November 2019 - Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgery on the Fourth

A reminder of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge November inspiration kit from Scrapdelight Scrapwinkel in the Netherlands. I am truly in love with this kit and am so happy that I picked it out for us this month.

https://www.scrapdelight.nl/product/67860/123-documenter-kit-pocket-pages-winter-thema/

I decided that I wanted to focus on the pretty fairy lights for my forgeries as well as what seemed to be really simple coffee cups and a "winter" word. It all seemed pretty easy and could be found in my Silhouette files.

Easier said than done for this Silhouette novice - even after 7 years and much increased use!

I searched my own files, then looked in the Silhouette store and came up with a good sample of full width banners and some shorter ones as well as a set of light chains which looked pretty close to the original. Then I went on the search for coffee cups and a word. So far so good.

I managed to work out how to create an offset cut for the word so that I could cut the original word out in blue and add it to a white background. I was on a roll! Then I worked out that I would need to make the coffee cup lids and hearts on a second sheet in different colours. Again, looking good.

The final light chain that looked so similar to the original also had separate shapes for the lights and the strings to be cut out in different colours. Ok, they also needed to be on a different cutting mat. I mirrored a couple of the chains so that the swing would be different and filled one sheet to be cut out in white. This was easy!

Then I organised all the bits I wanted to cut out in colour on another sheet - positioning them to match up where I intended to put different coloured scraps of paper. I was trying to make it easy after all and didn't want to have to load up the cutting sheet a gazillion times with different bits of paper.

My Silhouette layout looked something like this!

And my sheet of paper looked like this with the different scraps taking up different locations matching up to what my final layout was (I changed the previous layout a bit once I had the papers picked out). All the little bits of coloured paper came from my kit which I thought was quite clever.

However, every time I sent the file to cut, the paper slipped around and didn't cut properly. Even though I had refreshed the glue on the cutting mat and pressed the paper down really really hard! It drove me crazy. I was achieving one or two of the tiny things with each pass before the paper started to shift around. I was at it for HOURS!

This morning, I sat down with fresh energy and a clearer head and decided to send each shape through separately and attach the papers to the cutting mat with a little washi. Worked a dream!

I used a glue pen to do the fiddly work of adding the tiny pieces onto the white shapes. I'm not designed for this type of detailed work - I just don't have the patience. But even so, I'm pleased with the result of how they turned out - if you don't look too closely!

I lost the dot to the "i" along the way. I'll have to draw it in I think!

And the little lights are so tiny that I just picked them up and stuck them down as well as I could. Now I see that some of them are textured and some not - ah! Textured cardstock which I'm not used to using these days - oh well. As always, live and learn!

However, all in all, these die cuts will be useful I'm sure and you'll have to see what I do with them. I don't have anything specific planned, but the month is still young...

I've added some free cut file links over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenger blog today so head over there to check out what the others have created as well as the links.

Don't forget that there's a whole load of inspiration over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and we always love seeing how you've been inspired. So please share your kits and projects with us.

You can use our Monthly Link-up page, post them in our Facebook Community, or share them on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcnovember2019).

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgery on the Fourth

I'm back today with my Forgery on the Fourth for Counterfeit Kit Challenge September kit.

You can find out more links and other forgeries from the team over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog here so don't forget to head over there to see what's on offer :-) 

A reminder of our personalised curated kit for September's inspiration courtesy of Khristina Sorge from the Secret Not Secret Kit Club (you can find details about her club online here) who is also our wonderful Guest Designer this month. 

This is the kit she made for us.

My eye immediately went to the die cut viewfinders and the outline plane embellishment. I knew I could come up with something similar using my Silhouette. It took me a couple of minutes to find some viewfinders in my library so I was on a roll but a plane? I had to use a cluster embellishment and ungroup them to have a single plane to use.

Next up was to resize a bunch of them, position them in a similar way to the original in the kit and then work out how to connect them. Merging them was tricky and it took a long time to get them perfectly positioned so that they touched but didn't go "into" the neighbouring shape. While that looked ok as block shapes, once I worked out how to create an outline shape, I could see that when they overlapped too much, the outline wasn't solid but rather had openings where they touched. I went online to find out how to create an outline cut from a solid shape (apparently it's offset and I worked out that an inside offset was better). Then I kept nudging the shapes around, merging, offsetting and checking the form before undoing all those last steps to nudge the shapes around again and continue through that iterative process until I was relatively happy with the result! It's not perfect but I'm happy with it and I think that no-one would notice the imperfection. This is a screenshot of how my template looked in Silhouette before I sent it to cut.

I used a thick white cardstock and it came out perfectly. It really took a long time but I learned about offsetting shapes and am gradually building up more than just the basic skills that I've had for some time now. When I use my Silhouette, I'm always thrilled with the result and just purchasing this shape might have been a whole lot easier but I've got a lot of satisfaction from creating this die cut myself.

I also thought I'd give the epoxy stickers a go. I liked the simple white on black form with the non-uniform white outline and thought I could recreate something similar. I used an almost black paper and them white heat embossed some motifs from a travel collection stamp set and a few phrases that were the same as the original set. I cut these out using three different sized dies and then cut a set of white cardstock circles too. I mounted the black paper onto the white cardstock in different ways - sometimes using a larger white circle and sometimes, the same size. I moved the shapes around so that there was a different frame of white on each one.

Then I covered a few of them with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic, laying them out on baking paper first so that they didn't stick. I tried to get right up to the edges and knock out the air bubbles before leaving them for 24 hours to dry.

The final result isn't perfect as there were definitely some bubbles still left in the glue as well as some rough edges as the glue settled and dried. I was also a little disappointed that the white cardstock appears less than white now. The Dimensional Magic is not 100% clear but at least the white of the cardstock is now the same white as the embossing!

Just for comparison, I also did the same thing to a few with Glossy Accents. As you can see, the white cardstock appears a more true white but the surface is certainly not as smooth and glossy or as dimensional.

I've left a few without the "epoxy" effect and no doubt all my faux epoxy stickers will get used up on cards at some point.

If you have some clear epoxy stickers, you can of course make your stickers in an easier way than this. I've included a YouTube link over on the CKC blog today for different ways to put your backgrounds together for these.

In the past I've also talked about making complete copies of sets of word-based Thickers using my Silhouette (you can find examples here and here).

Why not try your hand at making your own embellishments for your own kit? It can be a lot of fun learning new techniques and trying different things out to achieve the results you're looking for. Not all of my "forgeries" are successful, but I love giving it a try!

Don't forget that there's a whole load of inspiration over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and we always love seeing how you've been inspired. So please share your kits and projects with us.

You can use our Monthly Link-up page, post them in our Facebook Community, or share them on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcseptember2019).

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgery on the Fourth - February 2018

Back again with a really quick and easy idea for my Counterfeit Kit Challenge February kit, Amour.

The original Noel Mignon Weekend in Paris kit had some rather delightful ribbon bows and these seemed perfect for me to copy for my own kit.

I went though my ribbons and found some that seemed suitable.

Then I just folded it over for form the bow part and secured it with a few stitches.

And then I cut a really small piece of ribbon and wrapped it round the centre with a few sturdy stitches at the back. This bit was a bit fiddly but only because I have no patience!

Trim the tails et voilà!

Three cute bows which I will no doubt use for cards that I intend to hand deliver because of the bulk and dimension. You know me, I always find the easy way to make things ;-)

Will you give these a try or do you have another idea for some of your own forgeries?

I've included a list of printables over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog too with themes that match the original kit so check those out too!

Don't forget that you can share you Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits and pages/projects on the CKC blog here, over in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge FB community here or over on Instagram here (find us @counterfeitchallenge and share with #counterfeitchallenge )

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgery on the Fourth

Welcome and Happy New Year. As every year, I have high hopes of doing a better job of blogging and sharing so let's see how that works out for me. But in the meantime, great to see you here for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Forgery on the Fourth feature where we help you to see how the simplest of ideas can help you enhance your very own version of the original inspiration kit.

If you've missed the main kit reveal, it's a good one this month because we have a fabulous Guest Designer Julie, and new Master Forgers Lori, Laura, Tina & Cindy who have jumped right in with their own takes on the Cocoa Daisy November 2017 Fair Isle kit. Make sure you check out the blog hop over at the CKC blog so that you don't miss out on the details.

I was instantly drawn to the acrylic words "gather together" in the inspiration kit and wanted to find a way to bring that into my own kit. My trusty Silhouette seemed like the ideal solution and a simple word-art die-cut would be the perfect addition to my own kit and ended up providing the name too - "Together". You can find out all about my own mini-kit on the 6th - both here and on the CKC blog - but today I'm just sharing my take on the word embellishments.

I really liked that it was two words but that they had been cut together.

I searched through my Silhouette library and discovered several cuts with exactly the same words but none of them could be cut as one piece. I've been trying to experiment a little more on the Silhouette recently and decided not to let this get in the way of using this pretty cut file.

I brought the original cut into my design screen. Here you can see that it's two words and of course, way too big. No problem!

First I "ungrouped" the file which luckily gave me two individual words that I could manipulate. I moved the "together" up and overlapped it with the "gather" file so that it could be joined at the loop of the "g" and the lower stroke of the "r".

Then all I needed to do was make sure that both the files were highlighted and "merge" them. As you can see below, the red cutting line now shows that these two files are now fused together and will cut as a single die-cut piece. Perfect and simple! Sometimes it works so easily :-)

I resized it so that the length was just under 6" - perfect for a pocket page card and all I had to do now was cut it from a paper which didn't have a strong pattern so that the words could be easily read.

I carefully removed it from the cutting mat and picked out all the little insert pieces - I am always amazed when I get a perfect cut and I don't destroy the whole cut during this process! A thicker piece of paper might have been better but I love the delicacy of this piece and will definitely be using it for my mini-kit project!

Tune in on 6th again to check out all the details of that.

Are you making your own embellishments for your kit? Then be sure to share your ideas with us. You can link up by using the Link-Up page on the CKC blog, posting in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community Group or on Instagram (find us @counterfeitchallenge and share with #counterfeitchallenge ).

Forgery on the Fourth - November 2017

It seems that all my attempts at Forgeries on the Fourth are very often rather hit and miss and this month was no exception!

I decided I wanted to make my own cork embellishments because those featured in the inspiration Citrus Twist kit were so lovely and I certainly don't have anything like that in my stash.

The cork elements here on the left are really very pretty!

So I started off by finding some cork tags in my stash and collected together some supplies to have a go at my own. A few stamps from my very limited collection and I wondered about paint, ink or even embossing.

To begin with I tried stamping with paint. Er, not so good! Paint too thick? Stamp too delicate? User error? Probably all three to be honest and not a complete disaster but maybe there is a better way.

I fished out a sheet of thin cork and die cut a whole bunch of circles in different sizes. I know that I can use these on my pages just as they are as I've done this before and I really like the effect but I wanted to give stamping and embossing a go.

I have a white Stamping' Up ink pad and I have to say that this was totally unsuccessful - there really was nothing to see. Back to the drawing board again. My embossing pad was not really wet enough and that proved to be a big problem and again, I had no luck.

So I got myself an embossing pad refill and added some to my pad. This gave a nice wet stamp onto the cork and the embossing powder stuck nicely to it.

I embossed some in white and really liked the effect - not really a perfect finish but I found that I liked it as it seems to match the rougher surface of the cork.

I decided to try some other embossing powders and there is definitely a difference depending on which one you used. A no-name pink powder didn't show up at all, and a gold powder was too coarse. The copper was the best by far and it also helped that I used a more solid design stamp which turned out really well.
 

So now I have a small pile of decorated and non decorated dots to sprinkle on my layouts!

What will you make for your own kit this month? I do hope that you share your makes with us. You can do this by using the Link-Up page here on the blog, posting in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community Group or on Instagram (find us @counterfeitchallenge and share with #counterfeitchallenge ).

Forgeries on the Fourth

If you've come here from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge, then I'm guessing that you're interested in the printables that I've included in my kit (you can see my kit reveal here) and also some more that I've found and printed since then. I really think they are going to add some nice elements that I can cut out and use on layouts - I'm much more interested in flatter items these days after wading though some layouts in albums from back in the day which are horribly bulky!

So, I printed all these items out onto white paper - not as thick as cardstock so they should be easier to cut out - 160g. I decided to print the word confetti at two to an A4 page so that they are A5 so that they really are small words to add to pages.

So let's see what I printed (apologies for the less than perfect tinted photos):

Journalling cards, labels and tags in black and white by D-lish Scraps:

http://d-lishscraps.openstores.com.au/p/4045/Journal-Cards---PDF.html

A set of printable gift tags that I thought could be useful for the tags and banner items in the original kit by A Pair and a Spare:

http://apairandasparediy.com/2014/11/diy-printable-gift-tags-theyre-free/

On the right set of words on both in both black on white and white on black. Unfortunately, I can't find the original source but the link takes you directly to the printable page, and on the left I printed out the tiny words in English and German but there is also a sheet of just English words over at Lorelei Lee's Plan-Bar : 

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/6e/5b/42/6e5b4228443ec4f8d755c122a3277311.jpg
https://loreleileesplanbar.blogspot.de/p/free-decoration-printables.html 

On the right four different coloured backgrounds. I can't find who originally created them but the link takes you directly to the printable page, and on the left your choice of words on white on black or black on white by Patricia at My Dandelion Dreams:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c1/17/a1/c117a1c1ac3af119640881f4def4a99b.jpg
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0Qk9cgOGo-RbDFEOGNNdG5LeWM/view?pref=2&pli=1

 Kaitlin Shaeffer has a whole series of printable labels in all sorts of gorgeous colours on her blog here:

http://www.kaitlinsheaffer.com/downloads

And another set of labels that I don't have the original source for but the link will take you directly to the printable page:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/cd/65/4b/cd654b243e216ddd5b1de93adb5e6ff8.jpg 

Don't forget that the rest of the team will be back on the 6th to share their mini kits and you can share your kits and projects with us by using the Link-Up page here on the blog, posting in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook Community Group or on Instagram (find us @counterfeitchallenge and share with #counterfeitchallenge ).

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - Forgeries on the Fourth

You know me... I'm a bit of a lazy crafter. 

I love the forgery side of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge - the idea of making your own takes on kit items but using your own ingenuity and stash - but the reality is that I often don't make the time and often go for the printable options instead.

But when I saw the original inspiration kit this month, I spied the acetate words and wondered if that would be an idea for me to make. Then I took another look at the kit and saw that there were three papers that would be really easy to make a version of... or so I thought!

Care to take a trip through my trials and tribulations? 

I started with the hatch design paper by Pink Paislee - the blue/green one. I found a scrap of watercolour design paper to try out how I thought I could make it. 

First up was to draw some squares which were about 1"-

And then I used my ruler and a black pen to fill in the lines. Mmmm - not so good! The ink smudged and the lines were way too close together and then I realised that the original paper must have been 2" squares instead.

So I took another scrap of more greener paper - it was quite a large scrap to be honest but I'm planning to use it in smaller pieces on cards so it will give me a bit of flexibility.

Again, I started by drawing some squares - this time in 2" squares.

Then I started with the lines and used a Uniball rollerball pen which didn't smear. I began using a ruler and then realised that a freehand line would match the original better so off I went. Very imperfect lines but the overall effect is definitely close to the original. The wobbles and imperfections won't show up once it's all cut up for cards. That's what I call a success.

I realised that the white spots on yellow might be easy to create with a white pen or pencil. The pencil was a no no (you can see a couple of lines there on the right which didn't work well at all). Of course, the ongoing problem with my white pens (what am I doing wrong? why do my pens all dry up even though they are full?) meant that the spots and lines are again, not perfect. But for cards, I think the paper will work fine. Relatively successful and completed in just a few minutes!

The last of the three papers that caught my eye was the Pinkfresh Studio sheet with the strips of colour and some lines of text.

I decided to just use some thin washi tape to give the translucent effect that the original paper had and just stretched them across the paper randomly.

I found a few scraps of words in my box and added in a few to the strips.

Once all the edges were trimmed I was quite pleased with the outcome. Not exactly the same as the original, but definitely inspired by that gorgeous sheet of paper.

Giddy with the success I was experiencing, I decided to make some card bases (6x4") using some odd strips of paper from the bottom of my scrap box - many manufacturer strips that I can't bear to throw out! These three bases have already been transformed into cards so make sure you check out my mini kit reveal on Wednesday for the details.

The top base uses some of the washi paper from Crate Paper.

Last up was my original idea - the acetate words.

I knew I didn't have any printable acetate in my supplies and therefore decided to make some print and cut words on vellum. Sounds easy right? I've done it before and it was easy so this wouldn't take long... or so I thought.

I found some words in my Cameo library, added them to an A4 template, added the print registers and filled the words with colour. That was new for me and I loved the result! I knew the vellum wouldn't be as bright as this template but isn't it pretty?

First print out onto vellum was a fail. I have no idea what went wrong here but I just got a middle length of print. However, I loved the effect on the vellum so I knew I was on the right track.

I tried it out by printing on regular paper - should have tried that first! But it showed that it worked and showed me how great those phrases were going to look.

So I printed them out again - this time successfully, added them to my cutting mat and sent it to the Cameo and waited expectantly.

However, the Cameo couldn't find the registers and ended up cutting all these phrases about half an inch to the left. And of course the cutting mat was too sticky and all the vellum tore while I was trying to remove it.

• Tip number 1: if you are using vellum, make sure your mat isn't so sticky. Sticky enough so that it's firm on the mat, but not as sticky as you need for cardstock maybe! 
• Tip number 2: if the Cameo can't read the register marks, it might be that there's not enough light. I used my torch function on my iPhone over the Cameo and off it went without a hitch.

Look at this wonderful sheet - can you see the cuts?

I really took my time taking the vellum off the mat and taking out the tiny insides of letters or words. I am proud to say that I didn't tear a single millimetre of any word and was thrilled with how they looked!

Look at this - so cute! Can't wait to use them. I'm not sure if I'll be adding these into my full kit (which I revealed on Saturday) or my mini kit - come back on Wednesday for those details.

Another hugely long post so well done if you've made it this far. As and when I use my items featured here, I'll make sure to show you but in the meantime, make sure you share your kits, projects and forgeries! We LOVE to be inspired by YOU.

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