Using Negative Space: CKC October Mini Challenge #3

Just a quick post today for this week's Counterfeit Kit Challenge  - to use negative space on a project.

I picked up some Smash tape and wanted to use it right away, so I added it into my kit for this last project of the month. I've resisted the whole washi-tape craze for the most part, but this roll seemed so smart. With short little pieces of different patterns, it's like getting several rolls in one!

I just cut out a part of my title from the background page, and added strips of the tape to show through.  It added some color to the otherwise toned-down colors on the page.

Be sure to link your own challenge projects to the Mr. Linky page before the end of the month.

Author Talk - September CKC Challenge #2

This week's mini-challenge for the Counterfeit Kit is to find inspiration from a TV/book character.  If you're in a hurry, scroll to the end of this post for my actual project.  But if you have a couple of minutes for me to wander through the backstory, then read on!

My inspiration came not from a character but an author. Last month I had the chance to see and hear one of my favorites, Debbie Macomber.  As soon as I saw the challenge, I knew I needed to work on this topic.


Now, admitting this fact means you all now know my secret: I have a 60 year old woman trapped in my body.  At least that was the vast majority of the audience at her event. Crystal noted that they all had the same haircut, too, which apparently means I have a short haircut in my near future, too? I don't know.  All I know is that we were well below the age curve and above the hair length curve for the room.

If you haven't ever heard of Debbie, here is her website, where you can read about her books.  I don't know what you call that genre - ultra-light feel-good drama is what I call it in my head. I mean the following as a compliment to the writer and my fellow audience members: It's simple reading. And that's exactly what I want and need sometimes.  I chew through those books really quickly, and that's why I love them. I can get lost in those stories of small towns, charmed lives and interwoven personal stories, and I can do it within a few hours. I can't get enough of them!

I loved her Cedar Cove series, and I just read the first book of her new series, which is set in the same town.  She has had some books turned into Lifetime TV movies, and this year I learned that there will be a TV movie based on the Cedar Cove stories.  I'm hoping that opportunity turns into a series. It is supposed to star Andie MacDowell - who, speaking of characters, was a character in my favorite growing up movies, St. Elmo's Fire:

OK back on track.  So, Debbie came to Columbus, and her remarks were so funny! I had no idea what kind of talk she would give - I thought maybe some writing process, some knitting talk, maybe about the new movie or the new book.  I had no idea she would be so funny.  She wove together lots of stories about her life and experiences, and Crystal and I still talk about how much we laughed that evening.  She was inspirational and just really fun to listen to.  Last year I went with Crystal to meet her favorite author, Tess Gerritsen (she writes the books that spawned the Rizzoli and Isles TV show), so she came with me to see Debbie.  Around our house that's called "being a trooper," but I'm glad it ended up being a very nice weeknight date.

Starting the evening at Cap City Diner for dinner probably didn't hurt the mood, either.
Seriously, 3 layers of cake?! That's just crazy :).

I have mentioned that I started a project life-type album, haven't I?  I started in July, and I know I meant to post a lot more about it by now, but I've gotten off to a slow start.  I used lower case "p" and "l" on purpose; My project is the same idea as all the other Becky Higgins - inspired projects, except I'm not really using her materials, and I'm using a 6x8 album.  So I feel kind of funny calling it a Project Life album. 

Anyway, I don't have a lot of weeks ready to show (and honestly, some of them are pretty unremarkable and may never see the light of day here), but this challenge made me get busy and get the week that included Debbie Macomber completed.  So here it is, using a bit of my September kit:

Most of my photos at the event did not turn out - it was a dim auditorium, and neither my phone camera or regular camera came out with anything good.  So I turned to these pictures on the Thurber House Facebook page and used the photos they posted there.  Photo credit is given to Leslie Miller.

Page 3 of 4 for the week: I needed a folder to hold some papers for the week, so I printed this photo collage for the back of the folder. I wrote directly on the plastic with a Slick Writer pen. It doesn't look very clear in the picture, but it does look good in real life and is easy to read, even with the black photo border behind it. 

Page 4 of 4 for the week: I found a way to use some of my puffy stickers from my kit. A slick writer works for smudge-free writing on top of the sticker. 

I had more to say for this week that most weeks, so I used a little extra space for writing. 
Most weeks are a lot easier to fit within my little pages.



Page 1 of 4 for this week.  Did I mention I met Barack Obama?! And by "met" I mean "took his picture through a window upstairs while he shook hands with people downstairs." Very exciting, though - and I think that's the closest I've been to a President or presidential candidate.  I had to blow up the picture to be able to see him, so I had a lot of "junk space" on the photo. So I tried to fill it with the date stamps, some rubons, and other stamping mess.



Page 2 of 4: I got this photo of Barack Obama spelling O-H-I-O from one of the students involved.  It was so fun to see this picture tweeted by the White House and realize, "wait, I know those people!"  I love to see our students get those opportunities for memories.  This collage is inside the front of the plastic folder.

One final note about my project: I really don't want it to replace my 12x12 scrapping with these pages.  I can see how it might turn that direction, but I'm going to keep doing full pages for some of the day to day stuff of life. I always have. It's one of the reasons I chose the 6x8 size, so I don't get too comfortable with just doing these project pages.  I just want a little something extra to capture the few months before and after my 40th birthday. 

And finally, please add your own challenge submissions and other kit projects to the Counterfeit Kit linky page here.  I love seeing everyone's great work, and adding a link is the best way for all of us to find your pictures and posts.  So, link away!

***And thanks for making it through a looooong post this week!***

A Little of This.....A Little of That.....

The first Counterfeit Kit challenge of the month is something I'm sure everyone needs a nudge to do: Use something old!

I didn't have to dig very hard to find some oldies but goodies in my own stash.

Eyelets! I haven't crunched an eyelet in a long time. While the two I used here won't put much of a dent
in the stash, it was a good reminder to get them out and put a few on some upcoming pages.  I'll also
use more of them for my star banner from my kit this month.

I used several Jillibean Soup cut outs. They're not that old, but I did get a bunch of
these sheets at the warehouse sale earlier this year.  I needed to get some of those
pieces onto a page, so I was glad to have a place to use them here.

When I put my kit together, I didn't realize how much grey I had within it.  Between the
B-sides of some paper and some of the small elements, I had quite a few little pieces
in shades of grey, and that was perfect to go around my shadow picture, I think.

Now check out the other Master Forger examples today and be sure to link your own challenge projects to this month's  Mr. Linky. Thanks for looking!

September Counterfeit Kit

I think the only fair name for my kit this month is "No Frills."

It was bound to happen eventually......I've run into an inspiration kit that's full of great stuff, but I had a really hard time translating it to all the supplies on my shelves.  Combine that issue with my desire to put something together that was manageable for the realities of my output (that's a nice way of saying I know I'm not very productive right now!), I present No Frills:

I started with the dot paper in the inspiration kit and found a similar piece, with different colors, from AC Chap. From there I just looked for other stuff within those colors. 

Added some trim, some twine, and some leftover cutouts and speech bubbles, and I'm calling it good.

The inspiration kit has those cute canvas banner pieces. I didn't have banner pieces, but I did have a sheet of
canvas stars and some eyelets. Put them together, and I think I see a star banner in my future :). I didn't
add all the eyelets yet, in case I want to use a different color.

The inspiration kit also had that cute puffy alpha. I didn't have any alphas like that, but I did find this reeeeaaaallllyyy
old sheet of puffy tag shapes.  I'm going to see if I can find a way to use these stickers this month.

So, the added twist for our kits this month was to add 3 counterfeits inspired by the recent CHA releases.  I am almost embarrassed to show my first two counterfeits because they're not really counterfeit creations, just counterfeit substitutions.  But they're definitely things I can't wait to actually get my hands on.

The Studio Calico Handbook lines and the Simple Stories Snap collections both include albums and coordinating pieces in a 6x8 size.  I am super excited for these releases, because I had already started my new Project Life project on July 1 in a 6x8 album.  It was just perfect timing to see all these new pieces and page protectors, which will give me some options to use the popular journal card sizes while still keeping my pint-sized project size.

The picture below shows my two easy substitutions. One, my album, which is the same album I used for my December Daily, is a stamp binder from Hobby Lobby.  Now that the other albums are available, maybe I'll try them, but honestly, I'm really happy with this option. They look similar to WRMK albums, so they look nice on a shelf, and they have a very big 2.5" d-ring, so it holds tons of pages.

The other stuff in the picture is my second substitution. I found one of the first Snap items, these 6x8 page dividers for the Take a Hike line. They are really just pre-decorated 6 3/4 x 8 3/8 sheets of cardstock.  I looked around and thought, duh, I can do that!  So I went through my scrap bin and made lots of options to use in my book.  The bonus: I can 3-hole punch them like I need for my binder.  And I can decorate the dividers as needed along the way.



Do you see that post-it note that says "Romney the dog?" Sorry, I didn't realize that little
reminder note was sticking out there.  I need to get a photo developed of our vacation-
packed car, where Junior's crate was wedged between suitcases and bags. We joked
that we might have to tie him to the roof, which led to the "Romney the dog" jokes.
Nothing political, just a little inside (or, really, outside) joke around our house!!!haha

I'm going to save my 3rd counterfeit item for later this month. I wasn't happy with how it turned out, so I need to make some adjustments.

And that's all, folks.  I'm hoping this month can be more productive than last month - there's really nowhere to go but up, I guess!  Hope you have your own productive month and choose to play along with the Counterfeit Kit challenges. 

If you're hopping, your next stop is Susanne, who always has such a great take on our kits. And you can always start from the beginning on the CKC blog. Thanks for stopping!