March, 2012 Counterfeit Kit

This month's inspiration at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog was a sweet little kit by Birds of a Feather. Compared to some of the other kits we've seen, it was relatively small in size. I liked that, but did end up adding a few more items than were featured in the kit. Many of the items were by My Mind's Eye, because I have an obsession with their newest lines!

I must admit that I cheated by adding a few of the same pieces that were included in the inspiration kit! I did make a few substitutions, although I tried to stay with the same color scheme.

Here are my paper choices:

My Mind's Eye "Be Amazing" (Geo Star, Honey Blue, Kraft Unique), MME "On The Bright Side" (Yellow Chevron, Blue Wood, Stitched), Shaped Paper Studio Calico.

My embellishments:

MME "Follow your heart" Chipboard Elements, Jillibean Soup white corrugated alphas, Studio Calico die cut alphas (yellow wood grain), SC die cut journaling stickers, MME Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks wood die-cut & pearl shapes, "Lucky" title and journaling cards, Pebbles cloud felt stickers, Prima flower bunch, and various ribbons.

Here are some cards I made recently. I think I was fixated on using those ribbon flowers individually!

I made this card using Websters Winter Fairy Tale papers from the January Paper Lovelies kit.


I used Prima Madeline paper for this card:

My Mind's Eye CHA winner and a page!

Last month was CHA 2012, where all the new product lines are released. Two Peas had some awesome videos of the new lines, and if you left a comment on the video, you were entered into a drawing to win a a prize of items from that video. I was thrilled to find out I won the My Mind's Eye prize package! I was sent all the items from the Miss Caroline Fiddlesticks collection, as shown here. The papers are lovely and feminine, with a unique color combination.

I've made a vow to myself to schedule some time each week to craft. This weekend, I managed to get some scrapping done, and here is the page I completed, using a sketch from my friend Laura-Lee's cool new kit club blog Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits. Obviously, this page is not boyish, but I loved the sketch, and thought it would work well with these papers.



This photo was take by someone from our church, at Aline's confirmation retreat last year. I just love the photo, and waited for it to be given to me after being posted to the church bulletin board for awhile. I managed to scan a copy to my computer, but scrapped this copy with the staple holes and all! It feels good to be scrapping again!

Finally a counterfeit!!

It seems like forever since I've participated in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge! Since I started back at work, leisure time has been hard to come by.

This month the inspiration came from Cocoa Daisy, and is gorgeous! I loved the papers by October Afternoon! During the blog hop, I was really impressed by the OA Attic Trunk paper Helen recreated! So, I decided to try it out myself. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The original Attic Trunk by October Afternoon:

My version:

I'm hoping to be able to put together an entire kit soon, and will keep you posted!

Scrappin Fun Weekend!!!

I hope you can join us on the Absolutely Alter It message board for a fun crop this weekend!

December Daily.....WTF????

Anyone who knows anything about the scrapbooking world has heard of the December Daily album, an idea created by the scrapbook maven, Ali Edwards. The whole idea has always intimidated me, and I have studiously (and smartly) avoided doing one for a few years now.

My resolve began to cave when some friends of mine at Absolutely Alter It message board decided they were doing one. I thought maybe, just maybe I could pull it off.

I ordered a gorgeous kit from Paper Lovelies, which has a very fun and unusual Christmas line by Prima (North Country). I thought this might be a great jumping off place for the doing a December Daily book.
I began with a simple 6 X 6 spiral bound album which has about 20 page protectors already bound inside the album. I thought I'd take it really easy, since I am working 34 hours a week now, and I shouldn't be too hard on myself. Sounds good, right? Well, by the first day of December I was already feeling pressured to take photos, and prepare the pages for this thing!!! The photos I took the first day were a pile of dirty dishes in the sink that were threatening to reach the ceiling, and some flowers my daughter received from a boy she likes after her choir performance. They seemed really lame, and not very festive.

I have a crippling secret, and maybe some of you can relate. Creatively, I struggle from performance anxiety. Sometimes the urge to make something really beautiful and special can hinder my actual process. Maybe I should just make the stupid album, and let it turn out however it turns out. Who am I going to offend, anyway?

I do find that doing photos every day is very stifling for me. I thought it would be easier to just photograph the things I think are important to me during the holidays, and put them in the book in any order I please. So, maybe I don't have to stick to a DAILY album, and can just make it anyway I please! I know I sound like a brat! I'll keep you updated in my progress, or lack thereof...

One little layout....

I feel so out of it lately, but I was able to complete one layout with my Halloween counterfeit kit. I used some photos of my two youngest sons from this Halloween. Both of them dressed up as zombies, and I had them pose in front of the tombstones we had decorating the yard.


The sketch came from Pagemaps 2, and I really stuck closely to it, as I was not feeling that creative. At least I accomplished one layout!