Sunny Scavenging

Are you joining in with  Rinda's Summer 2013 Scavenger Hunt?  There'll be an end of the month round-up-so-far soon and I've just realised I hadn't got further than posting my first photo and am a couple of weeks late in processing (and posting) my photos from earlier in the month (during our brief summer)!

When I looked at the list I realised that I could get quite a few sorted just by strolling around in my lunch break:

#2 A Theatre For Performing Arts

#10 A Bench Outside (the Theatre)

Not very comfortable looking is it?!  Around the corner was the Town Hall and some more uncomfortable, partially-backed benches:

#2 A Civic Building

#1 An Open Air Market

And, because it was a Friday, the weekly market was in full flow in the town centre!  Four photos in 10 minutes is not bad going, don't you agree?!

I can't believe how glorious the weather was when I took those pictures, especially as today's weather was simply awful.  I certainly wasn't wearing shorts and sunglasses for my stroll on the beach:

Another Place (in the) altogether!

Despite the weather, I did take several more photos for the Scavenger Hunt, but they will have to wait for Rinda's Roundup!

P.S.  With Google Reader's imminent demise I have been forced to try to get to grips with an alternative reader, Feedly.  Having signed up at the beginning of June, hated the change and run straight back to Google Reader like an ostrich, I was pleased, yesterday, to see that they've made a "Follow On Feedly" button (now added to my sidebar).  However, I'm still struggling to keep up with my blog reading while I get to grips with Feedly's interface.  How are you coping with the change-over?

40 Winks

Welcome to the final post of the June Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Members' Blog Hop (or CKCBMBH for short)!  If you've been hopping along with other counterfeiters (and reached me from Angela) then you will already know that we are sharing the inspiration we took from farmers markets.

I made a card for this challenge earlier in the month with my June Counterfeit Kit and today I am sharing a layout reflecting the colourful displays and varied textures (and little flags stuck into produce) that farmers markets offer:

That's a terrible (but typical) photo of Hubby on holiday:  I like to get everyone up early to make the most of the day (and beat the queues at Disney) ... but he likes to catch up on his sleep.  Hubby puts up with the dawn breakfasts providing he gets some siesta time later in the day.
ETA: Those aren't border punched strips - they're (the yellow) part of a sheet of BG laser cut doilies from my June Kit.

If you've missed anyone on the CKCBMBH you can find the full list over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog - why not join in yourself next month?!

Hello Summer!

Welcome to the "Hello Summer!" Blog Hop in cooperation with this month's sponsor of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog:  Little Blue Button Stamps.  If you reached me from Little Blue Button designer Dawn you are on track, if not the hop started here on the CKCB.

Olga from LBBS kindly sent us each something from her newly released June digital stamps and challenged us to make a project.  I'm afraid I cheated a little as I'm not that great at colouring digital images; Child No.3, however, has a great selection of Promarkers and loves to use them, so she happily set to work instead!  In the meantime, I had fun with some mists and a chevron stencil to make a "wave" effect on some blue patterned paper from my June Counterfeit Kit.

Card made with "Jessica In The Ocean" Digital Stamp from LBBS

Little Blue Button Stamps is kindly sponsoring this hop - with four generous prizes up for grabs - just comment on each blog in the hop, leaving a final happy comment over at LBBS itself.  But hurry - you only have 24 hours to do this in, so best hop right on over to Marla, another talented lady from the LBBS Design Team.

Winners to be announced On June 15th - Good Luck!!

Mark(et)ing Cards!

We had an interesting discussion at our crop this weekend about the prices people charge for home made cards and invitations.  A friend had seen £4.50 being charged for sloppily made "Save The Date" cards and said she made more intricate, neater cards and generally charge £2-3, which still covered her costs even after donating half to charity!  It doesn't actually take much in the way of materials to make a card (mine are made with scraps from my scrapbooking) but making money from card-making does need you to do more than cover time and materials.  Maybe £4.50 is about right ... but you need to find your market: people prepared to pay that sort of sum for your hard work. 

Which leads me into the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog's first challenge for the month: taking inspiration from another sort of market where you pay more for good quality items - Farmers' Markets. As usual it's also the challenge being used for the Members' Blog Hop on June 24th: just e-mail them at the CKCB by June15th if you want to join in.  For now, I took inspiration from the market stalls displaying boxes of healthy goodness to make a sunny card using some offcuts from my June Counterfeit Kit.

It's good to have a few cards in hand in case you want to send someone a friendly greeting.  I won't be entering the hand-made greeting card market any time soon; I prefer to make a few cards for myself and leave the marketing to others!  Have you been successful making and selling your own cards?  Do your prices cover costs, your time, make a proper profit?  What sort of prices would you pay for a hand-made card?

High Temperature Trouble

My seven-year-old laptop has been getting more and more temperamental and failed twice last year (typically at least 3 months after the last back-up had been made).  Luckily Hubby is a whizz with all things technological and, despite these troubles, we he managed to restore the system to working order and the only casualty was my free time while I laboriously copied the un-backed-up files back into place.  I got better at doing regular back-ups too ... every month like clockwork.  This year, real life took over and I kept meaning to do another back-up ... soon, perhaps after lunch, tomorrow at the latest ... but never quite managing to find the time.

During the last month my laptop fan was almost permanently on, no matter how little processing was happening.  That should have been a clue, a signal that things weren't right and that a back-up would soon be needed in earnest!  Sadly I kept prevaricating and last week, just before several deadlines, the inevitable happened ... major failure again!! 

Hubby asked me when I had last backed-up ... I looked on my External Hard Drive and was very red-faced to admit that it was four months ago :-(

Luckily Hubby has just treated himself to a new machine and so now I am working on his old one, with a restored system that is finally up to date after only two days of file-copying!  *sigh*  I've now marked my calendar and promise faithfully to do better in future.

He showed me why my old laptop was overheating ... masses of dust inside and just look at the state of the air-vent!

That should definitely not be there, no wonder the fan was having to do overtime!  The only upside is that item #9 in Rinda's Summer 2013 Scavenger Hunt is "someone or something that is clearly out of place or doesn't belong" and I reckon this dusty fluff will get me started on the hunt, though I'm not sure where it should be, other than inside the bin!

Destination Unkown

"Destination Unknown" from Scraptastic Club

Welcome to the June Master Forger Kit Reveal Blog Hop which started with our Guest Designer (a former Master Forger herself) Sherri.
If you're following in order you'll have popped over from Angela (if not, the hop order is on the CKCB today).

You never quite know where the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog will glean inspiration from; whether it will be a kit you love or ... loathe find less attractive *wink*

This month we had a great choice in the May offering from Scraptastic Club, with a choice of kits to get ideas from.


I initially ignored the Destination Unknown Kit as it is rather pink - regular readers will know I struggle to use this colour - but I loved the sunny, cheeriness of this kit-to-copy and decided to give it a go!  I found a sheet with hearts (in a Christmas collection), a diagonal patterned paper reflecting the rainbow of colours in the original, a few Sn@p! cards from a pad my friend brought me from New York and the kit grew from there:

Supplies:
Cosmo Cricket's Get Happy: Snappy (distressed yellow reverse)
Fusion Solar Ray and Lucky Chance by Basic Grey
½ sheet red barbed wire on teal ... any ideas who makes this or what it's called ???
Citrus Circle from Echo Park's Sweet Summer Time (green & white diagonal check reverse)
Bella Boulevard's Christmas Love (multi-coloured circle reverse)
Red, White, Teal and Kraft Cardstock

BG Blush alpha stickers and laser cut doilies
Lily Bee Design Victoria Park alpha stickers
American Crafts Flair
Simple Stories Sn@p! Happy Sayings Quote Cards (bright coloured patterned reverse)
Counterfeited pennants from my March Counterfeit Kit

I couldn't resist making a few extra tags inspired by a tiny part of one of the other kits (one of the cards in a sheet of Jillibean Soup Chilled Cucumber Bitesized Bits in the After The Storm Add-on).  I simply added white die cut numbers to bright scraps of corner-rounded cardstock and outlined them with white gel pen. 

I hope you'll join in the counterfeiting this month, not least because there's a chance of prizes thanks to our lovely sponsor Little Blue Button Stamps.  If you're happy hopping I happen to know your next destination ... Jennifer ... I wonder what she has put together for this month?!