Master Forgers' Journalling Hop

Along with several fellow Master Forgers from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, I was aksed to fill in one of two journalling sheets from Christie Zimmer's funny and inspirational site Grace Is Overrated and see where the answers & quotes led me in a crafty endeavour.

I chose sheet #24:

Click for a closer view

And this led me on to making a Mother's Day card for "my lovely Mum".  She's away in Australia visiting my brother and it won't be Mother's Day in Australia as they celebrate in May rather than March, but I wouldn't want her to miss out!

If you are hopping around, getting to know the Master Forgers today, you will have arrived from Angela and now need to visit Jennifer ... the full list is here on the CKCB.  Have fun!

Reasons Why I Love ...

Hello and welcome to February's version of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Members' Blog Hop. Hopefully you've been all around the other counterfeiters' blogs already and reached me via Leslie.  We've  been playing along with the first challenge of the month - to not include a photo on our project, just journalling!  I did a photo-less page earlier in the month, so I have cheated slightly with today's offering ... and made a Valentine's card!

I had fun with some more home made hexagon spots, a tag and a few of my office transfer letters from my February Counterfeit Kit.  I grabbed a swiss dot embossing folder for some texture, a date stamp and added a heart shaped brad from my stash.

That's not a lot of journalling, but I don't want Hubby to get too big for his boots LOL!  Inside I have stamped:

I
♥
U
X

Thanks for hopping around with the counterfeiters ... if you missed any, the full list is available on the CKCB today.

Fifty-five Bags - Week 7

Welcome back to a little more de-cluttering.  Alas, prompted not by renewed enthusiasm for my Fifty-Five Bags project, but by my inability to put the week's shopping away in the kitchen cupboards in a sensible manner - and, if I'm totally honest, by my inability to *delegate* the chore to No.2 Son and Child No.3 who are being encouraged to help out more while I earn more.
No matter - I knuckled down and cleared out several of the cupboards on my list of 55 locations and discovered all sorts of out-of-date horrors for the (bin) bags!

Eeek - coffee in an open bag from 2007 out of one cupboard and brown rice, lentils and quinoa from 2010 found in another!
  

I tried to emulate Sandra's thoroughness with recipes, but that will have to be a work in progress; meanwhile I was ruthless with cookie-cutters and lolly-makers!  The hall coat cupboard also got a thorough sort-out and we no longer own 5 plastic ponchos for theme-park water rides, a couple of out-grown coats, a bulb bought in a shop that closed 15 years ago and ten, yes TEN baseball caps!!!

Thank you for last week's support and encouragement while I had an "off" week - it is really good to hear about your efforts and it is keeping me accountable.  Ladykis reckons she is still not de-cluttering but we know better, poor Stacey is doing her best but as fast as she boxes up the rubbish, her hubby brings more home!  Lesley, however, wins the prize for the biggest single item of de-cluttering and maximum help from hubby: 

"... I'm decluttering! I've sorted the camper van which was being used as a garage so we can now use it and I've also persuaded DH to get rid of his much beloved motorbike which means I'll have half a garage with nothing in it :)"

I know from chatting with Lesley that the motorbike is already gone and that garage space has been freed up!  Well done you!!

Fifty-five Bags - Week 6

*sigh*
It had to happen :o(
A whole week with no de-cluttering.  Last week, I complained of a reduction in enthusiasm and wondered what the effect of a surge in work might have.  Hmmmmm working every day including 24 hours out of the last 53 really took its toll.  By the time I got home and did my normal chores I just needed to slump in front of the TV before hitting the sack!

Never mind, I am actually still on track to make my target of 55 bags by Easter as several locations have yielded multiple bags ... 30 filled so far, from 21 of my 55 locations. Week 7 will be better *honest*

In the meantime, Ladykis is still having to keep an eye on Mr M to make sure that he doesn't bring more clutter into the house, Missus Wookie's working week has far exceeded mine, de-railing her efforts somewhat, but Chipper has outdone us all on the shredding front:

I just shredded almost 8 years of paperwork the other week. Boy did it feel good! The local tax laws only require that we keep 7 years worth so I finally disposed of the rest (15 years old!) :-) Amazing how much space that stuff took up!

Fifteen year-old papers - well done!!  Sandra also popped by last week and got ruthless with her recipe book/cuttings hoard - also a job I need to tackle as I use the same 2-3 books all the time, yet own about 20!

A Dash Of Christmas Spirit

That's what I quite fancy having in my glass right now, but the diet won't allow it!  Instead here is a page I made earlier in the month from a sketch on the Papermaze shop blog (Scrap, Paper Scissors) for a challenge over on UKScrappers.  I've had fun with some ancient Basic Grey papers and office transfer letters from my February Counterfeit Kit, throwing in some star-shaped eyelets and tiny black brads from my stash.
This page records how difficult it is to get a decent photo of my three kids in the Christmas rush!

I only managed a single page for Christmas last year too ... the photo opportunities just aren't there now that they are late teens/adults :o(  I'm hoping that they might feel guilty when they see this page and be a bit more cooperative next year!

Fifty-five Bags - Week 5

These posts are getting later and later in the week :o(  It's entirely symptomatic of my loss of enthusiasm with what I am tackling!  However, today, being the first day of lent i.e. when the original 40 bags for 40 days is meant to take place, I am determined to get back on track.  Whether two nine-and-a-half hours shifts at work will allow this is another matter ... check back next week to see!!!

This week involved a LOT of shredding.  I tackled some piles of paperwork lying around, but discovered that before I could file it away I had to make room in the files.  There were at least 3 bags of shredded bills, insurance documents, and bank statements in our recycling last week.

The other major de-cluttering was clothing, curtains and bedding.  Child No.3 is off to Nicaragua & Costa Rica in the summer and part of her team's fund-raising efforts is a charity bag collection - supposedly for collection this week.  Hubby and No.2 Son also got involved (along with Granny & friends & neighbours) ... only to discover that we now have to hang fire until March 7th.  We are now extra-cluttered with piles and piles of clothes, curtains and bedding on our landing plus other people's bags of clothes, curtains and bedding in the guest bedroom!

Are you (still) playing along?  Stacey seems to have the same problems with her towels/Hubby as I do but  Lesley has tackled her make-up at last! {There was so much that I reckon she could have opened her own beauty shop with it all}and Melissa had a great idea for sensible wardrobe de-cluttering:

I haven't done much with the new job, but I am decluttering my wardrobe as I choose outfits each week. I'm working my way through all my slacks & blouses & shoes - if I can't/won't wear them, they immediately go in the donate box. If I wear them but it turns out it was uncomfortable or I just didn't like the way it looked or fit, it goes in the box. That counts right?

It certainly does Melissa :o)

Magical Meet & Greet

Another page from our Disney 2004 holiday - using some of the hexagons that I've been cutting - along with inspiration from the (rotated) February sketch from Stuck?! Sketches Check them out - their sketches are great!

My photos were larger than the sketch required so they needed overlapping and some jaunty angles to fit.  The title alphas are a mishmash of different chipboard sets adapted for my page: the M is a W, the Es are &s and those Ts started life as 4s!  Lots of inking was required to get them to be similar colours - it wasn't evenly done as some were bare chipboard and others had a white base layer.  I should could have prepped them with white acrylic but I'm OK with the grungy, uneven look - it goes with the red paper.  All supplies are from my February Counterfeit Kit apart from the thumbs-up paper-clip, the alphas, and a variety of Pharmacy stamps.

P.S. There's still time to sign up for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Members Blog Hop - check out the challenge here.  { I'm planning another go with this - I reckon Hubby might appreciate a Valentine's card with a list of why I ♥ him ... no photo, just a list ... I'm sure that will count for the challenge :o) }

Hex Magic

I loved the Jillibean Soup hexagon stickers in the Scraptastic Club kit that we counterfeited this month and they were the perfect excuse for me to christen the Quickutz Lifestyle Crafts nesting hexagon dies that I bought recently.  Cutting hexagons was simple enough but what I wanted to recreate was the coloured framing of the original stickers.  Two adjacent sized dies should do the trick ... but how to hold them in place??

I must come clean here and admit that I am an absolute novice with my Big Kick (those cutting plates have only seen hexagon action!) and there may well be a magnetic shim that you can use to keep these metal dies stationary on the cutting mat.  In the absence of such a wondrous thing (and the knowledge of just what "sandwich" to use with it if I had one) I simply placed the dies face down on my coloured cardstock and secured them with a sticky post-it note before rolling them through the Big Kick.  This gave me a small coloured hexagon and a separate frame.

I cut a piece of Kraft with the larger of the two dies and simply glued the coloured frame to it.  By repeating the process with smaller dies, securing them to each hexagon with the sticky post-it note, I proceeded to cut ever smaller frames, backing them with more Kraft.

Now, not everyone has a set of nesting hexagon dies but it is perfectly possible to make your own template from chipboard - using a compass - or better yet, simply print some hexagon graph paper onto the back of your paper or cardstock and cut some out directly.  For framed hexagon spots you'd need nested templates of course.

While checking out other people's counterfeit kits on the CKCB, I spotted a wonderful piece of Hexies counterfeiting by Kirsty.a and shamelessly copied her idea of adding washi tape to them.  Thank you Kirsty!

That's the wonderful thing about the CKCB: sharing ideas about how to stretch our stash and make do by making a dent in the supplies we already have.  It's always worth having a look through the links each month.

Now that I have "sullied" those virgin cutting plates with my hexagon dies there will be lots more die-cutting going on here.  If you have any tips for securing the dies in place and getting the "sandwich" right do let me know!

Fifty-five Bags - Week 4

Hello again :o) Last week I had Hubby home on holiday and I had great plans for all the de-cluttering that we would do together.  Our study/computer room has 4 IKEA "Billy" bookcases, a desk, 3 shelves, a cabinet, rolling toolbox and a floor ALL covered in "stuff".  About ⅔ of this "stuff" belongs to Hubby and I therefore cannot safely touch it!  However, as he pointed out to me, he was on holiday ... and I shouldn't be making plans for him!

So I tackled (some of) the bits that I could do along with a kitchen drawer and our towel cupboard, hoping that he'd feel guilty and join me.  Not 100% successful!  But we did end the week by taking two crates of ancient computer parts and cabling to the tip along with all the hair-driers, telephones etc that I set aside earlier.

My personal de-cluttering has resulted in piles!  Not the hemorrhoid sort, but the what-was-I-thinking-hanging-onto-all-this-for-so-long sort!

That'll be 15 years (5") of old theatre programmes (donated back to the theatre for their archives), excess plastic tubs (commandeered by Hubby for his electronics organising), excess padded envelopes, excess ancient towelling and piles of children's handwriting & multiplication books, spelling tests and notes from my teaching days plus ... the notes from a course I attended when I was pregnant with No.1 Son ... 24 years ago!!

Thank you all for your continued support and company:  Lesley, Mary & Ladykis are wondering whether they really need their old make-up, CDs and videos respectively.  I don't have much make-up to cull, but we have a stack of CDs, videos and cassette tapes and while the CDs do get played, the videos and cassettes do not.  Perhaps they should be this week's target?

Number Loving

The first challenge is up over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and it's certainly challenging: a project explaining why you love <fill in the blank> but with no photo ... just journalling!

Hmmmm!
It is February, which means Valentine's ... but I don't do lovey dovey!
Hmmmm indeed!!

Luckily I remembered that last November (on 10.11.12) I listed 10 reasons why I love numbers and I thought it would make a fun addition to my Book Of Me:

The page is (loosely) based on the January sketch from The Sampler Kit Club but I wanted to try out a fun technique with modelling paste and a stencil and this resulted in my background containing somewhat less white space than the sketch.  I've added some Making Memories heart brads (coloured with red and black Sharpies) to my January Counterfeit Kit supplies.  The 10 reasons why I think numbers are great are listed in full here if you are curious.

This challenge will be the theme of the CKCB's Member Blog Hop later in the month - if you want to join in please let them know by the 15th - it would be great to see what you come up with.

February Kraftiness

A pinch and a punch, it's the first of the month ... which means that it's time for another reveal at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.  Today the Master Forgers are blog-hopping how they took inspiration from this month's kit-to-copy, starting here with our February Guest Designer Mandy of A Teacup Of Scrapisms and, if you're following in order, then you will have reached me from Angela at Toucanscraps.

February's gorgeous kit-to-copy is from Scraptastic Club's already sold-out January kit called "Chasing Pavements".  It's luscious with lovely, lovely colours, right up my street ... BUT ...

(did you sense a "but" coming LOL) ... the colours are so similar to my January Counterfeit Kit that I needed to go in a different direction. I checked out the reverse sides of the pages and discovered that on top of the chevrons, speech bubbles, arrows and hexagons there were numbers, dots and stars too ...

I started with two sheets of My Mind's Eye Kraft funday - Super Star & Countdown - and took it from there:

Supplies:
Cream, Turquoise Swiss Dot and Teal Bazzill and some Whitewashed Coredinations to match
Home Room from Basic Grey's Recess Collection
MME Happy Days Super Star (red stars reverse) & Countdown (teal chevrons reverse)
BG Scarlett's Letter Rapture
1½ sheets of Erroneous, a ¾ sheet of Standardised and Detention also from BG's Recess Collection
½ sheet of MME Branches (orange and white branches reverse) from On The Bright Side
BG Recess Thickset Monograms
American Crafts Peacock Mini Marks alpha rub-ons
A selection of old office supply alphabet & arrow rub-ons - these need using up!
Counterfeited hexagon spots
Kraft number & alpha tags (bought at KreaDoe in 2006)
Kraft shipping tags
Kraft & red twine
Various buttons from my stash
A fabric tag (thank you S)

I'll be back in a couple of days to share my first page ...in the meantime, please join me over at Jennifer's Jumbles and see what she has put together for this month.