Been Busy Scrapping!

I haven't been around in blog-land the last few days because I've been busy scrapping! I took advantage of the long weekend here in the U.S. to organize my pictures and supplies and then get to work on finishing my album from last summer's trip to England.  I created 28 pages in the last two days!  I drew a lot of inspiration from the Amy Tan class "Collect and Create," which I won from the Ali Edwards blog. I'll do a proper review of the class soon (and be 'round to visit your blogs), but in the meantime, I thought I'd share a few pages from my weekend and their inspirational starting points. You can click on any of the pages to see them larger and in more detail. For the page up top, I used a punch - my crown punch to be specific, in order to make these tag embellishments:

Next up, I used the paper from which I had punched shapes.  This time, it was my butterfly punch to create journaling embellishments:

The next inspiration was to layer memorabilia:

And then to use your stash. For this next layout, I used lots of my stash - tags I had created with my November "counterfeit kit" which I put together to work on these pages; vellum paper (I have A LOT of this and rarely use it, so I tried really hard to use it in this album project); old sticker letters; and a charm:

I used a sketch (from the Club Scrap sketch deck) on this next layout because I knew what paper I wanted to use, but I couldn't figure out how to arrange it:

When I was stuck for embellishments on my next layout, I used a favorite - in this case, brads.  I love brads and metal:

Next up, was an oldie, but a goodie - use stickers. Yes, stickers. I know many people don't use them much anymore (and I don't either), but I did like how I used the sticker strips along the left on this layout:

The final inspirational idea was to scraplift from someone outside your box. For this last layout, I used the idea of cutting paper strips to create a background:

This last technique is definitely not my usual style, but I was definitely out of ideas by the time I started the layout, so I went with it. And I really liked the outcome!
I hope you found some inspiration today! Let me know if you did!

Tag Inspiration from Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog features a kit each month and encourages participants to dig through their own stash and create (and then use) a similar kit.  This month, they chose a really cool kit from Kits de Somni (a Spanish company, I think).

It's an interesting kit, with lots of products from Pink Paislee's Spring Jubilee, Amy Tangerine and Christy Tomlinson.  I fell in love with the Pink Paislee tags in the upper left corner and decided to make some of my own.

I grabbed some shipping tags and key envelopes; a couple of shadow stamps; "Vivid" inks in straw, spring green and turquoise; and an assortment of image stamps (Tim Holtz birds and butterflies, Stampin' Up camera and some miscellaneous Club Scrap ones) to create these (and the ones up top):

I'm really quite pleased with how they came out.  I'm going to use them in a travel journal I'm making for our trip this summer. Have I mentioned I'm going to teach at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland for three weeks in June (and plan to meet blog friend Sian while I'm there)?  We'll add another week onto the trip at the end -  Barcelona, Spain is the current, most likely additional locale (although we've also thought about Amsterdam, Holland).
Inspired by the Christy Tomlinson products in the original kit, I grabbed some Dina Wakley art journal girl stamps and made these, which might be used in either an upcoming Mail Art Exchange or an art journal:

This was a fast, fun project, and I love the results. Have you played along with CKC lately?

Vintage Photo Cards with my Counterfeit Kit

I'm always looking for good ideas for using my large collection of vintage photographs, and this month's Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Sketch seemed to me like it would work. The sketch came from the Unscripted Sketches Blog (Sketch #141):

What I found intriguing about the sketch is that it reminded me of many scrapbook layouts I see, but that I would never copy,  because they only use one photograph (I usually scrap 3-6 per page) and because I have trouble leaving that much white space (I know I'm supposed to "learn to love white space," but it's hard for me).

But I love, love, love how this sketch worked for making cards which featured my collection of heritage photographs and which used the counterfeit kit I put together for January. Have you ever used a scrapbook sketch for cards? Or vice-versa?

Ten on the Tenth: Twinchies

I used my January vintage counterfeit kit to create some twinchies (2x2 inch squares) for an art exchange hosted at the Gingersnap Challenge blog.  Got any favorites in this group? If you've never checked out the Gingersnap blog, you really should.  The artists over there are wonderful, and they host all kinds of fabulous challenges.  Today, being the tenth of the month, Shimelle hosts a ten on the tenth link-up. You click here to see what other ten on the tenth bloggers are up to.

Jan. Counterfeit Kit and OLW Check-in

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog has a wonderful selection of kits from Cocoa Daisy to counterfeit this month. They're all warm and vintagey - right up my alley!  I was inspired by both the sunshine and snowflakes kit:

and the amber snowflake kit:

to make my kit at the top of today's post. I wanted to keep it small and selected mainly 6x6 papers from my stash.  I'm going to use the kit to work on a variety of projects.  I want to enter the Gingersnap Creations Twinchie Art Exchange (vintage theme) and also create some altered wooden blocks, something like these made by Deb Turtle. I also used the kit to make the Tim Holtz birthday card I posted yesterday!
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In other news, I've been focusing on my one little word for 2012 ("Home") by starting a major cleaning and reorganization of my craft space (which also means reorganizing my clothes closet, since I store supplies in there). It will take me a while to complete, but this week I accomplished the following:
*Sorted through all my craft books, back issues of craft magazines and stamping catalogs. Gave away two books; recycled 24 old magazines and catalogs.
*Sorted through my scraps and threw away several pounds of scraps that were really too small to do much with and which just created clutter.
*Organized my jewelry (hint: old stampin' up stamp containers are a great way to store beaded necklaces because you see them but they're contained) and took six pieces of jewelry in for repair. I store my jewelry in my closet, too, so that's why it's part of this organization.
*Organized my bookshelf which holds crafting supplies, clearing enough space to store several albums on it, which meant that I could organize the upstairs bookshelves enough to hold all the other scrapbook albums.
*Created a system for storing my collage sheets and began to sort through and file my collection.
*Created a storage system for my pens, pastels, pencils and chalks. 
*Organized my clothes closet and purged it of all the clothes which I don't wear (I threw out one shopping bag of clothes which were unwearable and filled four other shopping bags with clothes to donate). Sorted through my clothes drawers while I was at it!
*Purged a very full, somewhat musty, old large rolling crop bag. I either moved the contents to a better storage system or threw them away.  Tossed the old bag, which was actually kindof smelly. Eeewww!
*Organized my photos to be scrapped (along with appropriate supplies) into three different utility bags: summer vacation 2011; sports photos 2010-11; miscellaneous 2011. It will make it easy to work on these when I get some scrapping time.
I still have a lot to do before the organization and purging is complete - dealing with my overflowing stamp collection is the biggest puzzle still to solve - but I feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm really, really happy with how it's going.  After I finish with my craft space, I have lots of other home projects to do - organizing/purging the front closet; organizing/cleaning the laundry room; organizing the kids' closets; clearing out the back yard; etc. etc.  I'm hoping to post an update on my blog now and again to track my progress, so I remember how much I've accomplished.  Are you doing anything special to track progress on your one little word?

Fun with Tags

I had a long day today and wanted to have a bit of creative fun to take the edge off the day.  So, I pulled out the counterfeit kit I made yesterday and decided to make some tags that I could use on my vacation pages.  I thought it would be a good way to use up some of the decorative brads I had and create some easy embellishments to go with pages about gardens, English countryside, villages, Cambridge and London.  I made five sets of three tags each, and I really like them!
What do you do when you just have a bit of time and want to be creative?
























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Today  I am grateful for: pretty paper and sparkly embellishments.

Counterfeit Kit: November

I haven't played along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge in a while, but since I've been back in the scrapping mood, I decided to put together a kit for November.  I plan to use it to scrap some more of my vacation pictures from our trip to England.  I started with the "reveal" from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog, here.:

It's the Autumn Splendor kit from Scraptastic.  I selected a variety of card stock in blues, greens, maroons and browns. The patterns tend toward florals because I'll be doing lots of gardens and countryside:

I added tags, journaling spots and alphas in coordinating colors:

And ribbon, brads and embellies in a travel theme:

I ended up really excited with my kit, and I wish I could just sneak away for a weekend with my kit, my photos, my trimmer and adhesive to see how far I can get.
And, if you're looking for some inspiration, check out the "tag you're it" challenge which the CKC blog just posted here.  It's what really pushed me over the edge to pull together a kit. 
Do you have any inspiring links to share?

Scrapping with Kits and Collections

One of the recent prompts in Shimelle's current "Pretty Paper Party" is about putting together a kit or collection of patterned paper and then using it to create layouts.  This approach makes some people, like my blog friend Jacky, very nervous. For me, this is second nature. I've been playing along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog for quite a while, and they do this exercise every month.  In fact, all the layouts I've been working on the last few days come from this kit, which I put together in response to a CKC prompt, to scrap my vacation pictures:

You can read more about the process at this link.  I did add a few papers and embellishments that I found later and which were travel-related and themed for Washington state (yeah, I know the picture is upside down, but I can't help it!):

Check out yesterday's layouts (and today's and the next few days to see the collection in action).  
I'm also quite comfortable creating blank layouts and filling them in later, like this:

Or this:

Or this:

So, are you more like Jacky? Or more like me? If you're intrigued by the idea, I would definitely recommend checking out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog and seeing other examples.

Six Quick Scrapbook Pages

Tonight, I made six quick scrapbook pages.  The one above features photographs from Sudeley Gardens. Sorry about the quality of the picture, but it's dark here.  The next pages are from Cambridge:

The last one still needs journaling, but I'm going to wait until I do the rest of my Cambridge pictures, so I know what still needs to be included.  I did all these pages in less than an hour. How did I do it?  Well, remember these? If you click on this link, you will see three blank layouts I made with my June counterfeit kit. I know many people find it hard to believe that blank layouts will work for them, but for me, they're great. You can click on any of them to see them in more detail.  What do you think?

Sympathy & Thank You Cards: Counterfeit Kit Challenge

When putting together my July Counterfeit Kit, I made a card kit add-on because I knew I was going to make some cards for a card swap. I chose to feature the Michael Strong Whirl-a-gig collection from Club Scrap, but only used the blues, whites and yellows in my main kit. So, I put the coral papers in my card kit add-on, along with some other papers, flowers, ribbons and buttons:

I like to keep Sympathy cards fairly simple, and I like the ones I made. I hope the coral isn't too cheery/bright for the sentiment. What do you think?

I also made some thank-you cards, which I think worked just fine with the color palette (although the light coral/pink paper doesn't scan very well). It's been a while since I participated in a card swap. For this one, I'm sending in four thank-you cards and getting four different thank-you cards back. Same thing with the four sympathy cards.  I used to participate in them all the time but got burnt out on them.
What about you? Do you do card swaps?

Stamped Tags: Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog

How simply wonderful and easy is this idea?  In this month's Counterfeit Kit (from Polka Dot Whimsy), there were some stamped tags. So, when putting together my kit, I pulled an assortment of blank tags. Yesterday I pulled out some stamps appropriate for use with our upcoming kayak vacation in the San Juan Islands and made these embellishments. Super simple, and I love them. Apparently, there's no need to buy "adventure" or "outdoor embellishments" because I have so much stuff already. What kind of home made embellishments can you make with your stash?

July Counterfeit Kit

It's time for July's Counterfeit Kit Challenge at the CKC Blog.  I always strive to create a kit that I will use - I love to use the challenge as a way to re-examine my stash, get paper out of storage and into my scrapbook or other paper projects. So, I chose papers that I could use to create layouts for our August trip to Seattle, Washington and the nearby San Juan Islands where we will kayak with orcas. I derived my inspiration from this kit from Polka Dot Whimsy:

When I looked at the inspiration kit, I saw lots of small patterns, especially polka-dots, and the colors of yellow, red, black, and white, with blue accents. I chose a large group of papers from the Michael Strong Spring Fling Whirl-a-gig collection from Club Scrap. They have lots of circular patterns. I added some black papers with circular patterns and travel papers. I tossed in kraft cardstock as well, as I thought it would work well to bring things together.

The inspiration kit had lots of embellishments, especially ribbons and fibers, so I put in a lot of those. I included travel stickers, tags and several journaling blocks. The Michael Strong collection also had an orangey pattern in it. I used that and added more ribbon and flowers (to track the inspiration kit) to make a card add-on kit, since I signed up for a card swap recently and know I'll get a chance to use it.:

The best thing for me about the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is that it forces me gives me the opportunity to look through my papers and see them in a new way.
Thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow, I'll be announcing the recipient of the Pass the Book and look for something very exciting on Monday!

Challenge Cards

The Stampotique Design Challenge Blog is having a "use your scraps" blog hop and challenge right now. So, I grabbed the scraps from my June Counterfeit Kit and made this hexagonal card with one of my favorite Stampotique stamps. As much as I'm captivated by this image, I have to admit that I have had some trouble figuring out how to use it So, I was really happy when I saw how well it went with this patterned paper!
I was inspired to make a hexagonal card because Mini Challenge #3 at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog is to create a card or layout that is NOT a rectangle or square. I made this card as well:

I have one more project from my June counterfeit kit which I'll post for their blog hop later this month. But, for now, the kit is done! I just have a few itty bitty scraps left. It's so much fun to be using up my stash. Can hardly wait for the July kit. It was fun to make a non-square/rectangle card. Why don't you give it a try?