May 2018 - Challenge # 2: 2017 Trends

May Challenge #2 - 2017 Trends: 

(Anyone else think it's wrong that he his prettier than she his???)

No one has ever accused me of being a trendsetter, but I hadn’t heard or noticed many of the scrapbook trends mentioned on the Scrap Gals Podcast 2017 in Review with Tracy Fox - listen HERE.

 Now I see them everywhere!

You can take a look HERE.

Half & Half

Yippee Strippy!

Emoji Love

Ink, Stamp, Repeat

Get Angular

Tropical Leaves

Embedded Embellishments

Decorated Seams

Put a Ring On It

Giant Titles

Triangle Time

Scribble It!

 Choose one of her trends to inspire you!

Master Forger Julene has used Triangle Time.

She drew one triangle then, using scraps, traced around several more (including vellum) and adhered them along the side of the cardstock. After adding more layering behind the photo, the finish product looks like this:

Master Forger Laura decided to try her hand at a layout with a Giant Title, not always easy when you scrap predominately 8.5x11!

Master Forger Leslie combined Half & Half with Decorated Seams for this cute page:

Read more about it HERE

Master Forger Margie tried a twist on the Tropical Leaves trend... It may not be "leaves" but pineapples and other tropical motifs were super popular as well. And this gorgeous Amy Tangerine specialty paper was perfect for a Dole Whip page!

Last but not least, last minute Master Forger Lisa decided to Get Angular with her layout. It was a lot of fun looking through the inspiration layouts on Tracy's blog and picking a trend. The angle isn't quite as pronounced as the original but the overall design was great to follow. You can tell it was last minute because she had to take a photo late at night, hence the less than stellar photo quality! Hope you can forgive her ;-) You can find out more on her blog here.

We love seeing your work, so be sure to share your kits and projects 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 )

March 2018 - Challenge #1 - Happy Birthday!

SOURCE

March is a big birthday month in my family - we celebrate five of them in less than a week! So in keeping with the celebratory spirit, make a birthday-themed project (layout, card, pocket page, planner spread, etc.).

Now it's time to see how our Guest Designer and Master Forgers celebrated this challenge.

Guest Designer Libeeti made this pretty pair of birthday cards:

Kelly, whose birthday is also in March, designed this page about her birthday last year. Read more on her blog.

Laura made this layout to celebrate her son's 3rd birthday

Leslie took a rogue direction - read more about it on her blog!

Margie pulled out some of those birthday photos she had waiting to be scrapped, and made a page:

You can see more photos and more details on her blog

Again, please show us your project. You can add it to our Link-Up page here, post it in our Facebook Community here, or share it on Instagram using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcmarch2018.

The 12 Days of Christmas | Eleven Pipers Piping

Hi everyone! Margie here! When we were given the topic of the twelve days of Christmas, I knew that I wanted to take 11 pipers piping as a way to talk about my favorite Christmas songs for my December Daily/JYC album. Of course, I made a kit for my Christmas album this year:

I am crafting in a 6x8 format this year, and this is the page that I made:

I thought about making it a list of my "11 favorite songs", but I just had to make it an even 10. I typed and printed the journaling in the Project Life app, using The Comfort&Joy card collection, and printed it on a watercolor texture cardstock. I had a sheet of musical Christmas paper, but since Jingle Bells isn't on my list (I like it, it's just not in my top ten), I covered it with a sheet of starry vellum, so that it still evokes a musical theme or feeling, but the focus isn't on that specific song.

November 2017 Mini Kit Reveal

Love this month's inspiration kit, but not entirely sure if you can play along this month?

• Maybe you're not sure if you have the time and energy to play along? 
• Maybe you feel like you haven't got quite enough stash to make a full kit? 
• Or maybe you're still working with the remnants of last month's inspiration kit and only need a small selection to work with? 

Well, it's time for our mini kit reveal so let's just remind ourselves of the original inspiration kit, "Emerson" by Citrus Twist back in November 2016. If you follow the link here and go to the November 2016 section of the page, you'll find several add ons which could also be inspiration for you in your mini-kits so make sure you check those out too.

Here's the main kit again:

Mini Counterfeit Kits can either be simply smaller versions of the main kit, or they can be specifically aimed at use as card kits, mini album kits, pocket style albums or planners. It's entirely up to you and, of course, you can use the mini-kit option whenever you like!

Shall we see some examples from the Master Forgers?

Clair made a mini kit, inspired by the black and white floral. Her kit contains only black and white cardstock and embellishments and all of it has been drawn from her massive stash of scraps!

Clair used her kit to create a monochrome Pocket Letter.

Kelly created a very mini-kit to use to make a spread in her weekly pocket-page album.

Here is the layout she created. You can see more details on her blog.

Lisa pulled together a card kit from her box of paper scraps following the themes of the inspiration kit - chevrons, arrows, small designs, geometrics, words, veneers and stars. She sprinkled embellishments into the kit and some alphas as well as some elements that she had previously created with the plan to make some cards - great plans, poor follow through!

And then she made four quick and easy cards which will be so useful for her crazy birthday season in November and December!

You can see more details over on her blog here.

Margie was inspired by the chevron paper in the inspiration kit, and had just the paper that she wanted to use-this gorgeous paper by Shimelle, for the Little by Little collection. And then she pulled a few papers from her scrap bin to compliment the color scheme, and had the basis for a page kit:

Which came together nicely for a lovely sweet sixteen page for her daughter:

If you're inspired to create your own main or mini kit then as always, we love to see them so share by including them in our Monthly Link Up, the CKC Facebook community or Instagram using @counterfeitkitchallenge or #counterfeitkitchallenge.

October challenge #2 Coppertone

Challenge #2:  Coppertone

Most of us remember this commercial advertisement for Coppertone.

Our kit from Prima named St Tropez features some shimmery copper.

Use copper tones on your project.

These can be wet media e.g. pastes, paint, gesso etc or copper shades of papers/trims. 

Here's what our team did with copper:

Susanne hadn't used her copper border strips on layouts from her mini kit, but she found it was a perfect accent to the pinks/peaches among her leftovers.  So she whipped up these three mini cards.

Clair, who is also a lover of the mini-card, made a teeny tiny little card with some little bits leftover from her weekend crafting session. (There is more to share soon!) Clair didn't include much copper in her kit, so was limited to a little Polka Dot in a Glittery Copper. It didn't seem like *quite* enough, so she added a couple of little coppery sequins! Because who doesn't love sequins?

Kate our guest forger has made this beautiful layout.

To highlight my handcut flowers, I used some FolkArt Metallic Copper paint to paint a little copper on the leaves and even though the background was already gold wood, I added patches of the copper paint on it as well.

And Margie made another layout for her Disney book, using The Project Life App and Over App:

Straight from the PL App, using the Modern collection:

After taking into Over App, and adding some embellishment, mostly Project Mouse: Princess, and Project Mouse: Beginnings:

As always, if you're inspired to create a kit, a page, a project or in fact, anything at all, make sure to include them in our Monthly Link Up. We want to see it! Or share on Instagram using @counterfeitkitchallenge or #counterfeitkitchallenge

September Mini Kit Reveal

Love this month's inspiration kit, but not entirely sure if you can play along this month?

• Maybe you're not sure if you have the time and energy to play along? 
• Maybe you feel like you haven't got quite enough stash to make a full kit? 
• Or maybe you're still working with the remnants of last month's inspiration kit and only need a small selection to work with? 

Whatever the reasons, we've been busy working on a new feature which we hope will help out when time, energy or stash are a little bit lacking! In addition to the main kit reveal on the 1st of the month, we'll also be creating our own smaller 'Mini Kit' versions of the inspiration kit, along with some ideas for using them up quickly!

Mini Counterfeit Kits can either be simply smaller versions of the main kit, or they can be specifically aimed at use as card kits, mini album kits, pocket style albums or planners. It's entirely up to you and, of course, you can use the mini-kit option whenever you like!

Shall we see some examples from the Master Forgers?

Kelly

Kelly noticed the circles in this month's inspiration kit and fashioned her mini-kit with a circle motif. Globes, polka dots, flair, and brads all play a starring role in her collection.

With this kit, she created this layout for her Project Life album. With the circles, Kelly included straight lines in the banners, striped card, and phrase sticker to give the layout interest and balance.

Clair

Clair's Mini Kit was made almost entirely of little, leftovers from other scrapping sessions - all of which echo the colours and textures of the Main Kit. There was lots of Black & White, Aqua, Turquoise and Gold. Clair also added in some Simple Stories sticker sheets and small sentiments, for a little variety, as she intended to use the Mini Kit to make some Project Life Cards. However, in the end, she ended up making a Pocket Letter that looks so different to the kit that it's difficult to believe it started out as the leftovers below!

You can see that Clair has used a lot of the Grey, Aqua and Turquoise from her Mini Kit, but there's a lot of colour that's come simply from using the 'B Sides'. She's also made a lot of her own embellishments with her dies, but has also added a lot of embellishments from the rest of her stash, including some amazing vellum circles (that echo the Inspiration Kit) found by accident when looking for something else! Never feel that you can't add to your kit once it's made - it's always okay to use that stash! Head to Clair's blog, Obstinate Pursuit, for more details!

Lisa here! I took inspiration from the colours and feel of the original inspiration kit and then followed MF Susanne's "directions" in Just The Gist of It to pull together a Project Life kit for my August pages.  I know this looks like more than a mini-kit but all the sheets are 6x6 and the cards are all pocket page cards. At the moment, I'm still finding my way through the Project Life system and it's taking me some time to work out how to make things fit my own style and how much project should be in a mini-kit for one month's spreads.

I've limited the embellies to some veneers, some gold and white confetti - reminiscent of the vellum circles - and some washi tape. I included lots of alphas which didn't end up getting used and some labels which also didn't make the cut in the end. But I wanted to make sure I had at least a few options. I added in some loopy thread as well on several of the cards.

I knew there would be lots left over after making my pages, and also noted that I'm definitely missing some pocket page cards for journalling and of different orientations. And indeed, there really was a lot of the kit left over but I'm happy overall with how it came together.

And here are the spreads I completed - I try to follow the same format each month so that I get a chance to include portrait as well as landscape photos. I think this one is a bit photo heavy so I might work on trying to use fewer. Hints and tips always welcome for how to simplify and improve my PL process - this is all new for me!

You can find more detail shots over on her blog today, here.

Margie made up a digital for her mini kit this month:

She started with a card kit from the Project Life app, Celebrate Everyday, and added a few digital embellishments. And she made another page for her 2016 Disney travel album:

As always, if you're inspired to create a kit, make sure to include them in our Monthly Link Up. We want to see it! Or share on Instagram using @counterfeitkitchallenge or #counterfeitkitchallenge

August Challenge # 2 - Scraplift Yourself

Ah, scraplifting ... the act of taking a layout you find inspiring and copying 'the gist of it' to create your own version. We've all done it. We pin layouts on Pinterest, bookmark blog posts, screenshot Instagram pictures (is that just me?!) - all with the intention of eventually using the layouts as inspiration for our own work. But, have you ever tried scraplifting YOURSELF?

No matter how hard you are on yourself and your art, all of us have made layouts we're incredibly proud of. For this challenge, I want you to dig out one of those layouts ... a layout that YOU have made ... and scraplift it!

Let's see what our Master Forgers did with this challenge ... 

Lisa here! I've been busy scrapping (but not sharing so much) recently as I've been participating in various challenges such as Shimelle's 25 days of scrapbooking words and LOAD(mini)0817 - Now and Then. My Counterfeit Kit Challenge kits are invaluable to her at times like this as I just picks a kit off the shelf and away I go!

You can find out a bit more about these layouts and see some detail shots over at my blog here.

I picked out this layout to scrap lift which was made for the Shimelle July challenge to include a quote on your page and used my Counterfeit Kit Challenge April 2017 kit, Chirpy.

April 2017 kit, Chirpy lo#4

And then made this follow up layout as part of the LOAD(mini)0817 - Now and Then for the prompt to combine music and summer stories. I used my current Counterfeit Kit Challenge August kit, Restart.

I stayed relatively true to my original design with the layers of paper along the right hand edge, the journalling and title position, and the 4x6 photo mat. I also used similar style and location of embellishments to complete it. Even though you can definitely see that these two are the same design when you see them side by side, they won't be anywhere near each other in my albums and no one will ever notice!

August 2017 kit, Restart #6

Margie chiming in, too: I had a little bit more of a challenge with this, since most of my pages are paper pages, with lots of layering, etc., And my August kit was completely digital, but, I knew I wanted to work on my Disney album from my family's 2016 trip, so I went to my Disney pages for inspiration. The page that I chose was a bit artsy, one that I had made in a Wilna Furstenburg class:

I decided that I could use the general design of my first page for a page in the Project Life and Over apps, using my kit for the month of August (along with a few Project Mouse additions):

Admittedly, this page did take me a couple of hours, much longer thatn I would normally spend on a page in the Project Life/Over apps, but this was a page about a special moment for me, so it felt right to make it a little more special. I am scattering a few of these "special"pages throughout my Disney 2016 book. What do you think? Does this digi lift of a traditional page work?

Don't forget that there's more ways than ever to join in the fun:

• post on your blog or our Flickr group
• link up on the Monthly Link Up page 
• link up and join in the chat on the Facebook Counterfeit Kit Challenge Community