary.

First, cut 1" off of two sides of your lighter colored paper, making it an 11" square.

Next, measure 1/2" in on each side of your paper, drawing a line along the entire length of each side. You can work on the back side of your paper, to avoid your lines showing later.

Mark the edge of your paper at 1/2", 1 1/2", 2", 3", 3 1/2", 4 1/2", 5", 5 1/2" (center), 6", 6 1/2", 7 1/2", 8", 9", 9 1/2" and 10 1/2" on all four sides. These will be the guides for punching your half circles. The measuring is the hardest part of this project! Once you measure, everything else is fairly easy. I tried to do it "free hand" and it did not turn out well.

Turn your punch over. Using the lines you marked as guides, and starting in the middle (the 5 1/2" mark should be dead center in the middle of your first punch), use your punch to make half circle marks along the edge of your paper.=. You will end up with 7 equally spaced half circles, and a 1/2" space between each half circle, and at each edge.

I inked the edges of my grid paper with green ink, to simulate the look of the original paper, which has a green edge. You can omit this step, if you wish.

Adhere the punched sheet to your darker sheet, and voila! I hope you get a chance to try making your own patterned paper this month. You might really enjoy it!

My April Counterfeit Kit!

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge is in it's fourth month, and is going strong! The April inspiration kit was by a brand new kit club called Front Porch Kits! "A Little Birdie Told Me" is full of really fun bird papers and embellishments that are perfect for spring! I was really drawn to the color combination of the kit, which contains bright red, teal, chartreuse, yellow, and black. I chose to use brown instead of black, to coordinate with my papers. Some of the patterns I could not even come close to matching, so I attempted to make two of them. This was a really fun experiment, although it can be challenging and time consuming. Stay tuned for a tutorial on how I re-created "Stamp of approval" and "Gerber Daisy"!

Patterned papers: Cosmo Cricket (Early Birder Borders), My Mind's Eye (Jack & Jill "Blissful"), Pink Paislee (Spring Fling "Bird's Nest"), Hand made copy of "Gerber Daisy" by Fancy Pants, Pink Paislee (Spring Fling "Spring Flowers"), Chatterbox "Red Birds", Deja Views (Pack your bags "Baggage Claim"), Hand made copy of "Stamp of Approval" Echo Park using grid paper (October Afternoon "Detours") & brown cardstock, Scrap Within Reach "Carnival Ride" stripes, Cosmo Cricket (Early Bird "Brunch"), Crate (School Spirit "Chemistry"), Bazzill brown, kraft, creme, gold Swiss dot, bright red.

Embellishments: October Afternoon Journaling cards, 3 assorted fabric remnants, chipboard (Lil Davis - Heart Doodles), Stitched felt (Chatterbox - Together), Thickers (Hat Box), transparent pocket block (TTT), chipboard birds (Maya Road), Glitter - metallic teal (Creative Beginnings) & chartreuse (K&Co), sunflower metal slides "Maya Road", various ribbons (teal, chartreuse ruffle, brown crocheted, buttons from stash, small paper flowers (American Crafts, Prima), jute twine, shipping label, soda bottle caps.

More March Kit Projects!

I was lucky enough to get to participate in the crop this weekend at Absolutely Alter It! I had a really good time, but only managed to get two projects completed so far. Both were made from my "Sunny Clearing" Counterfeit Kit, which was really fun to play with and perfect for spring projects!

This layout was made for the Early Bird Challenge, and the card was for Karen's doily challenge.