"Marching" into March...

Happy March! There's nothing like a good scrapbooking crop and challenges to get my creative juices flowing, and this weekend, Shimelle is hosting one over at her blog:

It was just the boost I needed to get started on my March Counterfeit kit! The first challenge I took was the older photos/monochromatic challenge. I used all the yellows in my March kit, plus several neutrals, such as gray, black, and white. (ps-I love yellow and gray together! Reminds me of sunshine breaking through the clouds!)  Here is my layout:

I layered up a bunch of the journaling cards, washi, a frame, a couple of diecuts from my scraps bin, and a few cameras cut from the Amy Tangerine camera paper from my kit, flipped the green chipboard stars over, and inked them with charcoal American Crafts ink (that's actually why you notice a couple of smudges on my page, I tried to put them down before they were fully dry-oops!). I also glittered a wood veneer camera from my kit, and stamped a few of the stamps with the AC charcoal, as well. I love it, smudges and all, because it records a moment in my life that I actually haven't documented yet-my high school graduation. And it does it in a rather unexpected way, by telling what I thought my life was going to be like at that time, and how it is much richer and better now than I could have dreamed. Bonus:I got a great start on my March stash kit! We'd love to have you join us over at the Counterfeit Kit challenge blog!

Good morning and happy December!

And, just like that, it's December. I'm all set up with supplies for my Journal Your Christmas album, especially since I made a few scrappy purchases over the holiday weekend (sales are a dangerous thing, I will tell you!). Since I have already shared my kit with you, I thought I would do a little video flip through of my album from last year. I keep up with my Journal Your Christmas prompts from Shimelle by following along with the daily prompts, and writing my stories down in a journal each day, and then going back to put them in my album whenever I have the time/feel inspired. It has worked really well for me, and I actually finished my 2014 album a few days ago (basically finished, I am waiting on a few photos that I sent to the printers). Since it is a complete album, I decided to do a video flip through, to inspire your Christmas Crafting.

I'd love for you to have a look:

Thanks for visiting with me today, happy Christmas crafting! I hope inspired you to work on a past or present Christmas journal today!
Still photos of my album:
Cover:

The first few pages:

Counterfeit Kit Challenge 3 for August

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen this sneak peek of this page:



As you can see, I am a little behind on using up my kits, so this page is taken almost entirely from my July kit. I was inspired a week or so ago to cut the tiny windows out of this fun Dear Lizzy frame paper with an exacto knife, and back them with tiny squares of the Teresa Collins patterned paper from the 6x6 paper pad, and then backed the whole sheet with a lovely, thick piece of the Carta Bella textured paper. Then it sat in my scrap basket for several days, with out a given purpose. When I was looking over my challenge for the CKC blog this moth, I knew immediately that for a challenge based on the word "Friends", I wanted to write a little bit about the unique relationship that my girls share. I thought of this paper, found a picture that demonstrated some of the things that I wanted to talk about, and it all came together nicely for me in this page:




The journaling says: " Having a twin sister means having a built in best friend to fight with,laugh with, and share with. You are both great readers, and you had fun posing with Posiedon in Epcot's Italy pavilion, since you have both read several books with Greek mythology in them."

Counterfeit Kit Challenge Member Blog Hop

It's one of my favorite times of the month! Time for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Members' Blog Hop, where we show off what we've been making this month, and how we have handled one or more of the challenges for using our stash kits. I hope you will grab a cuppa and hop along with us for loads of inspiration! We would also love to have you join us next month-everyone is welcome, it is free, and we love to see your kits and what you are creating with them!
I chose to play along with Challenge #1:  Border Craze:  Get crazy with borders, for my page:

I used my scraps from the kit and off cuts with punches to make border strips to tuck underneath the edge of my top photo. Such a simple thing to do, but a great way to use scraps and add dimension and emphasis!

I made this page about sitting on the "American Idol" couch when we visited World of Coke in ATL. It was fun to "sit where the stars sat" and I love that we got a photo of all of us together!

Thank you for visiting me today, be sure to come back later this week, as I plan to continue sharing what I created with my March kit...can you believe it is almost time for April's kit reveal?!

CKCB         http://www.counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com

Lisa           http://lisahausmann.blogspot.de

Clair          http://obstinatepursuit.blogspot.com

Gemma    http://thesteelenook.blogspot.co.uk

Margie      http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com *You are here now

Tina           http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com*Go here next

Laura         http://beadsbuttonsandbirds.blogspot.co.uk

Virginia     http://celtichouse.blogspot.co.uk

Sherrie      http://sherriesmuddlepuddle.blogspot.ca

Jemma      http://just-jimjams.blogspot.co.uk

Scrapbook Saturday: Focus on Stamping

For this past week, I have been think a lot about what I am trying to do with this blog. I first started this blog back in December of 2008 as a way to share bits and pieces of my life, photos, recipes, and all of my crafty endeavors. I have truly enjoyed doing that, and have worked very hard at improving in all of those areas, so it is so much fun for me to go back and see some of my earliest posts. Lately, I have been searching for a way to refresh things here, and keep improving. I have had an idea here or there, but nothing that really stuck with me. Well, last night I was in my craft room labeling my inks (so funny that this is what I chose to do on a Friday night, I must be getting old ).

  Anyway, as I was labeling them, it struck me that I have quite a few inks that had never been even opened, much less used. And I have four binders of clear stamps, plus a fair amount of rubber stamps.

 And while I love the beautiful designs and the gorgeous colors, I haven't done very well at actually using those collections of stamps. It got me to thinking. What could I do to motivate myself to use all of those lovely stamps and inks that are collecting dust on my shelves? I make cards from time to time, but scrapbooking is my first love, so I would really prefer to find ways to use my stamps on my pages. And then I had my "lightbulb moment". I know that I can use stamps on my layouts, I just need the motivation to remember to use them, and a blog series might do just that! So, my intention is this: A scrapbook segment on my blog exploring my stamps and different ways or techniques of using them. And Saturdays seem like a good time to share it, if for no other reason than that I love the alliteration of "Scrapbook Stamping Saturdays"! So, I made a plan, and I wrote it down, and today is the first one. I have other plans for this blog as well, but for today, we will focus on the stamping.

I found this fun inspiration of making a stamp inspired kit, and, since making up kits to scrap with out of my stash is almost as much fun to me as making actual scrapbook pages, I knew I should definitely try it out to give me a jump start on this blog series. This is the stamp set that I used to inspire my kit:

I love butterflies and this stamp set took me in a rather "Valentine's" direction, as it instantly brought to mind Tim Holtz's Kraft resist, which lead me to think of browns, pinks, and creams. Here are the papers that I chose to coordinate with the stamps:

And here is the kit in its entirety:

I can't wait to play with it this week! It will make some very pretty pages, I think! And I can't wait to explore the joys of stamping on my scrapbook pages with you all. Next week, I will share what I make with this kit, and how I used the stamp set. Be sure to come back for more Saturday Scrapbook Stamping!

November Counterfeit Kit Reveal (and a bit about my kit-making process)

Welcome to the design team reveal for our November Counterfeit Kits! The kit that was chosen for us to be inspired by this month was this gorgeous kit by Scrapbooks&Cards Today,
"Fabulous Fall":

I love this kit! So soft and pretty,I couldn't wait to see what I had to simulate the kit in my stash. I went a little overboard pulling papers to use, and had to put a few back. But, I love the kit that I came up with, and can't wait to get started using it!

(MY paper choices and how I chose them):

 I knew that I loved the Fancy Pants collection that comprises most of this kit, and I knew that I didn't have any of it. So, I started by thinking of the collections or companies that would give me the look and feel I was going for. I found a couple of gorgeous doily prints, a light blue one from a different Fancy Pants collection, "Wonderful Day", and a yellow one with a more vintage and distressed look, from Cosmo Cricket's Circa 1984. Next I knew I needed a soft and gorgeous floral. I found one that I loved in some new stash, from Crate Paper's Notes and Things. Next up was the orange Ikat print, and the closest thing I could find in my orange papers was the lovely aztec print from an older Crate Paper collection, Acorn Avenue. I decided then that the watercolor floral from acorn avenue would work just fine in place of the bokeh print, and chose a yellow chevron print from Crate Paper's Fourteen collection to replace the yellow chevron in the inspiration kit. I thought the cream leaf print from Bella Blvd would work as a substitute for the cream leaves and birds paper, and from there I just looked for a few papers to round out my kit , some with stripes, feathers, text, etc. I actually pulled cardstock for my kit this month, partly because the inspiration kit has it, and partly just because I have so much of it in my stash, and I have been using it rather frequently to back my layouts, etc. Instead of a sheet of vellum, I pulled an ANCIENT transparency sheet.

Choosing embellishments:
 I loved the texture effect of the embellishments in the inspiration kit, so I tried to stay pretty close. I had some "burlap" letter stickers that I put in first- even though the Thickers are mostly used up, I can still get a few more uses out of the sheet, and I will throw them away at the end of the month.I knew I also had a sheet of letter stickers from Sassafrass Lass that would go with my papers, and was very similar to the Basic Grey Mini Monogram stickers in the inspiration kit. I looked through my stash of flair, and pulled out a few that would go with my kit, and especially if I had an idea for using it on a layout. I don't have the leaf paper clips, but I have some very pretty metal filigree leaves from Freckled Fawn that took their place quite nicely. I had some Maya Rd leaf stick pins, and added one stick pin that I have had in my stash for a while. Maybe I will actually use them! I didn't have the burlap sticker shapes, but I have some canvas ones in similar shapes from Little Yellow Bicycle that work just as well (Maybe better, since they're in a white that would show mixed media a bit more, since I am still feeling inspired by the Art class I took last month!). I pulled some similar stamps and dies from my collection, and some tags, since there are tags in the kit. To finish my kit off, I added a few embellishment packages-from Basic Grey Persimmon, Crate Paper Close Knit (along with the matching 6x6 pad), and Crate Paper DIY Shop, and a package of wood veneer tags from American Crafts.

My kit, comprised entirely from my stash, "Fall Foliage":

I will definitely have to go through my fall photos for this stash-I love the warm, lovely colors, and the prints remind me of sweaters other lovely fall textures!

Are you feeling inspired? We would love to have you join in with us at the CKC challenge! I love it because it inspires me to spend less and create more. We have tons of tutorial posts, and some of our design team and participants do a lovely job "counterfeiting" the hottest new papers and trends from our inspiration kits each month. I don't usually make too many items for my own kits, simply because my own stash is so extensive (said with a blush and a bit of embarrassment) that I rarely even need to make anything, I usually have something that will work in place of each item in the inspiration kits. But it is nice to know I have the option to, and can do whatever I feel inspired to do or use! We would love to have you (yes, you!) join in, and make a creative kit for yourself to play with- and any way you choose to make a kit is alright with us! Be sure to link up, so we can drop by and admire your work!

Binty: http://scrappingpluv.blogspot.com
Margie: http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com
Lisa: http://lisahausmann.blogspot.com
Julene: http://julenebydesign.blogspot.co.uk
Stephanie: http://skylinepaperie.blogspot.ca
Susanne: http://snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com
Lesley: http://ohblogitifyoucantbeatthem.blogspot.co.uk
Angela: http://colestoucan.blogspot.co.uk
Lynnette: http://www.sassyscrapper2010.blogspot.com
Leslie: http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.com

We Have a Winner! And a layout share

Remember the little stamp I had up for giveaway last week? Well, Cindy F was the lucky winner!

Congrats, Cindy! Shoot me an email with your information to margie_visnick@yahoodotcom, and I will get it right out to you!

I also have a little bit of scrapping fun to share with you, a couple of pages made from my stash kit for the month:

The base for this next page was a starting point that I had already made up from my other stash supplies months ago, but I finished it off this month with a picture, and added embellishments from my kit:

Sorry about my reflection in the photo, it has one of those Maggie Holmes photo overlays on it, which is gorgeous in person, but hard to capture in a picture.

A Very Productive National Scrapbook Day...

When National Scrapbook Day rolls around each year, it seems like I always have something else important to do. Not this year! Well, of course there were things that I could have been doing, but I just didn't. I took the  whole day and scrapped and played on line! I did pre-make a few layouts on Friday for the Big Picture Classes' 10K Celebration on Instagram:

 

I saw an idea for inspiration in one of the youtube videos that I watch while cleaning and working around the house, on nicmackin's channel , for using those old scrappy mags we all have kicking around before we get rid of them. She makes up kits from her stash and tosses an old magazine in with her kits, to draw on for inspiration, then tosses it or sends it off to a new home after she has drawn all of the inspiration she can. I used an old Simple Scrapbooks special issue magazine for most of these layouts, except this one:

 

Which was inspired by the Birthday Bash sketches at Creative Scrappers :

 A closer look at the other individual layouts:

                              

 

 

I still need to add journaling to this one:

 

 

Most of these layouts came from this kit: 

 

In non-scrappy news, we are dealing with the hustle and bustle of school ending, and we just got past our local spring Strawberry Festival:

 

The twins had to have candy apples:

 

I, on the other hand, "had to have" a red velvet funnel cake...because I have to try it if it is Red Velvet anything:

 

I have to say, though-it was soooo sweet!  I couldn't eat all of it, but that is probably a good thing. I will leave you for today with a selfie I snapped with Natalie:

 

And yes, I do realize my bra strap is showing, but, this is real life, and I only got one shot! I'll be back in the next day or two to share more of my crazy life and NSD productivity.