Out of the Mire: February 2015

Sunday, February 22, 2015

022215 CKC February Challenge #2

Bethany/Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog sure comes up

with some interesting creative challenges!

Challenge #2:

Use a date stamp in an interesting way.

Head over & check out some of the Design Team projects,

and check out the Mr. Linky posts labeled Challenge #2.

I got my page about 80% finished early on,

but this is a Layout a Day month so that kind of took over!

I used my forgery of this Basic Gray paper:

to capture a day in the life...

...and I used a date stamp to create an hourly countdown of my day in the left hand column. Poor planning left the bottom right hand corner empty so I just kept stamping the dates until it was full.

I printed off a contact sheet of my photos & added them to some punched squares for photo mats.

The super-large letters spelling "day" in my title were a little blah,

so I used some background stamps to dress them up with a bit of pattern.

I love how busy & boisterous the title block is. It really represents how my days feel!

Hoping you will find a creative use for your date stamp(s)!

Looking forward to seeing it in the link-up.

Happy scrapping!

Friday, February 6, 2015

020615 CKC February Challenge #1

Time again for our first challenge of the month at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog!

Challenge #1:

Use something sheer or clear on your project!

Do you remember this forgery of mine?

Well, it's the obvious choice from my kit for THIS challenge!

When I made this it was with a page about our retreat in mind. We are in an area with a fair sized Amish population & are delighted with regular glimpses of these living simple folks.

On our way into town the last trip we followed two horse drawn wagons. At first, we couldn't make out what they were transporting, but then spotted a pair of large ice tongs on top of the load. The blocks of beautiful blue ice became discernible as we closed the distance.

We snapped a quick shot with a smartphone for posterity.

Okay - don't laugh! That little postage stamp selfie magically appeared. I chose the little camera icon, pointed at the cart ahead, and pushed the little camera... I have begun to convince my family, especially after things like this happen, that I simply repel technology.

Back to the scrappy end of things...

I backed my vellum with an icy cool green paper from my kit. I trimmed my custom vellum down to it's original size but the page felt lopsided. I thought I could use some white cardstock with snowflakes punched out as a border on the left - kind of lacy.

Then I worked on a little fussy cutting of the inner edge. A tryout helped me realize that my beautiful vellum's sheer quality was being squandered. Serendipity brought the idea to slip those "waste" snowflakes under the vellum! (I wish I could say that was the idea from the beginning but I've gotta keep it real.)

This is the part where I get a little stuck.

Why would I want to cover that gorgeousness with a photo?

Perfect :~)

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

020415 CKC February Tutorials

Our February inspiration kit

"Across the Miles" from Scrapbook.com

included this totally gorgeous gilded vellum:

Chic Tags World Traveler "Let's Go"

Irresistible!

I would be willing to bet you saw many of these in the DT kits.

You may have been tempted, too!

My version:

No, it's not a map! But it is gold on vellum :~)

I subbed in this paper as a combination of the map & the red cardstock.

I used these for my counterfeit:

I hadn't used a stencil adhesive before, but you can bet I'll never stencil without it again!

All of my edges were crisp & clean - no bleed-through mess & distortion of the pattern.

I used an old expired credit card to scrape the paint into the stencil & then remove the excess, like you would with modeling paste or gesso. The stencil isn't thick enough to create much relief.

Counterfeit #2 is a forgery of this paper:


Basic Grey Capture "Right Now" B side

My papers were a bit more bold than the original, so I chose the right-hand paper for my base:

Then I punched out gold paper chevrons in place of the gold triangles.

I have plans for this paper! Watch for it to make an appearance later this month.

This is one of the few months where I was able to find quite passable substitutions for most of the elements in the kit right from my stash, as is. Feels almost like I got off too easy!

I hope we have inspired you to dive in & recreate some of your favorite elements

in the inspiration kit. Remember that we have a tutorial post each month.

You can easily access the older posts for more ideas.

Be sure to post your kit & projects on the Monthly Link-Up tab at the CKC blog.