September Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge

Welcome to the September Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop Challenge! If you are hopping, you should have arrived here from Angela's blog. If you'd like to start at the beginning, head back to the Counterfeit Kit Blog. This month we have been focusing on stamping. The blog hop challenge was to use a stamping technique to create a project. I had a bunch of Stampin Up technique books and so I decided to use those for inspiration.

Technique #1: Repetition. It's super easy - just stamp your stamp image and then restamp the image one or more times without re-inking. I love this look! You can see I've done this with the HAPPY stamp on the chipboard embellishment.

Technique #2: Two-Step Stampin. For this technique you simply stamp your images as normal. Then stamp the same image on a different piece of paper. Cut out the second image and overlay it on top of the original set of images. I did a slight variation of this with my title letters. (I left out the apostrophe in man's).

And I guess you could say I did a third technique - stamping on buttons! This was one of the other challenges this month. I used an animal paw print and stamped two buttons in the top right corner. Stamping on buttons is fun and addicting!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have fun playing around with your stamps. Next up is Milissa's blog.

Nautical Baby Shower

My nephew's baby shower was a blast! The sailboats and whales were just too cute. My banner fit perfectly above the dessert table. And the diaper cake managed to stay in one piece. I'm in the process of working on completing the guest scrapbook. I had everyone sign a onesie cut-out and took their picture in front of a large sheet of nautical fabric (which I called the photo booth). Now I've got to match photos and comments together. My goal is to bring it to the hospital for mom the day of his birth.

Double Take: Big Picture Classes

What do you do when you have a serious fear of double page layouts? You sign up to take a class focused only on creating double pages - of course!! When my favorite Big Picture Classes teacher, the fabulous May Flaum, announced that her next class was all about double page layouts, I admit, I thought maybe this would be the one class I didn't take. I don't know what it is about them. Maybe I've just fallen in love with the beautiful simplicity of single 4x6 photo. However, life is about trying new things and if you don't open a window and stick your head outside to get some fresh air, your life is going to get stuffy and uncomfortable pretty fast. So I took a chance and enrolled.

The class is called Double Take: Double the Layouts and Sketches. The coolest part is it you get double everything including double teachers - May is teaming up with Nic Howard and each week you get a handout with four double paged sketches and examples from both Nic and May. Ridiculous amounts of inspiration. There are two things I love most about the format of Big Picture Classes. 1. The wonderful community of each class. The message boards are filled with encouragement and talented folks from around the globe. And 2. The approachability of the teachers who are willing to answer questions about anything. If you want to join in on the fun, registration is open until 9/28 so there is still time.

Today is the first day of class and somehow I managed to put together my first layout in only 1 hr 18 min which is a personal best for me - and its a double pager! I chose to start with an easier sketch and will work my way up to more difficult ones.. baby steps. I'd like to walk away feeling like I can whip up a double anytime I want!

September Counterfit Kit Challenge #1

The Counterfeit Kit Club is focusing on stamps this month. I. Love. Stamps! The first challenge was to create your own background paper using stamps. I tend to use plain solid backgrounds, but my kit this month was filled with crazy patterns. So I opted to use a pattern sheet and then did a more subtle secondary paper using a word stamp -"favorites". I used this on the paper and also on the chip board frame that I filled with journaling. I also stamped the "pizza" title. Creating this layout made me very hungry - now I've got to go find a snack!

Baby Closet Hangers

Baby Cards

Safari Hangers

Transportation Hangers

This is one of my all time favorite Cricut projects. There is a door hanger template on the "My Community" cartridge and the possibilities for what you can do with it are endless. The idea of the baby closet hangers was something I had seen on the discussion boards a while back. This year I've got so many baby showers and I wanted to surprise my friends with something special. The first set of hangers is for my friend who is not finding out the sex of the baby and is going with a safari theme. The second set is for my soon to be nephew!! He is getting a sailboat themed shower/room and I expanded his set to be about transportation. Each set will come with a matching shower card.

September Counterfit Kit Challenge

Sweet Peach Kit
My Counterfeit Kit

The chilly, wet air has settled in. As I write this, I'm wearing a sweatshirt and slippers, gripping a cup of tea for warmth. How can September be well under way? How did it get so cold so fast? Luckily its time for the new Counterfeit Kit to distract me from the weather. The kit this month was from Sweet Peach Crop Shop. There were two kits to choose from. The first kit was all Sassafrass Indie Girl - I already own the whole kit and didn't want to go that direction. The "Juicy Kit" was calling my name. Lots of browns and greens with black and white mixed in. I've got a lot of cards I need to make this month and I think these papers will get the job done nicely. I've got a few stamp sets and some calendar cards. Can't wait to see what challenges there are this month.

Happy 2nd Birthday Banner

Earlier in the month I shared my paper haul from Scrapbook.com. I purchased all of this gorgeous paper to make a fun owl-themed birthday banner for my favorite 2 year old girl. Here is a picture of the final banner. These are a labor of love, but well worth the time and it gets easier each year (mostly thanks to my Gypsy!). This will be my birthday tradition for her. Her cake was super adorable and delicious. It was a very fun party! I'm hoping her mom sends me the pictures she took with her camera - which is much much nicer than my little Elph.

August Counterfeit Kit Layout & Card

With the long weekend, I've had a bit more time to work on projects. I actually have a list of a dozen things I need to complete before October. It is going to be a busy month.
Here are two additional projects made with my August Counterfeit Kit. The first one is a simple Happy Birthday card using paper and stamps from the "Birthday" add-on kit. The second is a layout of my adorable niece. There was a sketch in the Oct. Scrapbooks Etc. issue that inspired this layout. Looking forward to Monday and the new September Kit!