Conterfeit Kit June - Layout 6 & 7

Now that I am no longer hosting crafting get togethers at the shop, some friends and I meet fortnightly for a bit of crafting, laughs, and sometimes a glass or two of wine.  We rotate between three of our homes so that there is a week that someone doesn't have to drive, but there is also no pressure to host if that isn't your thing.  The host provides a simple dinner as we often come straight from work or dropping our kids to their evening activities.  Sometimes I think that if we hadn't set this up we would regularly be guilty of neglecting time for ourselves.

I haven't had a full day off in nearly two weeks and the only crafting I have done is at our Friday evenings with a few minutes here and there to add finishing touches.  This is where having a ready made kit comes in very handy!  This first layout was done a fortnight ago and uses a funky sheet of vellum layered over a piece of white cardstock.  As it isn't stuck down (except under the photo) the layout photographed slightly dull as the vellum kept lifting up, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

I really wanted to work with the circles to help reflect the spinning ride.  It was quick and fun to put together and I like the three photos all on the one page.

This last layout is based on a sketch by Shimelle which I did this past Friday.  I flipped the sketch upside down as I didn't want the sky in the photo too close to the background paper.  We spend so much time laughing and chatting while we are crafting that I am lucky if I get the papers, photo and title on the page.  Do you get a chance to craft with friends?  If not I would absolutely recommend it, even if it is just once a month and you host it yourself.  One of my friends uses it as her UFO (UnFinished Objects) night and she works through stuff that has been hanging around unfinished.  It really is more of a social gathering!  And we don't limit it to papercrafting ... any sort of crafting will do.

You will get wet!

More photos scrapped from our 2008 holiday/vacation.  It will soon be time for me to stop and take stock of what I have done from that holiday and start to work on filling gaps.  I like to make 12x12's for each key part or story of our holiday/vacation and then use decorated divided page protectors to house the rest of the photos and memorabilia.  Sort of like a 12x12 album crossed with project life.  With 1600 photos to choose from I am NOT scrapping them all on 12x12 pages!!!!

I hope you had a great weekend,
Chipper

Counterfeit Kit June - Layout 3

While catching up on my blog reading this morning I found a new sketch from Shimelle which caught my eye as something different ...

I liked the sun burst idea and thought I would tinker and play with this in mind.  I originally began by following the sketch to the letter using my Counterfeit Kit for the month but I was having difficulty with the patterns and my photos and almost gave up.

I started again beginning with white (I know, I think I am getting addicted) and focused on the sunburst.  I still used my Counterfeit Kit but chose another paper and left choosing photos until I had made a start.

I LOVE how it turned out but I couldn't get a great photo of it, sorry.  There are subtle stamped arrows with hearts where you see the black outline of a heart.  The page is also shimmery from the Glimmer Mists 'Mels Dinner' and 'Vintage Pink', along with highlights around the title and sunburst with a Sakura 'Stardust Clear' pen.  The black arrow strip is actually the reverse of the heart paper from American Crafts XOXO collection called 'All My Heart'.

Love at First Sight

The Princess is kissing Rascal the dolphin during our 'Twilight Swim with the Dolphins' at Discovery Cove back in 2008.  The first dolphin we played with was Diego and he was a character.  The Princess patted him but was a little timid.  But Rascal was so gentle and she finally felt secure enough to give him a kiss.  She was in love :)

I was supposed to be creating something for this month's Counterfeit Kit blog hop as I am joining in ... but I got side tracked LOL  So I am off to create something inspired by an open air farmers market, pop back on the 24th to see it.

Chipper

First Cadet Camp - Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

If you have been reading my blog you will remember that a few Sunday's ago I managed to have some time crafting with friends.  I mentioned it in the post with the deviled egg chicks ... the ones with the 'evil' eyes!  I was so unorganised for that afternoon with friends (except for the food!) that I just grabbed random things and threw them into my craft tote.  I had the new Simple Stories collection 'Awesome' and thought that it would go well with some cadet photos.  As I had watched Shimelle's sketch of the week video only the day before, her sketch was fresh in my mind and so I used it for these two photos of the boys getting ready to leave on their first cadet camp.  I went outside to take this photo this morning in the sunlight and everything was WET!  Beautiful! It was our first rain in 32 days, so I propped it on the windowsill as I was not expecting water everywhere :-)

In some ways I feel like I cheated a little bit as so many of the Simple Stories papers are already collaged.  The right side of the layout was almost all pre-done!  But I think that is why I was drawn to this range.  Time is very short at the moment and this page was quite quick to complete.  In my mad rush to pack I grabbed a container that was labeled 'alphas' and threw it into my bag.  It was not the one I had thought it was and it was full of the old 12x12 sheets of cut out letters.  However, these were perfect for my page and another great example of using up my old stash.  I pulled these out of one of those HOTP 12x12 books when I reorganised all my papers a while back.  Remember when I filled half the house with papers and re-sorted them by colour?  These ended up in that plastic container then and then I promptly forgot about them!

A bit of stamping and stitching and I was done.  I only got another half a page finished in the 5 hours we were crafting together.  I think I did too much laughing and talking!!!!  But a great sketch and some easy to use papers and this layout at least didn't take me too long.  Maybe it was the hand stitching on the next one that took the time????

Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

I did warn you that I have been crafting and IF this scheduling thing works this will be another post this week!  I also did Shimelle's sketch from the previous week and I LOVED how it turned out.  This was the sketch.

I used an old Halloween photo with some new Teresa Collins papers and had so much fun with it.

Teresa Collins 'Haunted Hallows' papers

I just love patterned paper and adore this orange chevron.  But it is just a little over powering.  I altered the sketch slightly as I didn't place the large paper under the photo but I painted the patterned paper with Graphite glimmer mist to tone it down and create a 'fake' block of card.  I didn't want to completely hide the paper behind another one.

The green ribbon at the bottom is just a piece of cotton tape that I painted with Twinkling H2Os and stuck down randomly on a strip of double sided tape.  The fake glitter stitches are just decorative and don't hold it down.  I added those at the end for a little more sparkle.  i don't normally create using stuff from just one collection but as I had the whole collection in front of me it seemed to just all end up on the page.  I used some of the die-cuts, stickers, chipboard stickers and brads all from the same collection.  It was lots of fun to have everything I wanted right in front of me.  I also replaced the journaling note paper with three journal blocks that I cut from one of the papers.

I made the flower out of some scrap paper and Tim Holtz tissue tape.  I am not sure whether I like that stuff so i am trying to find ways to use it.  I do like how this flower turned out and I painted it with more Twinkling H2Os and put a brad in the center.  Added a few of my scraps of the old Prima Say it with Studs (I miss these!) and the page was pretty much done.  There was a framed picture on the wall that was dominating the photo so I covered it with a sticker! LOL

That year The Extrovert spent ages making his own costume.  I have already told the story of The Thinker's costume perviously.  Those two really make me giggle!

Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

So many photos and so little time to scrap!  If you had asked me a year ago if I ever use sketches I would have given you an emphatic NO!  But now I seem to be hooked on them.  The past few months I have gotten more done than in the past few years!  That is not entirely accurate because in the last few years I have moved half way around the world, opened a new business and moved house twice so far ... but you get my drift :-)

I liked this sketch by Shimelle but didn't get it posted in time to add my link.  The sketch looked like this.

And here is my take on it using cupcake photos from The Extrovert's 13th Birthday party last year.

Basic Grey '?' papers

I love that stripy paper and I wish I had a pile of it, so this sketch let me leave lots of the paper free for me to admire in years to come as it is the only sheet I have!  The Extrovert chose to have his party at an outdoor laser battle place so his whole birthday was army themed from the invites to the cupcakes.  Our idea was to make swirl cupcakes in green and brown batter with corresponding green and brown frosting.  All did not go entirely to plan!

I embossed some scraps of brown Bazzill using one of my new Craft Concepts embossing folders.  This one is part of their new Christmas collection, but it doesn't look like a 'Christmas Vine' to me, more like a jungle vine!  Then I pressed my Versamark ink pad over the raised bits to make them a shade darker.  Do you see the question in the title?  "Camo Cakes ... or are they?"

Well we should have made a dry run on mixing green batter from a white cake batter.  One would have thought that green food colouring would have been sufficient, but no, we didn't end up with a nice dark green.  We got ALIEN green!!!!  Bright, shocking, in your face lime green!  At least the chocolate half was brown LOL

But The Extrovert wasn't phased as the most important part of the cakes to him were the men on top!  Don't worry I made him scrub them and boil them for 10 min.  Who knows what germs they might have been carrying.  The frosting was still a little bright, but no where near as bright as the inside.  They were a huge hit with the boys and I never thought that I would live to see they day where a pile of 13 year old boys are more interested in plastic army men than cake.  They ate the cake and then started attacking each others toy man!

I had loads of fun staining and dyeing the muslin that you can only just see in the layout, but this time I kept most of it off my hands!

Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

This week I might even be on time posting this!  I made a layout for Shimelle's sketch of the week last night, talk about cutting it close!.  Here is the sketch this week.

And here is my take on it using photos from when The Princess baked cookies for her birthday party-bags.  She baked a family favourite, Black Eyed Susans (or Swedish Spritz with chocolate centers).

Crate Paper 'Emmas Shoppe' papers

I used a few scraps I had from this collection and one full sheet ... there is still sooooo much of it left and yet I love the way it turned out.  I used some of the matching die-cuts and scraps from my desk to finish it off.  The Princess loves it.  She baked 177 cookies that night!

The photos were taken with my phone so they weren't great quality.  It was nice to have a sketch with smaller photos.

If all my scheduled posts come up as they should for the rest of the week you will see what i did with some of Shimelle's last few sketches.

On another note, do you remember when I was lucky enough to win a prize when Shimelle did her challenge weekend?  Well it arrived this week!!!!!  A beautiful box of Basic Grey goodies.  And I didn't have any of them as they really haven't been in the budget of late, so it was an extra special prize!!!

Sorry about the picture, the internet is playing up!

Thank you Shimelle and Basic Grey for the wonderful weekend and prize!!!


Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

Finally, a day off!!!!!  I have planned my day so that I get the most of it and have already completed Shimelle's sketch last week.  I wasn't really inspired by the sketch as it was very symmetrical and not really me.  However I love to challenge myself and jumped in.  Here is the sketch.

I decided to use a photo from our Florida holiday as there are so many to get through!  It is a photo of The Extrovert and as it is kind of on its own I used it for this sketch.  It is very simple and went together very quickly.  And for some reason I didn't even use any sprays or paints!!!

Basic Grey Cupcake collection

Singing in the Rain is one of The Extroverts favourite movies.  He knows all the songs and was very excited when we rounded the corner and found this umbrella at Disney Studios.  No matter what he did he couldn't get it to 'rain' as he wasn't heavy enough to set off the sensor on the ground.

The pile of scraps at the base of the photo was almost all cut from the cover page of the collection pack.  I love that page as it has all of the papers on it, but in smaller prints.  They work great for punched shapes and handmade mini matching embellishments.  I always buy the Basic Grey papers in the collection packs, as I end up using the plainer co-ordinating papers (background red) which I wouldn't have bought otherwise.  They are great for making quick pages like this one.  If all of our Florida photos come together as quickly as this one did, I might just finish them all in my lifetime!

Chipper

Birthday Waffles

This week's sketch over at Shimelle's was all about stacking layers, and maybe a bit of texture thrown in.  It completed this one quite quickly but just haven't had the time to upload it here! LOL  Here is the sketch.

As it was two smaller photos, I chose to use two from The Thinkers birthday that were taken on my iPhone.  They aren't great quality but that morning the camera battery was dead!  Here is my version of the sketch. (will have to see if I can get a better photo later)

Basic Grey 'Cupcake'

In our house you get to choose your meals on your birthday.  Breakfast is always interesting and is usually pancakes, waffles or a full cooked breakfast.  On his last birthday The Thinker wanted waffles, but only if he could help make them.  Everyone looks forward to birthday breakfasts as they are always yummy!

I had an idea for a mini album using old jeans many, many years ago and I kept this pair of The Thinkers jeans after he put a hole in them that wasn't repairable.  The jeans are still in my stash and I haven't had a chance to make the mini album yet.  As they were his favourite jeans when he was five, I thought it was a great time to use them (for this 12th birthday!!!) now as I doubt I will get around to the mini album.  So I layered squares, splattered mists, used more very old papers from my stash and the waffle layout was complete.  I hope you enjoyed the sketch this week.

Chipper :-)

Proud to be a scrapbooker

This weekend Shimelle is hosting a three day scapbooking challenge weekend to celebrate how proud we are to be scrapbookers.  And as you all know by now it is my birthday today **Yippee Happy Dance** and so I am spoiling myself by spending the spare minutes in my weekend crafting.  I am never going to keep up with all of them but at least I have a week to finish them all, so really it is a WEEK of challenges!  My goal this weekend is to get at least three completed.

The first challenge was this weeks sketch.  I liked the sketch but I found I had challenged myself with the photos I had chosen.  They are from a carnival/fair ride and full of bright colours.  Here is the sketch ...

And here is my version of the sketch ...

The colours in the photos were clashing terribly with any papers I looked at, so I decided to make my own using white as the base and the spraying with bright mists.  It started great, but then I realised that I forgot to lay on the rollercoaster mask, then the mists did a great big slodge on the page and my hands, and all in all it didn't go to plan.  Not surprising really as it very rarely does!  But it came together in the end and after looking at it all day I think I actually do like it, so it must have grown on me.

I made the rosettes with my score board and the wording sticking out from the bottom one is a VERY old ikande twist tie!  I am challenging myself to use up my old stuff.  I have discovered that if I take a few of them out of my stash and put them on my desk they get used ... amazing! LOL

This was lots of fun to make as I did it early in the morning while everyone else was sleeping .... ahhhhh!

Chipper

P.S. The light was fading as I got to these photos, sorry.

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

After not crafting for almost two weeks, I decided to use Shimelle's sketch this week to give me a kick start.  It was not a design I would typically use so it was an interesting process!  Here is the sketch ...

And here is my take on the sketch with a photo from Halloween all those years ago!

It is a very dark but very sparkly page!  The Thinker doesn't normally like dressing up, but the afternoon before his Scout Beaver Halloween party he went to play at a friends house, whose mother just happens to used to make costumes for a living, and the rest is history!  They all talked him into dressing up and this is the costume he came home with.  We had been trying to talk him into being a pirate for weeks and to convince him we made a treasure chest and a treasure map using coffee and burnt the edges.  He was one very cool pirate!

As I didn't have very many Halloween embellishments, I had to make everything myself and had a great time inking and painting.  Of course the Cuttlebug also make an appearance as I seem to have a collection of Halloween embossing folders.  To give the photos more hight I mounted them on a piece of chipboard.

The photo was taken in front of a bookcase full of DVD's so the background was very busy.  I know I could have edited the background before printing, but these photos were already printed.  Somewhere along the way I 'pinned' a picture of someone painting out the background and I decided to give it a try.  I like the final affect as it really makes The Thinker pop out of the page!

The black cat is a chipboard shape by The Dusty Attic that just adds a bit of fun.  When I had finished this page I was looking at the sketch again and I noticed that it was originally supposed to feature "something pretty" ... OPPS! Never mind, this is my "pretty" interpretation LOL

Happy crafting,
Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

When I first saw the sketch for this week I was stumped.  But what threw me wasn't the sketch, but the orange (as it appeared on my screen) on the layout.  Orange is my LEAST favourite colour and everytime I thought about this layout that was all I saw.  So I cleared my mind of the layout and looked just at the sketch.  Here is is ...

I am running out of printed photos so there were very few for me to choose from.  The only ones I could find were all landscape photos so I turned the sketch and started playing.  Here is my version of the sketch ...

Under The Deep Blue Sea

When we were in Florida we spent one day at Discovery Cove.  These photos were taken with a disposable underwater camera.  I love how blue the photos are as they really make me feel like I am under the sea.  After struggling for so long with this sketch because of orange, I think it is very funny that I ended up using orange on this page!  How ironic LOL

All of our photos from Discovery Cove are going to eventually be in one album and most of them have the same teal blue colour in them and these wonderful vinyl thickers by American Crafts.  The paper here is a very old one by Crate Paper (back when they felt like linen).  I had two chipboard hearts that I had painted for another project and didn't use, so I sprayed them some more and stamped the bigger one of the two so that I could use them here.

I added twine, beads and a shell that I found in my stash.  This layout came together quite quickly once I got started and I am really happy with it.  I loved this pool but it was the coldest one in the whole park so we popped in and out of it frequently.  I love to swim and it was very relaxing that day as all three kids wore life vests that helped to stop them sinking.  They were able to snorkel at the surface and still enjoy the thrill of swimming with fish.

There isn't any journalling on this page as I have far too much to say to fit it on this page.  When that happens I like to add a 6x12 page protector into my album and extended my page that way for the story.

Happy Tuesday to you all,
Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

This week has been chaotic and I have only just completed a layout based on Shimelle's sketch for this week.  As soon as I saw the sketch I knew which photos I was going to use, but I was worried that the scraps I had left to work with wouldn't stretch far enough.  The sketch this week used 4 small photos and lots of extras.  What a challenge!  Here is my version ...

 

I printed the photos out myself just so I had a guide, but I have only tacked them in place as I need to have some properly printed.  I have found that our printer distorts the colour on smaller photos, but as the layout is mostly black and brown the colour didn't really matter.

I made this layout to go with one I had completed in a class with the very talented Mandy. (she doesn't blog much, but can turn her hand an just about anything!) I only had the scraps left over from that class to work with so it was a huge challenge for me.

Original layout from class

In the original class I cut the center of the black Bazzill too small and had to make it larger, hence the square frame in the matching layout.  I also didn't have any pirate themed embelishments so I cut a Captain Hook on the Cricut and the skull on my Cuttlebug.

I had to add the background Bazzill and I found a scrap of Basic Grey 'Black Tie' to also go on the new layout.  That made enough paper to work with.  It is darker than I normally do but I like the final result.  I smooched the cuttlebug skull to add some definition and added lots of black gems to tie the two together.  I finished off with a Dusty Attic chipboard mini word 'treasure' at the top.

So that is Captain Hook and Mr Smee crossed off my list of photos from our trip.  I wonder who I should do next?

Chipper

Dance like no one is watching ...

The Extrovert loves to pose.  Ask for a photo and out will pop a crazy pose, but always with his eyes closed!  The pose in this picture was one of his favourites on this trip and appears in more than one photo.  He is who he is, and we love him for it.  My inspiration for this layout was Shimelle's sketch for this week.

It was too square for my photo so I changed the embellishments to be circles as The Extrovert doesn't fit into a box, he is the round peg that will NEVER be square!

The best part about sketches is that they are so easily adapted, and Shimelle's always have plenty of scope for your imagination.  So here is my version of the sketch featuring The Extrovert outside the Rainforest Cafe in Disney Studios!

Basic Grey 'Dasher' papers

I used some old Basic Grey papers on this one.  It was a Christmas range, but only the colours said Christmas and red and green were perfect for this photo.  Parts of the circle paper were a bit too white for this layout so I inked bits and embossed with silver on random circles.  It helped give it a more masculine effect.

Instead of adding additional smaller photos I made one of the spaces an embellishment and the other is my journaling.  I wanted more of the silver to come through the layout so I embossed the edges of one of the layers.  I also did this to the red background piece.  I LOVE to emboss! Bits of wire finish off the tag.

The silver lacey strip was actually a cheap white gel sticker.  I alcohol inked it and now it looks expensive.  Isn't it wonderful to be able to change things!  I cut up old Prima 'Say it with studs' swirls and put the larger one at the bottom and a small one at the top to help balance it out.  The title is chipboard cut on my Cuttlebug using 'Hippie Chick'.

I knew the quote I wanted to use but couldn't remember it.  So I googled "dance like no one is watching" and up it popped.  I didn't know that it was a quote from Mark Twain but it summed up my feelings perfectly.  I printed it on a scrap of Bazzill.  Just a hint on using your scraps to print on.  First print it out on a regular sheet of printer paper.  Then take your scrap and stick it right on top of the printed design using double sided tape along the leading edge.  Then run it back through the printer and print it again.  The design will now print on your scrap!

I scrapped this layout years after the event and I wanted to leave my son a note from me.  It is actually under the jounaling block and becomes visible when you swivel the circle.  I signed and dated it so he will always know when I wrote it.  Looking back at photos always makes you think of other things to say.  I think that is why we should go back and scrap older photos again, but with a new take on them.  As we reflect back on things our point of view often changes.

Have a great week,
Chipper