December Documented with the CKCB

Over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, the Master Forgers are sharing kits to help document December in various ways.  I showcased my kit yesterday ...

... and today I am sharing my project ...

It's based on my original Lean Mean Maxi-Book, but with an added half-sheet of patterned paper to extend it and allow for 25 photos or snippets of journalling.

A standard Lean Mean MAXI-book needs 2½ sheets of good quality patterned paper for the inner pages (instructions here) and one sheet of cardstock for the cover (instructions here).  My extended version needs 2½ sheets of patterned paper plus an extra ½ sheet (mine was the same pattern as one of the full sheets I'd used for the last half of the book which allowed me to make a double page spread for Christmas Day):

Simply make up the cover and inside pages - but don't stick them together yet!.  Measure the depth of the spine of the inner pages - mine was 3/16".  Cut a 5"x12" strip from the extra ½ sheet of patterned paper.  Score the strip 5" away from the right hand edge of the strip and make a second score line, to the left of this, that is the smae as the depth of your inner pages spine.  Trim the strip 5" beyond this second score line.  Punch a semi-circle half-way along the top edge of the left-hand 5" section.  Adhere the other three sides of the left hand 5" section to the front of your inner pages to make a pocket for a tag.  The right-hand 5" section of the extra strip of paper is now stuck down onto the centre section of the cover, over the ribbon tie (see the cover instructions).  Finish off the cover construction, decorate and you are ready to Document December!

All of the inner pages are shown on the CKCB today.
In fact there's inspiration every day of December on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog; please join us and share your creations on our Mr Linky page.

Socially Acceptable

Today the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is sharing their regular Forgeries on the Fourth post and this month several Master Forgers have been counterfeiting add-on embellishments for their November kits.  I chose to recreate the social media wood veneers from Grapevine Studio ...

... using various shades of kraft cardstock!  Simply cut several layers of  the same die-cut or punch and glue them together to recreate the dimension of the wood veneer.

I found that three or four layers were enough to give me a decently solid shape.  You can see how the un-layered hashtags above are so much less substantial than the @ signs.  As I'd packed some arrow dies in my November kit I made goood use of them as well.

Check out the other tutorials and tips on the CKCB today - there's sure to be plenty more inspiration there.

Not Quite A Collection

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

You never quite know where the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog will glean inspiration from ... this month Bethany has chose a collection pack rather than a kit: The Cedar Lane Collection by Pink Paislee which hit the (US) stores in August this year.  The first thing that struck me with this collection was that sheet of bright purple ... followed by the mix of bright colours against brown ... plus splashes of bright blue and some neutral woodgrain.  Here's what I found in my stash (more or less) along those lines:

I added some arrow dies to help with the counterfeiting, and a splash of buttons as they've been missing from my kits for a while.  There's also a sheet of teal cork to cut my own titles from.  Seeing the two photos together ... I realise Pink Paislee won't be hiring me as a collection designer any day soon ... ;-)

Supplies:
Glitz Designs Sparrow Daisy (orange reverse) and Sparrow Stripe (teal reverse)
All the other papers were from the giveaway pile at my recent Bloggers' retreat - leftovers from a pad of Crate Paper's The Pier collection and a pad of Amy Tangerine from American Crafts one brown polkadot paper fromgoodness knows where?!
Little B's Arrows dies
A selection of buttons from my stash
Arrow and honeycomb washi tapes
Simple Stories SN@P! studio alphas and icon stickers
Teal cork from WRMK

We're also counterfeiting an embellishment add-on ... and I chose to have a go at Grapevine Design's social media wood veneers in honour of the smartphone I was given for my birthday ... 21st century, here I come!!!!

Now it's time to hop on to Julene ... I wonder what she has put together for this month and what she'll be adding to her kit?

Monster Park

How suitable for Halloween: a park in the Sacred Wood, full of weird and wonderful monstrous (as in large as well as mythical creatures) sculptures. Last year's trip to Italy yielded a morning's visit to Bomarzo where there is a very old sculpture park from 1522.  It was neglected for many years and evntualy restored (after a fashion) in the 1950s.

I did start attempting the 3rd Challenge from the CKCB with this spread - to use Just One Thing other than photos, cardstock and paper - i.e. the semi-transluscent leafy washi tape which gave different effects depending on the background surface. However the giveaway pile at my recent Bloggers' Retreat yielded the most perfect giant gromlet that I had to interpret the challenge as just one thing that wasn't in my original October Counterfeit Kit!

I'd printed photos specially for the retreat but had somehow forgotten to select the bottom left one (of me in the mouth of a picnic cave) so I had to use a scrap of cardstock during the weekend.  I'd used it to practice with the MS border punch and liked the effect so much that the final photo had to be given a border too!

The sculptures weren't that scary after 500 years, but I certainly wouldn't fancy going walking there this evening!

October's Moving Along

Welcome to the final post of the October CKCB Members' Blog Hop; if you didn't reach me from  Julene then you might want to start at the beginning with Lisa (the full hop list is here but there's only Tina in-between)

This month we had a choice of three challenges to use for the hop (#1 Your Next Move , #2 3D Challenge, #3 Just One Thing Challenge).

I had a go with #3 but found it surprisingly difficult to only add one thing other than paper and photos to a page - extras kept creeping on.  So today, I'm sharing a page for #1 about a move I've actually made, but which moved on again this very month!  Using my October Counterfeit Kit to scrap a page for my Book Of Me, I've documented my lovely new job, in which I've just completed my probabtionary period and had my contract confirmed!

It suits me very well and I really look forward to Monday mornings now.  In fact I recently visited Genoa as part of my duties - what a hard life :-)

Thanks for hopping around with the CKCB Members this month - it was quite short and sweet this month, so why not join in yourself in November - EVERYone is welcome!

A {C}old Case

Welcome to the October Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop - if you arrived here from Clair via our guest designer Tina, then you'll know that we're shaking things up this month by creating Counterfeit Kits Identi-kits using a {c}old Case File #S365-9 from the parnership between Colour Stories Inspiration Blog and the now deceased Scrap365 (I miss that magazine)!

The Scheme: I started looking through my papers to see what might match the colours and found a pair of papers in pale green and orange as well as a sheet with ecru/grey on one side and yellow on the other.  All colours found, I raided some 6x6 pads and my scraps bags for extra patterns. Matching mini-alphas should help me with the clues!

The Evidence: Leafy washi, metal brads, coloured string and bakers twine add to the picture along with some wood veneer stars and buttons to scatter around.  Those heart-shaped enamel shapes help support the case. 

Supplies:
Green tiny floral print paper - unknown manufacturer as this was an outcast from a friend's stash
Lily Bee Design Queen Bee (yellow damask reverse)
¼ sheet Grandpa's Overalls Stripe by Mustard Moon
⅓ sheet Basic Grey Create from Colour Me Silly
Orange tiny floral print paper - same source as above!
6x6 sheet Pink Paislee Prairie Hill
6x6 sheet American Crafts Thataway Collection
¼ sheet Echo Park Navy (?) Ombre (grey reverse)
¼ sheet Holly-Christmas Vanilla by daisy d’s
Echo Park All About The Boy Superhero (teal, white, orange explosion reverse)
MM Paper Reverie Noir alpha stickers
WRMK green leafy washi tape
Grey, yellow and orange paper blooms
Grey washi tapes (from a fellow blogger)
American Crafts wood veneer stars
Lily Bee Designs ABC neutral mini alphas
Grey and white baker's twine
Cream and orange hemp cord from Hemptique
MLS Fog mini alpha stickers
Basic Grey Archaic glazed brads
Bingo Card from SS Urban Traveller
WRMK Enamel Shapes
7 Dots Studio Illumination word stickers

There's still some Case File Testimony for use during the month ... which should help me solve the huge pile of photos that I still have to scrap!

Now you need to pop over to Julene and see what supplies she has managed to unearth!  If the trail goes cold, you can always pop back to the incident room here and work out where to take the next step.

Third Time Lucky

You'll recall that I've just returned from a scrappy weekend with bloggy friends.  It gave me the opportunity and impetus to scrap the group photos from last year's retreat!  I used this month's sketch from Sue at Me & Mine too:

The main photo is courtesy of Sandie who was busy elsewhere this year and couldn't join us.

Most supplies are from my September Counterfeit Kit, but I added of the teeniest alpha stickers I have ever seen ... they're from Kaisercraft and were perfect to label those feet!

One of the lovely things about getting together with fellow crafters is that you get to share each others tools and supplies as well as ideas and company: lots of people wanted to borrow my chevron border punch, I got to use Ruth's mini chevron punch and that "Happy" embellishment came from the give-away pile (thanks Kathy).

Pass The Page 2015

I've just spent a grand weekend in the company of some lovely scrapbookers.  It was the fourth meet-up for some while others had a chance to reconnect after a year's absence. For three brave ladies it was an introduction to a supportive, creative, giggling gaggle and for one particular crafter, it was a chance to show off her 2½ week old baby!  Some one-handed cutting and sticking was done, but there were more than a dozen willing "aunties" happy to cosset such a sweet wee thing.  Here we all are balancing on a handy fire escape at the Royal Agricultural University:

Ruth, Fay, Jo, K (& baby), Zahra, Missus Wookie, Claudia, Alison, Mel
Kathy, Jacky, Julie, Alexa, Lizzie and Me!

We'd got into the creative mood even before the weekend started, by doing a Pass The Page scraplift and perhaps you've already been following the progress along the path taken by Julie's original page.  I was last in the chain and received Ruth's version:

I kept the central band and matching top and bottom borders but adjusted the sizes to match the supplies I had in my September Counterfeit Kit.  Those two layered anchors transformed and extended into three faux Polaroids and I added some enamel dots as they weren't in my kit.

The photo is for our Disney 2004 album ... it must be nearly finished by now ... hard to believe that little girl on the left is just starting her 2nd year at university!

Looking back at the chain of pages we came a long way from Julie's original - it was especially fun to line them up and see the gradual metamorphosis. Thanks for a fun challenge Julie x

Down The Dhoon

Welcome to the start of September's edition of the Members' Blog Hop from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.

This month I had a go combining the sketches from Challenge #3: I kept the side "white" space and full central section from the first sketch and used two photos (assuming that those two rectangles are meant to be photos.  From the second sketch I kept the background squares but offset them to allow for my journalling tag.

The vellum circles and gold brads from my September Counterfeit Kit helped break up the lines a little and echoed the cluster from the first sketch as well.

The photos are from our trip to the Isle of Man earlier this summer: we walked off a delicious Sunday brunch by descending one of the deepest glens, passing a stunning waterfall and resting on a beautiful beach before climbing the 190 steps back up.  Not that I counted, as I was too short of breath!

Next stop on the Members' Hop is the lovely Tina and you can find the full list of participants Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog today.

Summer Scavenger Hunting - Isle of Man

Have you been playing along with Rinda's Summertime Scavenger Hunt?  I've participated for a couple of years now but this time I was only able to concentrate on it during my holidays ... two long weekend trips to the Isle of Man.  Hubby and I were invited to my friend's wedding to be held in July, but had yet to meet her husband to be, so we decided to have a "catch-up-with-her-and-get-to-know-him" trip in June, followed by a return visit for the actual wedding.  They joined in enthusiastically with pointing out photo opportunities as well as posing for them!

#1 Bouquet (for the bride-to-be)   #2 Ornate Door Knocker (in Ramsey)   #3 Dog Walkers (by Ramsey pier)
#4 Board Gamers (in Ramsey)   #5 Architectural Colums (at Peel Castle)

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing the special facilities of the Isle of Man TT, a super-fast motorbike road race circling the island, including crash mats strapped to walls and lamp-posts (to protect them from damage rather than the riders), porta-loos in the middle of nowhere for the use of race marshals and pedestrian bridges to allow people to cross from inside the circuit to the rest of the island while the race is in progress!

#6 Metal Bridge (in Ramsey)   #7 Turtle (or possibly a tortoise, in the garden)
#8 Someone plugged into social media (what else is there to do while waiting for the ferry in Douglas?)
#9 Cellular Tower (on Snaefell mountain)   #11 Tent (ready for the wedding reception in the garden)

There are no universities or colleges in the Isle of Man so there's no #10 :-(

#12 Public Toilet (at Peel Castle)
#13 Merry-Go-Round (a spinning {water-}wheel at Groudle Glen was the closest I could manage!)
#14 Traffic Signal (the electric railway crosses several roads)    #15 Multi-flagged pole (Peel Harbour)
#16 High-up Panoramic View (of Ramsey bay)

#17 Matching uniforms (runners training along Douglas promenade)   #18 Overloaded Vehicle (time for a new bike?)
#19 Ticket Booth (for Groudle Glen Railway)
#20 Natural Body of Water (another stretch ... the base of the waterfall at Dhoon Glen)
Plus Substitute A (for #10) Hubby & I eating al fresco (outside the museum in Peel)

Finally there's that pesky, un-substitutable self portrait with a scavenger hunt sign ... which I somehow forgot to take ON the Isle of Man, so instead, here's me with a double page spread commemorating the holiday hunt and more, made this weekend at a fun scrapbooking retreat.

Lots of fun ... thank you Rinda for organising it all - the final link-up is here for anyone that's curious.  Here's hoping that 2016 will produce more fun scavenging.

Inspiration Is The Simplest Form Of Forgery

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 Cindy and, if you're following in order, then you will have reached me from Susanne.

February's kit-to-copy is from Studio Calico's August subscriber kit called "Pop Art".  I have to say, it's not quite my "thing" as it contains a) pale pink and lilac b) realistic florals c) HUGE patterns ... so I struggled to see where I could start with my counterfeiting.

The most appealing thing to me in the kit were those diamond shaped puffy stickers ... and when I spotted some patterned paper from Pink Paislee with multicoloured diamonds, I decided that they would be my inspiration starting point!  By adding some dots, stripes, grids, pale blue alphas and a little gold washi I had the basis for a whole kit:

I punched various sized circles from coloured vellum to imitate the Studio Calico "Circle Transparency Die Cuts".  I then added some journalling cards and broke out some gold brads, orange gromlets and bling to give me some useable embellishments because feathers, especially green and blue rubber ones, don't really do it for me!

Supplies:
½ sheet of Echo Park Rough & Tough (orange and white zigzags reverse) from All About A Boy
Doily from Echo Park's For The Record 2 collection (blue and green doilies reverse)
Numbers from same collection (green floral reverse)

Glad to get rid of these "B" sides to be honest!

6x6 stripes, diamonds, spots and grid sheets from Pink Paislee's Prairie Hill collection
Echo Park For The Record 2 sticker sheet
Gold dotty washi tape
Orange striped washi tape
American Crafts gold medium glitter brads
Crate Paper's Story Teller alpha stickers
Various journalling tags from my stash, including a part sheet from Echo Park's For The Record
Circle-punched coloured vellum
WRMK orangel gromlets
MME Follow Your Heart Be Amazing rhinestones

Well that just goes to show: you don't have to like a kit to be able to take inspiration from it ... though I'd hardly call my kit a copy ... would you?!?!

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

Friends Forever

Welcome to the final post of the March CKCB Members' Blog Hop; if you didn't reach me from  Kelly then you might want to start at the beginning with Lisa (the full hop list is here)

This month we had a choice of three challenges to use for the hop (#1 Blank Canvas Challenge , #2 Gift Wrap Challenge, #3 Friends Inspired Challenge).

I've already had a go with the blank canvas challenge so I went with the 3rd challenge, using my August Counterfeit Kit to scrap a photograph of a dearly departed friend, lost suddenly to the big C last month.  It was taken on my birthday last year while we were all still in blissful ignorance.

We four have had several happy times together over many, many years and the memory of this day is a good one. 

Thanks for hopping around with the CKCB Members this month - why not join in yourself in September - EVERYone is welcome!

Prom(pt) Scrapping

At the beginning of each month I get together with a few friends and scrap in my local village hall.  It's a monthly chance to devote myself to using my Counterfeit Kit and try to make a page or two for the monthly challenges.  This month's first challenge at the CKCB is to use a white base for your page ... perfect for these prom photos of Child No.3 in a purple dress, considering there is NO purple in this month's kit at all (and the material of her dress looked a different shade in different lights)!

The white base allowed me to use accents of colour from the garden and incorporate the actual prom ticket which I'd saved with the photos from last summer ... where has the last year gone?!?!

Coincidentally the first challenge for August over at UKScrappers was a perfect fit for this page too ... once I had added an extra flower brad or two: 2 photos, 6 of one embellishment and a heart!

So two separate prompts scrapped promptly for prom photos - a good start to the month I think!

If you fancy being able to scrap promptly with a counterfeit kit (by knowing in advance which kit we are copying) then why not join us on the Master Forger team ... details of how to apply are here.

Sunny Scrappy Canary Yellows

Welcome to another month of kit counterfeiting with the Counterfeit kit Challenge Blog.  This month we don't have a guest designer to start us off ... because we're hunting for some new blood: if you fancy being part of the Master Forger apply here!

In the meantime, the reveal hop started here with the Kit-to-copy: June's Globe Trotter kit from Scrappy Canary.

If you have been hopping along you'll already have seen what the lovely Susanne did with the inspiration kit and now it's my turn.

I admired the sunshine yellows, the greys, the diagonals and dots, the multi-coloured arrows and the cork ... and dived into my stash to see what I could find.  As you can see I chose some graphic black & white & yellow ... some multi-coloured diagonals and dots and arrows ... a little cork to cut up ... and an envelope template to make little envelopes with.

I added extra arrows in the form of some washi tapes but it feels a little a little "flat" to me so you can bet there will be buttons or flair or bling being added at the scrapping stage.  As ever, the cardstock is just pulled from my stash as required.

Supplies:
½ sheet of Crate Paper Boys Rule So Rad (black & white striped reverse)
Echo Park's Diagonal Dot from their So Happy Together collection (teal floral)
6x6 Urban Traveller Pack Your Bags (travel stamp)
Boutique Newspaper (yellow) from Simple Stories DIY Boutique
A partial sheet of Travel Dots from SS Urban Traveller (Bingo Cards)
A scrap of MME Cut & Paste Charm Carefree Mellow (teal/navy dots)
The woodgrain reverse side of Echo Park's All About A Boy Gears (multi-coloured gears!)

An envelope template from Paper Pizaz
A yellow chevron glassine envelope
Two rolls of arrow washi tape
Some die-cut Polaroid frames from Lesley

Sheets of cork from a DCWV Mat Stack
Simple Stories alpha stickers
Jillibean Soup Smile Mini Placemats

Quite a few pieces are quite small as I'm now making a practice of grabbing toning pieces from my scraps bags once I have picked my main papers in an effort to reduce my mountain of scraps!

Now let's see what Julene makes of the sunny inspiration from Scrappy Canary!  Happy hopping :-)

July's Scraps

Welcome to the start of July's Members' Blog Hop from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.  I chose the first challenge: to use at least 4 photos on my page!

I recently discovered that my camera has a "stitch" function so that I could take really wide panoramas and tried it out on top of the Camera Obscura on Edinburgh's skyline.  The resulting 12 photos were printed at half-size and matched up perfectly but would have needed 3 full pages to be viewed in a row.  Instead, I decided instead to overlap them, trimming the tops or bottoms to emphasise the layering and producing a view from a point!

My July Counterfeit Kit was brightened up by the blue cardstock background and a scrap of brown patterned paper with Broadway Sizzlets helped create a bold title.  I still need to write the date and location on the page though!

To make up for the lack of blogging recently, I'll share another page from the kit for the second CKCB challenge this month - to use an old tool: several years ago when I was on the PTA of my children's primary school I bought some bargain priced mini punches from the school catalogue including a tiny triangle punch ... and this month I decided to use it to make some perfectly regular bunting for a page about the Royal Yacht Britannia near Edinburgh.  I also dusted off some ancient rub-on letters - at one point I used a lot of these but I keep forgetting to use them these days.

Hubby is posing by some fake pints of beer in one of the crew's bars on board.  The boat tour is great fun with an numbered hand-held audio guide for you to listen to at your own pace.  We found it fascinating to see how the "royals" and their retinue lived at sea.

Karen is next up on the Members' Hop; I wonder which of this month's challenges she has chosen?

If you get lost whilst hopping the full order is published on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog today.

Scrapability

Yes this blog does still exist!

After a very challenging few months, where scrapping has had to take a definite back seat, I have finally been getting creative again with my Counterfeit Kits.  So I am very happy to welcome you to my part of the July Master Forger kit reveal hop.

Hopefully you've just been to see Susanne's kit, but if not, the hop started here with a visit to our Guest Forger, fellow Brit and close friend, Julie who scraps pages about her young daughter and her own childhood.

This month we are counterfeiting a beautiful kit, in my favourite colours, from the German shop Scrapabilly.  Fellow Master Forger Lisa designs for them and has already been creative with the original kit, based on a Kaisercraft collection, so her forging should be fun this month!

I usually like to counterfeit with a twist, and because I already use so much teal in my kits I thought I'd concentrate on the fact that there are lots of papers from one manufacturer, lots of neutrals with a hint of colour, lots of alphas, lots of frames ... and try to use up some papers that I've been avoiding!

So there is still some blue, but it's pastel rather than teal, with plenty of cream and beige rather than black and grey; there are plenty of alphas in the form of ancient office rub-ons, the frames will come from stamps and several sheets of Delish Designs paper from their Bistro collection (2008) have been put to good use!

Supplies:
Fresh Entree (ornate shapes reverse)
Sizzling Stripes (brown striped reverse)
Sizzling Main Dish (brown reverse)
Fresh Main Dish (cream reverse)
Fresh Stripes (brown dotted reverse)
Various buttonsfrom my stash
Bo Bunny brown rub-ons
Corrugated card from DCWV
EK Success Bookworks rub-ons, dates, business cards and epoxy sentiments
Venice chipboard alphas from 7 Gypsies
Some ancient office stationary rub-on alphas
Various trims and frame stamps from my stash

Now it's time to visit Julene to see how she's interpreted the Kit-to-Copy.