Ode to Joy with CKC Jan Kit and three challenges!

Well this is a very efficient page in terms of challenges (unless you count the two backgrounds I hated and tossed along the way 😂)

I'm using my January kit that I put together for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge, I'm still working through the January challenges over at Rediscover your Stash and this layout will count for Challenge 6 - "Floral Frenzy".

The cutfile is a freebie from the lovely Jen Schow and she has challenged everyone to use it and post in her Facebook group - Crafty Use it or Lose It (incidentally I was gonna do a series with this name but she beat me to it!!)

Lastly, Virginia Walker is challenging everyone in her Facebook group (Confessions of a Paper Addict) to dust off the mixed media and make a mixed media layout by 2 March.

Since Joy suggested adding a bunch of mixed media items to include in our kit, it seem to be the right time!

The journaling on this page will a lot more in depth about how we became friends and how it evolved over the years and other little bits and pieces.  Far too much to write straight on the page or put on a single journaling card, so I'm doing a pocket next to the photo. I have plenty of glassine bags and I'll slit the page protector in the approximate spot to make retrieval of the journaling easier.  It's not super private, but a bit personal maybe,

So...on to the layout then.  The first thing I did was cut the floral bouquet by Jen Schow in 2 sizes.  I backed them with papers from 6x6 paper pads (and the odd bit from my scrap box) so that's a yay being the product focus for the month of January at Rediscover your Stash

Next came time to recap of the mixed media items I put into the kit.

Colours - Soft Greens, Peach and some Pink
12 x Patterned Papers -
*1 x 6 x 6 Paper Pad
(Paper pads are also the product focus of the month on the Rediscover your Stash Facebook Group so I'm picking two)
*Wooden Embellishments
*2 x Mists
*Texture Paste
*2 x Stencils
*1 x Cut File
*1 x Washi Tape
*Stickers
*Alphas

I ended up choosing more than 2 mists to get a better rainbow effect, but only so the basic colours of peach, pink and green would look OK when mixing so a bit of yellow was needed to separate them and I threw in some deeper turquoise to balance things out.

This is all after treating a sheet of patterned paper (I wanted one with roughly painted black stripes and this one by Dear Lizzy was the first one to fit the bill.)

I did have a different paper which went horribly wrong so I got another sheet of the same paper which was better but also horribly wrong.   I can still use the reverse side of those so it's not an entire waste!

I really really love the look of layouts that use large cut files and mixed media, but I'm just not that good at them,  I don't want all my layouts to be like this, but I want to include them often enough in my albums to be something that's a change from most pages, but not super rare either.  Maybe a bit more frequent than that.  Am I making any sense?  (cos that'd be a first! 😂)

I started by prepping the page with the customary layer of gesso.  If  I wanted the stripes to remain uncovered I could have gone with a translucent or clear gesso, but I deliberately went with white to tone them down a bit.

Next step was white texture paste through a butterfly stencil before adding the colour with the "smooshing" technique, but gave up pretty fast since it was too slow and I wanted the colour to be more intense, so I sprayed right onto the layout (but aimed close to the page to reduce cast off spray) and if necessary adding a spray of water to help it move around,

It lightened a lot as it dried so I just layered more mist.  So much for my plans to have just a little bit of colour in the middle which peeks just beyond the flowers and photos I layer over it.


I felt like I wanted some stamps or stenciling or something else, but you can understand my reluctance after previous disasters at this point 😂!  Joy specified TWO stencils so I should have added some before I even added the embossing paste, but at worst under the mist.

What if I use something opaque and not too runny on top?  🤔 I have some distress paint in bronze which I used on the leaves of the cut files.  It's still a bit runny, though.  Would it look really bad if i added gold instead?  I'm thinking Viva Decor Inka Gold.  I only have it in gold and silver, but it's more like a waxy polish and doesn't have thickness so it's perfect (except for the colour!).  The bronze leaves aren't hugely obvious and I'm sure I included rose gold, copper and yellow gold together on yesterday's facing page!!

I have been putting aside any kind of embellishment with "Joy" on it for months.  This cut apart sheet is actually from a Christmas line by Studio Tekturek, but it has some great neutral B side patterns in black, white, red and peach so there is lots to use even for people like me who don't celebrate holidays,

The heart was just open so I punched a few holes and hand stitched to bring in the green and I had another punny title in mind so I let the journaling card form part of it and black Thickers made it look more like a title.



The plan is to try to bring in some of the papers from yesterday's layout and layer up a nice thick stack under the photo and determine a space somewhere for the pocketed journo. 

This ended up being to the right of the photo and balanced the title card on the left.



I positioned the floral cut files roughly where I wanted them, BUT I wanted MORE flowers!  I fussy cut the Maggie Holmes paper from the Gather Collection (the one with the green roses and peachy leaves).  I shoved these under the cut file bouquets, but it still wasn't enough. 

Out came my box of flower die cuts and fussy cut flowers (mostly Maggie Holmes and pulled out some pink and peachy coloured flowers.  Much better!👍👍👍

At this point I remembered the original CKC inspiration kit had some kind of tulle embellishment so I made up this super fast tulle flower. 

While searching for something unrelated, I found an unopened packet of Maggie Holmes mini tassels in pink, peach and mint,  After threading them onto paper clips, they weren't even that hard to use!  No idea what all the fuss was about. 🤷


As I looked at the layout and lamented that all but about 2 of the texture paste butterflies were now covered up, I found some of the Maggie Holmes paper called "Monarch"  from Chasing Dreams which I started fussy cutting for other layouts.  Naturally, I wasn't going to leave them like that - I punched some smaller butterflies from vellum and stitched them together,  They're kind of subtle since the colours are so similar to everything else, but that isn't a bad thing considering how out of control this page is getting and I haven't even got to the small things!


There was this large sticker with the map of the world on it when I was struggling to use and Joy suggested I use it on on of "our" pages.  I wanted both UK and Australia to show so I did trim it down then slice it in half and split it across the page to make it less heavy,  I added arrows just to point out the relevant countries.

As I double checked the list, I realized I was still missing Washi and wood veneers!  I went with black washi to break up all the other colours and not make the title look like an anomaly.  Three small wooden hearts added to three groupings.  I probably wouldn't have if they weren't on the list, but at this point it was so out of control and even exceeded my limit of stuff that I just rolled with it!  Besides I don't use wood veneer as often as I'd like.


I didn't even add any crafty motifs or other word stickers - just the ones I pulled out about "Joy".  Stuff about out day out or travel or "today" wouldn't have really worked with the journaling.

I added some small postage stamp style stickers to give the words somewhere to sit, but that was about it (besides some bling at the very end!!)




It was about this point that I realized I needed somewhere to write. The journaling cards needed to be custom cut since the glassing bags were narrower than 3".  I figured a paper pad might be the answer since I could have a pattern on one side and white on the bag for writing, 

The search as over when I found the Maggie Holmes paper (aptly named "Library") from Chasing Dreams which has all those book covers,  I fussy cut them since THEY were the perfect size for the pocket!

I can use as many or few as I need.  I tried stamting one on the plain side with a notebook style stamp.  The lines were too widely spaced so I stamped twice,


OK brace yourselves.  This is a bit much even for me! 🤣🤣🤣

Ode To Joy

Love and excessive embellishing!

Rediscover Your Stash Challenge #3 and January CKC Kit

I know,  February is grinding to a halt and I'm finally using my Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit from JANUARY and completing challenges from JANUARY'S spending freeze over on the RYS Facebook Group run by Sara Scraps and Khristina Sorge

So what was Challenge #3 for January I hear you ask?  It was about being a "copycat" aka scraplifting someone's work you like.  And here is a link to my kit reveal for January.  In that blog post I talk a little bit about the inspiration behind the kit and one layout I already planned was inspired in both colour and style by THIS ONE by the lovely Shimelle.  It was her page that helped me come up with pink and peach to go with the minty green.  That blog post talks a bit about that too.

Since January (and pretty much all of February) has come and gone, I decided I would use my kit as a starting point, but if I wanted something else that wasn't there I would just use it and not count it or anything like that.  These pages are too important to not use what I really want to.   There are lots of little details (aren't there always?) on this layout and pretty much all of them have relevance to the story.  You'll have to indulge me in going through them in detail for this special page!

I knew I wanted to use green since it's Joy's favourite colour (and a challenge for me) and she would do the same with pink.  I liked the idea of including some pink since this particular page is about us.  After watching Shimelle's YouTube video, adding peach struck me as a really lovely idea for something a bit different and the paper that looks like mermaid scales brings pink, peach and orange together.

This colour combination was further extended by incorporating  Echo Park's I'd Rather Be Crafting line.  Shimelle's layout was one of few that use themey papers and this one needed craft themed paper since the photo doesn't show this part of the story.  Joy and I met in Shimelle's Scrapbook like a Superhero Facebook group and the embellishment in the top left corner is a nod to that.  The one Shimelle used in the same spot was smaller and that's my only regret with this one since it competes with the title.  There were tiny versions among the stickers and die cuts from the collection, but they were too small and I needed to change the "my" to "our" in any case.

For the background, Shimelle used a pattern paper that was already made up of 2 patterns on the diagonal.  I've never been able to get my mind around it so I thought I'd try.  I did decide to use 2 different papers rather than a pre-printed version (one of them was actually the deeper turquoise from the same Dear Lizzy paper Shimelle used, because I couldn't find one that was exactly right),  I also felt that stitching was absolutely essential and partly due to the papers not lining up exactly.  Getting an exact cut on the diagonal isn't as easy as it looks!

The frame from American Craft's Autumn Crisp worked well with everything else,  I did mean to use more of it, but as it was I had to leave off so much that I hoped to include.  At least I have a few more stories and layouts to try to use more on.

I wanted to use that journaling card on the right, even though it probably takes up a bit more room than is ideal.  For some reason, printed accents like stitches or staples bother me, so I stitched over the dotted lines (ok so not exactly printed stitches, but it was a nod to the ones I used on the background) and used the Tiny Attacher to go over the printed staples.  I also added staples to the "superpower" accent (and stitching too) for the same reason.  Even though it was well into Autumn when we had our outing, it was quite a warm/hot day.  The card summed it up beautifully and oddly, the colours on this layout aren't totally UnAutumnal...at least not to me anyway!

I love punny titles or alliteration, so this one worked well,  The "Let's Go" was from Shimelle's A Head in the Clouds sheet of word Thickers which can sometimes be a challenge to use so I try to when I can.  And the word "JOY" was from a similar set of word Thickers from Shimelle's Little by Little collection now that I think of it.  TWO in one layout?  I'm on fire! 👍👍👍

See that wrinkly map above?  It's a blast from the past (FabRips by Studio Calico) which I kind of  scrunched when I stuck it down for extra texture.  I added a little bit in a few other spots.  It's meant to be subtle, but the idea of both local travel that day and international travel for Joy is the inspo behind it.

I absolutely had to include the graphic of Shimelle and a "glitter girl" sticker considering how Joy and I met!  Plenty of wordy stickers everywhere relating to friendship, adventures and having fun. ➡


While Joy doesn't come from London itself, I'm sure she will forgive me for using a double decker bus.  I have a few of these with little opportunity to use them.

A map of Australia would have to suffice to represent me (although I don't feel Aussie - is that odd?).  I'm always trying to find opportunities to uses globes and I thought I'd be able to add more.  Well there are several more layouts in this series so as long as I don't forget...

If you watch Shimelle's video, her page has lots of detail, while still remaining light and airy.  This one is definitely not airy, but I do love that all the "stuff" has meaning.  Even the roses - they are fairly synonymous with England (being their national flower and all of that!), but there are certain motifs that I consider fairly general and work well without specific reason,  Flowers are one of these.  I love flowers and roses are a favourite of mine too.

I hardly ever use a white pen for journaling, but I really wanted to this time.  There was plenty enough going on and it really didn't need weighing down.  The journaling itself may or may not make sense on its own, but a second page with a lot more detail and background info will be either to the left or right of this one.

A crafty motif tag on top of crafty
motif patterned paper?  Admittedly, more of that paper ended up being covered than I expected, but I used it as much for the phrase as for the motif.  Can you see more FabRips here?  And more word stickers and roses and gold mist and the coppery geotag (naturally not pointing to any specific location) and other sparkly bits (to the left of the photo) and in most of the other areas of embellishment.  That Maggie Holmes sticker book really got a workout!

...oh...and did you notice the small stickers saying "Joy"?  there are surprisingly many of such stickers and die cuts across many scrapbooking collections.  I did it because I could and it's such a beautiful name!

Let's Go On a JoyRide

Well done on reaching the end and I hope to see you back for the facing page in a few days.  Tomorrow I'm hoping to do something a bit different!

Love and crafty catch-ups!

Altenew Educator Cerification Program

Well I finally took the plunge last month thanks in part to some encouragement from Sara Scraps.

I applied and was accepted to do the AECP!

I toyed with the idea when they first announced the program, but I was too afraid to commit in case my body let me down.

Well 2019 is going to be different.  I'm going to do this and more.

So what is "this"?  It involves completing selected classes from the ones Altenew offer online.  There are two levels and and the end of each class and each level you submit a final project and move onto the next stage. (I believe there is a third level as well).

The idea is to be qualified as familiar with the products and to be able to teach using them among other things,

Altenew explains it better than I can here


Love and successful stamp study!