Silhouette challenge, pages one to three

Back in my pre-blogging days, when my crafting was erratic at best, I used to give myself lots of different challenges to try and use some supplies before spending any more money on craft. Some I stuck with better than others! Then I started this blog, got a lot more regular with my crafting and used the accountability of the blogging to stick to my personal challenges much better.
This year, for a lot of different reasons, my crafting has gotten a lot more erratic, and I don't want my spending to sneak out of control again.
So when I realized I needed to buy a new blade for my Silhouette machine, I knew I couldn't justify buying one straight away (especially when buying online means paying extra for postage or buying enough extra product to qualify for free postage!)
The challenge I've decided to give myself is to make ten scrapbook pages using Silhouette shapes (and believe me I've already cut more than enough to achieve that goal!)

Here are my first three pages:

This page, for Rohan's album about a camping trip from about 5 years ago, comes I think almost entirely from this month's Counterfeit Kit, with the exception of the DIY flair.

 This one for Maddy (about a different old holiday) I started when I first bought the Basic Grey "Hey Girl" papers, and it then sat on my desk for a couple of months.  The addition of the vellum and white die cuts along with some washi and DIY flair was just what this page needed to give it a bit of interest.

This one's the oldest photo of all, from back in 2007, for Angus about a trip (obviously) to Taronga Zoo. The background paper is from my most recent Counterfeit Kit, and the other papers are all from the Kit before.

So that's three pages down, seven to go! Hopefully I'll see you soon with a few more!

July Counterfeit Kit

Wow!!! So hard to believe it's been 3 months since I've posted here . . . I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say I figured the obvious way to break the crafting drought would be with the help of my lovely friends at The Counterfeit Kit Challenge.  This month's forgery inspiration comes from Noel Mignon . . .

. . . and what a lovely bunch of goodies it is!

I wouldn't be able to hold my head up as the writer of this blog if I didn't at least try to keep my spending at a minimum while in the middle of a crafting drought. . . but I did buy a couple of things, including the 12" pad from Basic Grey's "Hey Girl" Collection. With 36 double sided papers, I think you'll be seeing plenty in this kit and probably quite a few kits to come!

 I've called my kit "Winter Warmers" partly for the warm accent colours, and partly because it warms my heart to get back into some crafting . . .
As already mentioned there's quite a bit of Basic Grey "Hey Girl" in this kit, seconded by some Echo Park, coloured cardstock and a few other bits and pieces.

I didn't have a lot of patience for adding embellishments to this kit as I wanted to get straight into creating, but I was inspired by the hearts, circles, speech bubbles and arrows to make these lovely Silhouette cuts from Kraft cardstock. . . I love how those circle elements give me both a positive and a negative to play with!

 
Alphas and stickers . . .

For now I've finished off the kit with some washi and bakers twine, some old Making Memories rub-ons, my left over Jennifer Grace pins, and some cut apart tags:

And to make sure the kit gets at least some use, a page I've already made!

Well it certainly doesn't look like I'm going to find it too hard to use those Kraft die-cuts, does it?  I seriously love, love love that "bird on a wire" cut and that "hello" turned out great as part of my title.
All the papers except the 12" I used on the background are actually from my last kit. It still has plenty of life left in it, so I expect we'll see bits and pieces of that popping up other the next month or so as well!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you for some more crafty goodness soon !