CKC Oct Challenge 2 and Victoria Marie Challenge

This will be the second and last layout using the October kit that I made for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge.

Well not last last because I plan to keep at least part of the kit, but last in the challenge window.  So what was the challenge exactly?  It was an interesting one for sure.  It's called "Show your Team Spirit" (but I can't help hearing the opening bars of a similarly titled Nirvana song every time I read those words!!) 😝😝😝

I don't support any kind of sporting teams, but when I read the part about mascots, logos and fight songs...I thought about Wonder Woman.  Not a mascot exactly, but I was still thinking about the superpower challenge I guess.

It also overlaps with a sketch challenge that Victoria Marie threw at her Facebook group while she was hosting a retreat.
 
I have to say I'm less than thrilled with the result of the layout.  I've been working on it pff and on for about the last 10 days.  It started well.  I chose the patterned paper called "Keepsake" from Maggie Holmes' "Chasing Dreams" line.  It was white, but with interest and texture.

On went the clear gesso without any hitches.  THEN chaos ensued after applying a lovely sparkly white embossing paste through a star stencil.  Stealth cat came and LAY DOWN ON IT!  😾😾😾




I wasn't sure whether I was more worried about the damage to my page, or having to pick out glittery goop from his belly fluff.  My shrieks didn't dislodge him, so I had to pick him up and fortunately for him the paste was touch dry and neither cat not paper sustained any damage.

I used regular Distress Inks and the "packaging technique" to add some colour and at this point I knew I wanted a darker paper as a mat for the whole thing.  I had to cheat because the best black ones in my kit were single-sided from paper pads and too thin to support the bulk of the paste and the paper layers I was going to add behind the photos.

Adhesive was a big issue and after trying several, I could see only stitching would hold down those pesky photos.  I went with gold thread and stitched the fussy cut hearts right onto the page.  Stitching them was always the plan, but initially I was going to chain stitch them then attach them.  This way they help adhere the two backgrounds also.


Title? Check! ✅ (and small cheat since I needed glittery Thickers)

Embellishment clusters?  Check! ✅ (another cheat since Shimelle's Glitter Girl sticker book was very necessary for this topic, but that's IT!  All the 8 paper layers behind the photos and the white background were from the kit as well as the scripty word "girl".

One of my goals was to use some of those word Thickers.  And the enamel dots have been appearing in every kit for months!

Here's where things went wrong.  I should have planned my journaling better.  Maybe drawn lines even.  I think my hands were shaky combined with trying to write on gesso with a Precision pen and dodging embossed stars was a disaster.  I used the thickest pen I had, but it was still too thin.


In the end I shaved off some of the stars with a craft knife and masked the messiest words by covering them with small alphas (not a cheat since I said I'd use them as needed from my stash).  I have used this technique before and to make it look more purposefu,l I covered other words and used a Sharpie to go over the remaining journaling.

I know my handwriting isn't the greatest, but it's mine and it makes a layout so much more personal with hand written journaling.  That's why I didn't use stickers for every word, but I did think about it.

Yes the journaling area is a mess and the lines don't match too well, but believe me when I say it's an improvement!  Mixed media on layouts isn't my go-to, but like cut files, I try it out sometimes and learn from each layout.

Little Girl Big Heart

The main thing is this special story about a very special little girl is told. 😘😘😘

Oh and that red and yellow W?  A cut file  I bought from Etsy and I was really nervous about whether the Cameo would even be able to cut such thin lines, because I scaled it right down to the right size for an embellishment.  Well, she performed beautifully!!  😍😍😍


Love, and WONDER-ful creating!

CKC Oct Challenge 1 and Layering with Shimelle

The first challenge for October what an interesting one.  You need to made a layout featuring your scrappy superpower.  Say what?  I'm not sure I HAVE one.  I know what I like and what I always lean towards.

Take a look at the blog post from Counterfeit Kit Challenge and see what you think!

My personally philosophy is more-is-more-is-more.  My style guru is Countess Violet.  I hope I'm just like her when I grow up! 

So what does that make my Scrappy Superpower?  Well I'm going to go with the things I do almost as the time - both based on MORE - layering and embellishment clusters.

I'm still going through some of the fun layouts Shimelle showcased in her layer on layer on layer class.  I love Shimelle's classes for inspiration.  I don't expect to learn anything new, but as I've said many times, my body isn't letting me do it all, so if "scraplifting" layouts from classes or using sketches means I get a story told, then I'm OK with it.

It took me a long time to be OK with it, but whatever gets you making, whatever gets your story told is fine!  Just give credit and it's all good.

That brings me to another point...there was a long hiatus between the start of my scrapbooking adventure and when I took it up again.  It's a story for another day, but it was the story - the journaling - that gave me my epiphany and put meaning to my pages.  You will ALWAYS find some.  Sometimes it's a lot and sometimes it's just a few lines when its one page from a series of pages where I break the story up.

Besides, with the crazy shenanigans in this fambam, there is ALWAYS something to write...so...

My Scrappy Superpower is using "All the things" (layers and clusters) and  word wielding (journaling)

I managed to use three of those acetate leaves that I made for CKC September's forgery.  I wasn't sure at first, but the next day I liked the layout more than the night before,  I don't even think I cheated either! 😲

This story actually did happen in Autumn, but you would never know to look at those particular photos with all the green, so adding all the leafty bits helped get that across.






I know we don't have squirrels running around everywhere in Autumn, bu it is relevant.  A certain NotPinkCraftyHubster based his internet handle on a type of squirrel back in the day since they have plenty in Russia.  I don't usually just pick random papers, colours, patterns and embellishments.

Yes I like lots of "stuff" on my pages, but I pick stuff that helps tell the story.  Finding the right bits and connections with the people or stories are things I really enjoy!

I even managed to use some of the glitter thickers from Go Now Go.  Glitter was the product focus for October in the Rediscover Your Stash Facebook Group

When In Doubt Smile!

Well that's all for today!  I still hope to finish my layout for challenge 2.  I don't think I'm going to make my own personal goal of 3 or more layouts this month (especially considering the ridiculous kit I pulled), but in the coming weeks I'll show you how I go through what's left and what to keep together as a kit to keep working from in the future.

Love, and speedy scrapbooking!

Card 3 for Cat Lovers Hop 2018

The third and final card for the Cat Lovers Hop

The stamp set I'm giving away (giveaway now closed) is not just good for cardmaking, it works just as well for scrapbook layouts, travellers notebooks, planners, BuJos etc etc!

Click HERE to see Card 1
Click HERE to see Card 2

Click on the cat graphic below to go to main Blog Hop Page

 

Oh and did you know 27 October is Black Cat Day?  (There is also Black Cat Appreciation Day in August)  Sadly, our sweary black boy (aka OtherCraftyCat) passed away 2 years ago.  😿😿😿

Now back to papercrafts...

 This one is all about the boys!
 

It uses another attempt using the Distress Oxides.  I did a similar thing to card 1, but I spritzed the whole thing with water to activate the ink.  I love the way the green looks.  The Crushed Olive (at the bottom did a weird thing, but I don't mind it.  It has a few droplets of the resist and I wondered whether I'd prefer the background after adding some soft brown stars and I do.

I thought it was the perfect base for the Hipster Cat stamp (and die) also by Tim Holtz.  Fortunately I stamped with Archival so once I saw it against the background it looked a bit stark so I gave it a soft wash of watercolour with the nearest set of paints I could reach.  I didn't bother much with shading.

 

The glasses frames were begging for Glossy Accents and the SmallCraftyDude helped pick which of the sentiments in the set to use.

 

Be sure to also check out Devon at PinkPueblo.com (and the usual socials) for her custom stamps and lots more.  She also made my headers, clever lady that she is!

Fancy some NewCraftyCat outtakes?  He's quite the photobomber around here.

Yes NCC*, you are defo CRAY!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Uh Oh.  Someone is a bit cranky with me for outing him and his "habit" and he's flipping me the bird.  Charming as ever! 😹😹😹


*acronyms in left sidebar ⇐


Love and catty creativity!
 

Card 2 for Cat Lovers Hop 2018

So far so good!

The stamp set I'm giving away (giveaway now closed)  is not just good for cardmaking, it works just as well for scrapbook layouts, travellers notebooks, planners, BuJos etc etc!

Click HERE to see yesterday's post

Click on the cat graphic below to go to main Blog Hop Page

 

So I briefly mentioned Ink Road Stamps since I'm giving away a set they make.  They're a really fun company with plenty of unique funny and snarky (💖💖💖) sentiments!  Click on the link above to check them out.

In a slightly unrelated turn of events, they ran a naming contest of their newest embellies (half pearls) in their Facebook group.  I thought the suggested name would be the winner...not the actual PERSON making the suggestion, but hey I'm not complaining!

Did you know pink is the only shade of a colour (red) that has its own name?  If I am going to be named after red, I can definitely see Red Hot Mama being a hit.  Any takers? 😂



Aaaaanyway...today's card uses an Ink Road stamp set called Meow Mix (Don't you just hear Dr Evil singing the jingle every time??).   Meow Mix is one of those mix and match cat faces type stamp sets.

Well a certain Small Crafty Dude was naughty and after confiscating all his tech (and there's an awful lot) I decided to put him to work given my looming deadlines and had him stamp cats.

Well this is what you get when you ask a disgruntled SCD* to do something.

After hissing some death threats, eventually I got at least 3 useable cats.  I did have to add white pupils on the middle one.  SCD* said "argh those eyes are soooo creepy!  They're gazing into your soul and plotting ways to kill you"  OK I didn't think they were QUITE that terrifying, but whatevs.

I used the packaging technique when experimenting with the Distress Oxides the other day and got these backgrounds.  One has some resist spray used with a stencil, but the resist doesn't seem to work all that well with the stencils and definitely not with oxide ink unless you use droplets.  I need to look into it more.

Aparently the man himself (Tim Holtz) says if you aren't happy with your background, you aren't done yet and need to add more.  Even the queen of the more-is-more-is-more philosophy was dubious, but I persisted and he's kinda right!

I use the background I liked better with some older dies from Taylored Expressions and a Stampendous sentiment.  Simples, right?

 

But wait!  There's more!  This morning I woke up at about 4am and had the most genius idea.  What if I spliced "Meow Mix" with another Ink Road stamp set called "As you Wish"???  It's a Princess Bride themed set and well...everything seems like a good idea at that hour, right?

Only one way to find out so I got up and started by masking the sentiment and adding in the "Mew" from another set...(by Paper Smooches)

Now for the Westley cat...if I use the sunnies and touch them up with black and white pens...and cut the sides off...along with a very serious expression.







Princess Buttercup was much easier!

I know I didn't really centre the "mew" very well, but I cut it out with a die by Shimelle.  These will definitely go on a card, but not until I get some of Shimelle's newest collection called "Head in the Clouds" which has castles and dragons and all the good stuff!
 





OK!  Time for tea (another present from my very dear friend Joy) and bed ... for a half hour before it's time to get up!  😏

Now for the Giveaway (closed)!   

PS...you remember yesterday I said a certain grey cat might have
a " 'nip" habit?
Even SCD says he always looks stoned in every photo.
Kinda like this one! 😹😹😹


*acronyms in left sidebar ⇐

Love and catty creativity!

Card 1 for Cat Lovers Hop 2018

Ooooh boy this one really crept up on me!

The annual Cat Lovers Hop hosted by Janis of Her Peaceful Garden is always a favourite of mine.  It runs for a week around about the time of National Cat Day on 29 October.

Click on the cat graphic below to visit the main blog hop page

 

I would have liked to do a layout (any cat themed craft is OK), but time is such that it's a card once again!

What I'd like to do (considering there are only 3 days or so left in the blog hop) is to post a card each day for the remaining days, but for now, here's today's card!

This card is all about friendship.  It's inspired by my lovely friend Joy who gave me that cat stamp set by Dyan Reaveley as a gift.  💜💜💜

I finally got some Distress Oxide ink pads (Set 2 2018 I believe) after patiently waiting and hoping they would be available in the mini cubes.  After some digging on the interwebs, I read that it wasn't going to happen since the special properties of the oxide inks were not compatible in the small size.  😠

I have no idea where I'm going to find space too keep a full set of the big ones (because full set syndrome and all that!)

With this background I just blended the inks as they were in a rainbow fashion.  Fortunately there was enough of a variety of colours in that particular set of 12 colours.  I just dripped some water on the background and that's it.  I think it's the equivalent of dipping my toe in right?

The sentiment is from the Cat-Itude stamp set by MFT and the paw prints from an older one by Stampendous (possibly?).

Some textural bits to finish.  Simple, but gets the point across!

Love and catty creativity!

World Cardmaking Day - 6 Oct 2018

Yeah I know that was so two weeks ago, but I promise I did actually make my card on the day...well part of it anyway! 😳. (yes that's a tail)

Our 18th wedding anniversary was on 7 October so perfect timing, hey?

It would have been...had I not chosen such a time consuming card.  When you try to up the ante with your anniversary card each year, by the time you get to 18 it practically has to spring to life and sing a cheesy ballad.

Well I've still on my Silhouette kick and I saw this cat cut file on Paige Evans' blog so I fiddled with it in Silhouette Studio to get two smoochy woochy cats.

The biggest issue was shrinking them down.  The cat was originally close to 12" tall and to make those pieces even remotely doable for my failing eyesight and sometimes dodgy hands, they couldn't really be smaller than about 4" wide and maybe 5" tall.

It was the stitching that took me three days though.  I rushed it at the end to finish it, and because I was cross with the Silhouette for not writing the sentiment nicely (bad combination of pens and paper) I ended up using stickers.

(Fitzy aka NCC* is the most stealthy photobomber so we've learned to roll with it!)

Read the sentiment on the front...

 

...now see the continuation inside? (before I added all the lovey dovey stuff, obvs!)

 

Get it?  NPCH* still doesn't and he is a maths major.  😒

9 lives...two lifetimes...18 years?   OK so I'd be seriously devo if any cat we had only lived 9 years, but you get the idea, right?  Tell me I haven't completely lost my mind!

And the bride cat's veil and tiara isn't sitting right cos it's hiding some mess, but overall I'm pleased.  I'm really looking forward to using this cat again...just much MUCH bigger!

Well that's all I have for you today...well almost!  Wanna see what we looked like back in the day?

*⇐Acronyms in left sidebar

Love and creative cardmaking!

CKC October Forgery

...on the fourth...ish. 😕

At least it isn't the fourteenth like last time, right? 😜

Part of the issue is that I'm not currently getting along with my Silhouette right now.

I managed to cut these (and some extra leaves) before it started misbehaving again.

If you watch the video of the kit unboxing, there is a cut file included which looks like a wedding ring quilt.

I have a similar cut file and also this one designed for stitching, so I thought I'd continue with the quilting/sewing/stitching vibe and cut a similar pattern by Paige Evans and stitch it instead.  I have to pop out a few more of those stubborn dots, though.

The other cut file is also by Paige Evans and it's an example of how Autumn and Spring are colliding - leaves in more Springy colours.  Not that you can't use leaves for Spring, but they are synonymous with Autumn so we're going with that.

I will definitely pull out some coffee themed stamps.  I have a lot...and I mean a LOT.

I might even tinker more with various pens in the Silhouette pen holder to see if I can get a good pen and paper combination which gives a crisp finish and no bleeding.

Not much to forge and to be honest even this is probably pushing it!

Now to make some layouts and try not to drop the ball on adulting and everything else!!


Love, and fabulous forging!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge October Kit

 I can't believe how quickly I have to do this again!  Well, if I'm going to be honest September was almost half gone before I even got my kit made and blog post up.  Then another couple of weeks before I even started using it, but September was a funny month. 🤷

World Cardmaking Day was on 6 October and our wedding anniversary was on 7th, so while I started hunting and gathering at the very start of the month...here I am 10 days later.  NOT the plan! 😖

Whatever are you talking about, PinkCraftyMama?  

What is a Counterfeit kit?  Click on the link and learn more!  The lovely graphic on the right is from their blog.
 
So this month the kit chosen for everyone to counterfeit is a Wild Hare kit.  It's a really interesting choice since Wild Hare are one of the few, but increasing number of companies who offer curated kits.  Here are the items from the very kit being "counterfeited" this month.

The particular example to be used is what I would call a "clean and simple" kit in the same spirit of the design style.  Clean and simple both in quantity of items and the style too.

Once I recovered from the horror that was only NINE papers (not ninety!) I realised that I would need to counterfeit a kit that was curated for someone like me.  A kit with say...ninety papers! 😂. Curating is what we already do at CKC so it's double curating!

I was so excited to see Becca Sadler was the guest designer for October!  I have got to know her through some great chats (and enabling of BIG kits) over on the CKC Facebook Page.  Once I went and saw her kit, I was happy enough,  It pretty much resembled mine exactly! 😳😂

Now we do what we always do and analyze the kit.  Sometimes the embellishments show things the papers don't, so it's always worth keeping them in mind for a balanced kit.  In the interest of breaking up this looong blog post (for which I cannot apologize enough!) I'll START with the embellies right here!

Also...if you click on the image, a larger more detailed pic should pop up.  I'm going to try to use smaller ones to keep this post a bit shorter.

Embellishments:

← ← ←Thickers. 
Yes there are a lot, BUT they are mostly messed up packs that desperately need to be used.  I added the coppery ones from last month and the woodgrain and colour ones I didn't use last month, but they seem to suit the feel of this kit even better!




Word Thickers.  → → →
Again a lot.  But I HAVE a lot and need to use them so I need to challenge myself (not mention needing variety and having commitment issues! 😂)

← ← ← Stickers.  

Lots of stickers!  These vary from almost finished sheets that I want to get rid off to ones from last month's kit to ones I struggle to use.  Many have been gathered from a pile of embellies that I had pulled at some stage and not put away.

I included stickers with a more coppery/rose gold finish to help me succeed with the rose gold Thickers.  Actually the sticker sheets from Shimelle's Go Now Go was one thing I really wanted to use last month but struggled so I'm giving them another try.

 
Sticker Books.  → → →
Several of these include both rose gold and coppery gold foil finishes to help with the above mission! 


← ← ← MOAR Stickers! 
Quite a few are seriously messed up sheets which need to be used.  Also trying to use up that scary sheet that screams AUTUMN!  It should be fine scattered among the less autumnal tones, but as I've said before I can easily scrapbook autumn photos since I'm not a chronological scrapbooker. 




 
Chipboard Stickers. ↓↓↓
I love the dimension of chipboard, but only seem to use the smaller elements with ease.  I picked some with the shades of gold I'm trying to match and am challenging myself to use more of ir especially the larger pieces.

Flat Alphas. ↓↓↓
There are a few above and I'm including this book of transluscent Amy Tangerine alphas which again are not as easy for me to use as other alpha stickers. 

Also, a Dear Lizzy double sided sheet in coppery gold.

I decided not to pick other flat alphas, but pull from this box that sits on my desk.  Anyone remember these?  Used back in the day for floppy disks. 😂 

The stickers in here are cut down and small sheets.  Larger sheets of flat alphas live elsewhere and get reached for first, so this month I'm making a real effort to made a dent in these little sheets.  ↓↓↓

ALL.THE.THINGS! ↓↓↓
Here is everything else!  The cork shapes remind me somewhat of the framed text embellies in the inspiration kit.  You might even identify  some things from last month like the fabric tickets and bows.  Plenty of puffy stickers and messed up dimensional stickers and word stickers and rub-ons and so much more! ↓↓↓ 

I like to analyze the motifs and patterns first, so that when I pull papers for colour, I can keep the motifs in mind to help narrow down choices.

I decided to recycle some of the papers from last month and vowed I would only choose the remaining papers from a growing stack that has been accumulating for months and not been put away.  The only exception was a few PinkFresh Studio papers (two were the same as in the inspiration kit) because I felt they were quite instrumental to the overall feel of the kit.

Patterns and Motifs:

Stripes (horizontal and diagonal)
Woodgrain
Watercolour
Chevron
"Retro" style patterns
Blocks
Stitching
Text (scripty and handwritten)
Bicycles
Large florals
Plus signs
Washi tape
Small scale geometrics
Scattered images
Cameras
Hearts
Flowers
Leaves
Coffee paraphernalia
I also added apples since there is at least one more layout I wanted to make with them and they seem to fit with an autumn-not-autumn type of kit such as this one.

Colours:

Hues and tones vary quite a bit for each colour and my interpretation of the kit tends to have an even greater variation

White
Grey
Black
Brown
Green
Blue
Yellow
Orange
Red
Pink

Now onto my kit...since last month my kit was called "Falling Into Spring", this month we'll go with "Spring into Autumn" since the kits are related and I didn't want the Autumnal feel to be so strong that it doesn'y acknowledge that we are well into Spring here in Australia.

Spring into Autumn

The first think I have to say that this kit is monstrous and I didn't even take a photo of everything together,  Not much point since the papers wold be totally obscured!  Now a PCM* rule when making up kits is that single sided papers from paper pads only count for half a sheet!

So...here are my papers mostly grouped by colour.  In the paired sets of pictures, the top image is the side I chose for the kit and the bottom image is the other side which often works equally well as you're about to see.

Black and Grey Double Sided Papers

Black and Grey Single Sided Paper

 

 

White/Cream and Woodgrain Single Sided

White/Cream and Woodgrain Double Sided Papers. 

Pink, Peach, Red, orange and 

yellow Single Sided

 Red and Pink Double Sided Papers

 

 Peach/Orange and Yellow Double Sided Papers

Green, Blue and Aqua/Light 

Blue Single Sided Papers

 

Cut-apart, multicoloured and 

"themed" Single Sided

Green/Teal and Aqua/Blue Double Sided Papers

 

Scraps from last month 

and one other piece

Multicoloured and "themed" Double Sided Papers

Apple, 'plus sign' and PinkFresh Studio Double Sided Papers

There is a lot of green compared to any one of the other colours in my interpretation of the kit (ranging from mint green to a light grass green to emerald green to teal), and more pink in my kit than in the inspiration kit (of various shades from a warm, peachy pink to a slightly cooler baby pink to a few bits of almost-hot-pink).  This helps the "Spring" aspect of the kit come through among the autumnal tones.  

I also included a lot more paper and embellishments with florals for the same reason.

Finally. my kit includes a few more embellies: 

Doilies and Frames 

 I have loads more frames to choose from, but picked a sampling of the sizes I'm most likely to encounter and happy to change any over if I come up with a better option.  I don't use them as much as I should, so any frame that ends up on a layout is progress.  I also found some random bits of twine salvaged from actual kit club kits from a good 5 years ago!

 My trusty snack tray 

 

Last month's selection of die cuts and 6x6 pads

 My partially used, random, dots and gems

 

Box of random leftovers

 

Phew!  

Well done on making it this far!  Even I'm ready for a cup of tea and some headache tablets! 😝. 

At this point I'm not sure whether I'll be forging this month, but I confess I did enjoy it last month however late it was!  

 

Thank you so much for stopping by and hope to see you again soon!

* ← ← ←Acronyms on left

Love, and crazy curating!