April Counterfeit Kit, "This Messy Life"

Okay, Okay, so I haven't finished my holiday album using my February kit yet, but it's a rainy Easter long weekend and I wanted a break from decorating journaling cards, so I decided to join in the fun with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge again this month!

The April inspiration is the March "Messy Box" from a Beautiful Mess:

Well, I almost gave up then and there . . . there was no way I was going to come up with anything remotely close to that . . . but then I decided to just take note of the main elements of the kit and start from there.
The elements I identified were:

• black and white papers
• hand-drawn feel
• mix of patterns
• graphic pocketed page-style cards
• vellum circles and hearts
• white brads
• black-and-white washi tape
• Gold thickers

There. That doesn't sound so hard after all! So I went to my stash and pulled anything that I thought matched those key elements, rather than the originals.  Here's what I found . . .
Papers that were black and white (I've also added grey and white):

Papers with a hand-drawn feel as well as a mix of patterns:

Graphic pocketed page cards:

 

I may secretly have a little crush on that "days of the week" Washi, but that's Okay, I'm working with what I've got, and added two rolls from my stash.  I've pulled white and gold brads from the stash and we'll see how we go.  The vellum shapes were easy, too.  I found the perfect cut file in my Silhouette library, so I cut a whole sheet of wonky hearts, wonky circles, and wonky hearts in wonky circles!  I've inked up a few to see what they look like, and left the rest plain until I decide how I want to use them.

 

That just leaves the gold thickers.  I don't own any and buying any new product is not on the agenda right now, so that leaves the DIY option.  I wasn't sure how my Silhouette would go cutting the very thick gold cardstock I have in the stash, but that's alright when a girl has a range of letter stamps and embossing powders in her stash, pining away from lack of use!

I had a quick play with two different stamp sets and two different powders and (apart from the rookie embossing attempt) I'm happy with the results.  Hopefully when I post a finished page I'll have better lighting so you can see just how pretty it really looks. 
Appropriately enough, the set I used the stamp the word "love" is an old "Love Elsie" set, so although I can't use Elsie's handwriting on the washi tape, I might get to use it here instead!



So that's my kit, which I've named "This Messy Life" (in honour of the inspiration kit, and the chance to get messy with ink and embossing powder, nothing to do with the state of my house, of course!)

It's a pretty big kit, because once I pulled all those papers out I was too lazy to put them back  I figure those papers may as well be in a kit as loose in my stash.
Thanks for visiting with me on this wet Easter weekend.  We're heading up to visit my parents for a few days after church tomorrow, so enjoy your Easter and I hope to catch up with you again soon!

Not another waterfall photo . . . ?

(Or the last of the Tasmania full page layouts)

I've waited until all the "traditional" pages are finished to show you the rest of the pages from my Tasmania album.

And yes! Another waterfall . . . is it possible to get bored of waterfalls?  I don't think so.  The waterfalls we visited in Tasmania may not be the biggest the world has to offer, but they are all beautiful, don't you think?

The battery on my camera actually went flat on this walk, and I didn't have my spare with me, luckily I got this photo before it ran out!

This staircase leads to a lookout at the neck of Bruny Island.  We were laughing at some tourists who were more interested in taking selfies than looking at the beautiful view, oblivious to the fact that the headland was teeming with penguin burrows. (Some of the little residents were visible from the path with just a little searching).  And then we took a selfie of our own.

How spectacular is this mountain lake we found on a walk in the Huon Valley?  Only Maddy and Rob were game to dive on in to the icy water.  And we might just have spent a bit of time taking photos of each other here, too . . .

This was our first visit to the top of Mount Wellington.  Although the weather down in Hobart was fine, we drove through the clouds to the top to see . . . more clouds.  We did go back a couple of days later (along with every other visitor to Hobart, apparently) and the view was spectacular.

Did I mention how much our boys like to climb to the top of things?  On our first night in Bicheno, they looked up at the boulders you could see from our Caravan Park and immediately wanted to climb them. Here's the view from the top a couple of days later.

Could anything feature in my album more often than waterfalls?  It could if it was as fabulous as Cradle Mountain!  Another view from Dove Lake, this time with the iconic boat house in the foreground:

I was channelling my inner Wilna on this page, inspired by this page here to put the blocks of patterned paper on the right, as well as the vertical strip of embellishments she often does.  {Inner Wilna . . .sigh . . . imagine if that was an Actual Thing . . . I bet even my shopping lists would look beautiful}

Cradle Mountain again, this time the view as we make our way back down from the top.
You know the problem with my money-saving decision to put a layout on both sides of American Crafts cardstock?  Those label stickers on the back, which just don't come off as easily as you think they should.  The placement of the papers on this page just *might* have been influenced by the fact that I tore the cardstock while trying to take the sticker off.

Is it weird that I made my family pose with a piece of play equipment shaped like giant cherries?  Cherries were such an important part of our holiday that I thought I needed some sort of photographic reminder.  Supermarket cherries? I don't know if we'll ever be able to face them again!  Our very best cherry day was our visit to the Huon Valley, which started with $10/kilo cherries from a fruit barn which were DIVINE and ended with $5/kilo cherries from a road side stand owned by a gorgeous old couple which tasted Just. As. Good.  And then there was the cherry-flavoured ice creams  . . .

Thanks for visiting with me.  I spent some time on my Silhouette cutting titles this afternoon, so I hope to have some of the pocketed pages finished to show you soon.  I hope you'll come back then!

More Tasmanian holiday pages

The "traditional" pages for my Tasmania album are coming together super quickly (although I'm not dwelling too much on the fact I haven't done titles or journaling yet!).  Here's the next 5 completed pages to show you, for a total of 8 pages - half of the 16 I plan to do. 
I've decided to conserve cardstock by scrapping on both sides of each page - in other words I've done every second page, and now I'll flip them over and start again on the backs - I'll just have to be careful they're the right way up when I start to stick things down!

One of the highlights of our holiday was a cruise around the bottom of Bruny Island.  This photo was taken at the end:

 On our last day in Hobart, I took the kids to the Cascades Female Factory (old convict site) while Robert took a tour of Cascades Brewery.  Our tour finished first so we waited for Robert in the bar, overlooking this amazing garden.  Anyone who's seen a bottle of Cascades will recognise the iconic building in the background.

We were in Cradle Mountain National Park for 3 days before the weather cleared up enough for us to head out into the Park itself (albeit in thermals, raincoats, and beanies).  A lovely fellow bushwalker offered to take this photo for us as we had our lunch overlooking the beautiful Dove Lake, with Cradle Mountain in the background.  I'm so glad she did as it's one of my favourite photos of the trip.  It even has the bird in the bottom corner that watched us the whole time we were there, obviously hoping to share our sandwiches.

Here we are the very next day, sweltering in shorts and T-shirts, having scaled the top of Cradle Mountain itself. That's Tasmania for you!

We squeezed in one last visit to a waterfall on our way up to the ferry on our last day.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you're finding time for something crafty, too!

Starting the holiday album.

In my last post I showed you my Counterfeit Kit I'm using for  our recent holiday to Tasmania.

 Today I thought I'd share with you some of my process of planning the album.


With so many photos, the first step was choosing which photos to print.  I took out my pocketed page protectors (I have 4 different styles and ended up using 3 of them) and then went through my holiday photos on my computer one event at a time. (Our new computer is too new for my old edition of Photoshop Elements, so I'm using Picassa at the moment)

I chose which orientation of page protector worked best for each event, and then chose my photos.  I  cut up a whole bunch of scrap paper and wrote the file number of the photos on them, placing them in the page protectors. I also "starred" those photos in Picassa, ready to have printed.  I used those same slips of paper to hold the spots for title and journaling spots as well.  Here's a typical page at this point:

During the process, I chose which photos I wanted to have enlargements of, and placed a traditional page protector, complete with photo number, in the appropriate spot in my pile of page protectors.
Then I waited with baited breath for my photos to arrive!
I decided that it made the most sense to make the "traditional" pages first, then use the leftover bits of paper to decorate the journaling cards. So my next step was to break my big kit of papers up into a series of smaller "page kits".  Sounds like a job that needs the dining room table! 

 With each of my 16 enlargements sitting against the neutral background cardstock, I started moving the patterned papers and cardstock around, trying to get an even spread of colours that worked with each other and the photos.

Here's my thinking face:

In the end, I added one more sheet of cardstock and managed to get at least 2 full 12" pieces for most photos, or one full sheet and at least one significant sized offcut for the others.  In the kit was also one striped sheet of paper.  I've kept that aside for cutting into strips, which can be scattered throughout the album.
 

Of course I knew at this point that once I started making the pages, I would have more offcuts to play around with.

Here we've got a beautiful waterfall, and a shot of the kids at Salamanca Markets in Hobart, enjoying their Dutch pancakes.

This photo is at the blow-hole at Bicheno, on the east coast of  Tasmania.

As well as my tickets, cameras, and perfected "sequins", I've also added some washi tape and some white Silhouette "fronds" to my kit.  For continuity, I'm inking all my edges in "bark" ink.  I'm also trying to make the most of my stamps and inks by stamping on the coloured cardstock. I'm considering adding some splatter, but I can always do that later, and then I'll do it to all of them.

You'll notice there's no titles or journaling yet, I'll do that in conjunction with the pocketed pages, and work out what needs to go where.  My plan is for all the titles to be in the same font (Franklin Gothic Demi Condensed, 65 pt if you're interested) and cut on my Silhouette - probably using the positive for the traditional pages, and the negative on the title cards in the pocketed pages.

Well I hope all that makes sense, feel free to ask me questions if it doesn't, and I hope you're finding time to get a bit crafty this weekend, too!

February Counterfit Kit, "Down Under from Down Under"

Hello, friends, it's so good to be back!!
 . . . back in not-studying land . . . back in kids-at-school land . . . back in time-to-spend-in-the-craft-room land . . . back in blogging land . . . back playing at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge!
We're also back from a fabulous road trip to Tasmania, and while it's sad that the holiday is over, one of the good things about being a scrapbooker is you get to relive the holiday all over again as you put your album together.  Am I right?

My philosophy for a holiday album hasn't really changed since I completed this one back in 2011.  I'm not interested in creating a masterpiece from every photo (I'm having over 300 printed from the 1800+ taken).  What I am interested in is having an album that tells my story in a cohesive way, where my pictures are the star of the show.  I also want to be able to put it together reasonably quickly, not having it hanging over my head as an unfinished project when the next big family holiday comes along!

Early on in our holiday, Angus commented that Tasmania was "down under from Down Under", (it's the island at the bottom of Australia, get it?).  The name kind of stuck, so in honour of that, I'm naming this month's Counterfeit Kit "Down Under from Down Under":

If the photos are the star of the show, then who will the supporting actor be?

This great big pile of oatmeal cardstock, and some pocketed page protectors, that's who!  Way back here in one of my favourite "ten things" posts of all times, I wrote that I was preparing to start a pocketed "Project Life" style album, as a way of using up supplies.  I quote: "I figure my off-cut stash plus my Silhouette plus my stamps is really all the supplies I need. I already have a bunch of landscape-oriented photo protectors, so at the most I'll be buying some in other orientations, maybe some neutral cardstock and I'm good to go!"
I never did start that pocketed album, but my attitude on how to use them hasn't changed.  My photos can slot in super-quickly, I'll keep the title and journaling blocks pretty simple and uniform, and I'll break it all up with some "traditional" pages with some enlargements of my favourite photos.

Here's all the super pretty papers I've chosen.  While I've tried not to spend too much money over the last few months when I've been out of the craft room, I may have been swayed by a few (or 6!!!) paper pads that were on super-special.  So you might recognise some papers in there that are not-so-new to you, but brand new to me.
I think they include Studio Calico "Wanderlust", Basic Grey "Fact", Kaisercraft "Tropical Punch" and "Beautiful", Crate Paper "Flea Market" and Amy Tangerine "Yes Please".  I've also included a few sheets of coloured cardstock as much to challenge myself to use it as to extend the kit somewhat.
There's also some offcuts in coordinating colours.
I plan to divide them all up into page kits for the "traditional" pages as soon as my photos arrive (just a minute ago someone came to the door, and I was so sure it was going to be the mail man!!! But no, just some door-to-door guy).  That way I can spread the papers around, and the smaller left-over bits can go on the pocketed pages.

 I figured cameras and tickets make sense as embellishments, so I've cut out a bunch of them.  And those negative (or I guess they're the positive) shaped hearts and stars are pretty cute, too!
I'll probably add some washi tape and stamps as well.  I thought I'd finished my kit, but I had a bit of a "stop press!" moment when I noticed the wood veneer "sequins" in the inspiration kit, and decided to have a bit of a go on the Silhouette:

That's my first attempt, with my smallest camera and a ruler to show you the scale. I'll play around with the sizes a bit but I suspect some kraft-coloured "sequins" will be making their way into the kit sometime soon!

Well, thanks so much for visiting!  I hope you're finding some crafty time too, and I hope to see you again soon,  after the mail man has arrived!

Some Silhouette Wall Art . . .

I wonder if anyone out there understands my love affair with Mod Podge?  It's not so much the product itself, although of course it's great at what it does. . . .

It's more about the fact that when I pull it out, it can only mean one thing . . .

A Special Project!!!!!

I'm just waiting for my photos from our recent trip to Tasmania, so thought I'd whip up a Special Project that's been in the pipeline for a while . . . and show you a few other projects I didn't find the time to show you when I made them last year.

This first one, I made for Maddy's room, when she was having a tough time settling in at her new school:

For the background, I used a bunch of primarily white patterned paper scraps.  I mod-podged them to the canvas and then white-washed over them, before glueing down the words.  I chose the papers for the words from my scraps as well.

This next one makes me so, so happy.  It hangs on the wall that you see when you enter the front door, and also when I leave my bedroom in the morning.

Once again, I tried to use scraps if possible for the words, but I also wanted the rainbow effect, so I think I ended up cutting into one full sheet of paper to get the colours I was happy with.
(Actually, if any of you know your scripture very well, you'd know that two of the words are the wrong way round . . . I made a mistake with which world I cut out in which colour, and decided to stick with the rainbow order, as the meaning of the passage hasn't changed in any way!)

And finally, this weekend's quick project . . . when I first saw this Cut File in the Silhouette store (the other two are from the Silhouette store also, if you're interested), it totally resonated with me, and I knew it would find it's way onto my bookshelf sooner or later . . .

 . . . the background is a sheet of paper which was a bit too yellowy-browny for what I wanted, so I quickly brushed it over with a diluted coat of gesso while the Silhouette was at work . . . easy peasy!

Thanks for dropping by, and I hope to see you again soon!

Batch scrapping

Just ducking in quickly to finish a post I started writing back in August  ( . . . yikes!) about the progress I've made on my "Kit of Kits"!  I've got a couple of assignments due in December, and I'm resigned to the fact that we won't be seeing each other a lot until then.  But in the meantime, here's what I've been up to . . . 

Seeing I had made my page kits in bulk, I decided maybe I could do a bit of a production line and make the pages themselves in bulk, too!So I started sticking papers and photos down on a whole batch of pages until I got bored. At this stage, the only thing I'd added other than paper and photos was washi, twine and doilies to a couple of layouts.

My next step was to spread all the pages out and go through some embellishments, choosing die-cuts, buttons, and a bit of ribbon. Next, I looked at the pages one at a time and decided on the title, choosing either stickers or finding cardstock scraps to cut the title from on my Silhouette.  Once I got each page to this stage, they went back into the "work in progress" folder, complete with a sticky note outlining anything I needed to make/add.

The next part of the process was making the Silhouette cuts.  It definitely took the longest, although admittedly I was picking up kids from school and making dinner at the same time, and I'm sure it was more efficient than doing all those pages separately.  The other good thing about doing all my cuts at the same time was that it seemed worth doing a second cut of each element in my new Sihouette chipboard to add some dimension, a step that I'm not sure I could be bothered doing if I was making each page separately.

I finished the evening by running all but the largest diecuts through my Xyron sticker machine.  I think that next time I have a small window of time to scrapbook, I'll be able to finish a page or two pretty quickly!

So that's where I got up to, way back in August.  Here's the three pages I've finished since then, and with all that work done, they certainly were quick to finish!

I cut the title a number of times in different colours for this one, then off-set the layers to get the coloured shadow.  I also enjoyed putting the Easter egg die-cuts on the slide frames!

Tags and butterflies, what could be better? 

I love this page, particularly for the fact that it uses all those cut off strips and die-cuts from my stash.  (and it's easier to see the stamping on the DIY flair in real life!) 

Thanks for dropping by, and hopefully I'll get a chance to play with another page kit or two before December, but in the meantime, happy scrapping!