Musings on DIY chipboard buttons, and the spelling of the word "Swansea"

With an intriguing title like that, what's left to do but show you my two latest pages using my Counterfeit Kit.  They're two complimentary pages that will sit next to each other in the album, as opposed to being a double page:

These pages will go into the family album.  If you look closely you might be able to see that I have left the top of the title block on the first page unsewn; I will add journalling tags in there once all the pages about this holiday are completed and I know what is left to say.

Musings on DIY buttons
If you were around for my Product Challenge to Self, then you'll already know of my struggle to use a certain couple of Chipboard Mat Stacks that have been sitting around in my stash for forever.  (If not, you can always catch up here and here).  I had already stated that I would attempt to DIY some buttons for my kit, so when the Counterfeit Kit girls put up a list of tutorials I decided to give the chipboard mat stacks another go.

Now, I probably should have worked this out earlier, but the original Sizzix machine (like the one I own) has quite fat dies, which are merely ridiculously hard to push through a piece of chipboard.  The Sizzlit dies, on the other hand, (like my button ones, which I use on my machine with a converter) are much thinner, and it is physically impossible to do anything more than make an impression with them onto a sheet of chipboard. 
So that's what I ended up doing - made an impression with my button dies, then cut them out by hand, and punched out the centre holes.  To finish them off, I stamped over them with a flourish stamp and inked the edges.  I'm pretty happy with them, and will probably do the same thing again in the future.

Musings on the spelling of the word "SWANSEA"
Come on, we've all done it, haven't we?  Looked at the word "Swansea" and been sad that it contains 2 "S"s and 2 "A"s.  (Ok, for you it might have been a different word, but you know what I'm talking about, don't you?)  It's why I struggle so much with letter stickers, and why letter stamps (and of course my Silhouette) are my generally preferred method of making titles.
But I bought the Thickers, and I put them in my kit!  My theme of the year is, "Use what you have in a way that makes you happy" and part of that to me means "use what's new while it's still new".  I decided no, I am not going to wait for the perfect combination of titles that will use every single letter in the pack, (if only such a thing existed, but how could you be bothered taking the time to find it, really?) So, as you can see, I did use the Thickers, and I do love the dimension they bring to the page. But no, to all you Thickers addicts, I haven't been converted!

Thanks for stopping by!