Happy Hoppy

Welcome to the start of the May Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Members' Blog Hop (or CKCBMBH for short)!  Today we are sharing our takes on the masking challenge.  I made a page for this challenge earlier in the month with my May Counterfeit Kit and today I am sharing a couple of cards made with the a simple masking technique:

Happy Birthday Mum ♥

I was inspired by some cards I spotted over at the blog of my fellow Master Forger, Milissa, and just had to have a go with my circle punches and mini alphabet stamps.  The photo doesn't show it brilliantly, but two of the circles are raised up on foam dots and two are inked through the "waste" from the punched circles.

Happy Anniversary Hubby ♥

The next stop on the hop is Dawn, but if get lost the full blog hop list is published on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog where you can also find details of how to apply to be on the team of Master Forgers - the deadline is May 30th.

Shout Out!

Just a quick post to let you know that next month there will be a special prize sponsor over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog: Little Blue Button Stamps

Their DT are helping us with a special mid-month Blog Hop on June 12th! I hope you'll be joining us - the new kit-to-copy will be announced on June 1st as normal.  Are you still scrapping with your May Counterfeit Kit?  Don't forget that every link up here gives you a chance of a prize this month!

And please don't forget that the deadline for applications to join our team of Master Forgers closes on May 30th - we're a friendly lot, why not give it a go?!

Kitchen Pool

Not much scrap happening here I'm afraid - partly because I've been playing pool with No.1 Son!

Our visit to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was favoured with warm-ish, sunny weather and we were taken to see the "Shoe Trees" in a nearby park.

Apparently the tradition of throwing shoes up into the branches started in 1627 when the Heaton Sheriff wanted to celebrate the birth of his grandson. Nowadays, so many people throw celebratory shoes that there has to be an annual "harvest".

We also managed to see the centre of Newcastle at night; the Millenium Bridge was spectacular:

 I'm back home again now and hopefully there will be some scrapping to share soon :-)

Masked Mayhem

Now Challenge #1 this month over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog was a real challenge for me: I don't like messy scrapping!  The lack of control with splattering paint or ink around leaves me uncomfortable, but a challenge is meant to be challenging so I got stuck in anyway!  I dug out some masks and a friend's spray inks and got busy ... and then threw away all of those experiments as they really didn't work with the photos I wanted to scrap with!  Instead, out came some star punches, some scrap card and one of the offcuts from my May Counterfeit Kit.

The bright white contrast was removed from my black & white paper with shots of blue and red mists.  I then laid the stars, punched from the scrap card, out along the top and bottom of my base cardstock and sprayed over them with a blue shimmer spray.  The idea had been to leave star shapes visible, but the effect was very subtle.  After leaving the paper to dry flat under some weights (another reason I'm not happy with messy scrapping is that I'm slow enough without drying/flattening time) I decided something else was needed!

So I laid out some of my title alphas (American Crafts Dear Lizzy glitter thickers) and sprayed lightly over them before repeating the process around the base cardstock. Much happier with that effect - still subtle, but in a good way.  The punched stars didn't go to waste though - I added them on top!

This challenge will be used for the CKCB Members' Blog Hop later in the month - why not sign up here and have a go!

Counterfeiter's Crime Scene

Welcome to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog's NSD Scene Of The Crime hop around the Master Forgers' crafty spaces.  It started here with Sherrie and you should have reached me from Angela.

So here it is: my "official" scrapping space - one end of our family room in all its glory.  I have a desk, a chair and some storage space along with a daylight lamp for evening crafting.  I wonder just how many scrappers use IKEA Expedit furniture?!?!?

I say "official" because I often spread to the dining table as there's more space and I'm nearer to Hubby and we can chat while I scrap.  The rolling tool box in the foreground is my crop box and a lot of my supplies live in there permanently so that I can grab and go!  As you can see I did NOT tidy up before taking the photo ... too busy scrapping this page! 

Now it's time to take a look at Jennifer's place.  Hopefully a little more organised than me (especially as she hosted an Organisation Weekend not so long ago)!

Counterfeiting May Seriously Damage Your Pile Of Scraps!

Welcome to another month of kit counterfeiting with the Counterfeit kit Challenge Blog.  This month we are welcoming Sherrie as our guest designer to start off the counterfeiting and if you hopped here via Angela you will already know that the luscious kit-to-copy this month is Polly! Scraps March Kit Shoreline.  Lots of primary colours mixed with white, some funky buttons, envelopes and trims ...

Now, I haven't been making a huge dent in my kits recently as scrapping time has been diverted elsewhere, so this month I decide to base a lightweight kit around papers from my scraps bags alone.

Hmmm! Not one single complete sheet of patterned paper; just scraps of various sizes!  Which makes it quite hard to type up a list of contents as most of the manufacturer's strips are long gone :-)

Yellows: MME Be Amazing, EP Adventurer, LBD Lemonade, Bazzill Swiss Dot Cardstock, EP Sunshine
Reds: Daisy D's red dot, Kaisercraft Silly Season, EP Rambunctious, Sandylion My Heart Beats For You
Blues: Portobello Road Polka Dot Blue, Kaisercraft Loire Valley
Blacks: Sandylion U Gimme Butterflies, DCWV Black & White Prints

Various trims from my stash
Sandylion Red & Yellow Disney Alphas
Mrs Grossman's Vellum Edge stickers
Various journalling spots including Jenni Bowlin shaped journalling spots
Hand-coloured home-made buttons (check the CKCB on May 8th for lots of counterfeiting tutorials).
Cardstock will be added from my stash as required.  It will be interesting to see how far I can stretch the kit and whether the fact that the papers are already cut up will help or hinder creativity.

Now please hop over to Jennifer to see what she's put together from Polly! Scraps inspiration kit.

P.S. There's a call out for new Master Forgers over at the CKCB - if you love counterfeiting why not apply?! The deadline is May 30th!

Passing The Page With JSquared #2

My lovely friend Julie (aka JSquared) is celebrating her 2nd Blogiversary today and is marking it with a Pass the Page. She collected a baker's dozen of us together to each scraplift a page in turn. The person before me in the chain was my very good friend Ruth (if she sent you here then you're on track, if not, you might like to start at the beginning with Julie here). Ruth is currently scrapping photos from her visit to the Harry Potter Studios so it seemed extra appropriate for me to use her page as inspiration for a photo of another magical place (as well a gears & cogs cut from her dies at our Bloggers' Retreat).

Journalling on the "this is life" tag tells the story of how our early morning plans to ride the Tower of Terror resulted in Child No.3 feeling violently "unwell" at MGM Studios.  Luckily, Disney have a great health centre and she was able to recover there for a couple of hours in a darkened room with me while the men-folk carried on enjoying the rides.  By mid-day she had recovered and was adamant that the Ice Cream Social at Epcot was next on the agenda!! The back of the tag has photo-proof that a couple of hours sick bay sleep worked their magic and Child No.3 was back to "normal"!

Can you see the resemblance to Ruths's page? I kept the large single photo, corner embellishments and the horizontal strip.  I replaced the subtle checked paper with vellum and switched the journalling for my title.  All supplies are from my March Counterfeit Kit.

I wonder what elements were kept or discarded when Kirsty scraplifted my page? Before you pop over to see, you should know that there is a prize available on this Pass the Page hop, all you have to do is comment (here, there and everywhere)!