Kilimanjaro Safari - Animal Kingdom

When I first subscribed to a major kit club I tried to keep the kits separated each month.  But the colours of the kits were often far to muted for me and now I have broken them all down and they feature prominently in my Counterfeit Kits along with my own purchases!  But here are two I created while they were still stored as monthly kits, all I added was an old page from a book that I had been hoarding! 

Kilimanjaro Safaris

I do still love this picture from an old book even if the layout isn't speaking to me.  I also used words from the book page to decorate the layout.




While most of the patterned papers were more muted, when a colourful page was added it was either BRIGHT, BRIGHT, BRIGHT or BUSY, BUSY, BUSY!  As you can see by the ones featured below.

Wildlife Express

Looking back at these layouts I am so glad that I stopped trying to use my kits as a whole kit and have broken them all down.  Added in with my own choices I end up with layouts that are more 'me'.  I do love the stamps I collected during my subscription and once I decided that the kits weren't for me I was guilty of choosing my add-on purely based on the stamp!

I think I will happily continue counterfeiting for awhile and resist the urge to look at kit clubs.  I have too much stuff anyway!  Although I have seen a few good ones recently ...  :D

Chipper

CSI - Case File 74

I enjoyed my first CSI - Colour, Stories, Inspiration challenge so much that I decided to give Case File 74 a try.  The colours were definitely NOT me (again!) but I did find some OLD papers in my stash to match it.  The Basic Grey was still single sided and the Prima was old IOD, it is a good thing I still liked them!

Here is the case file ...

The very light colour is actually pale pink and not white like it appears on some computer screens.  The CSI site gives a description of each colour to help with those sorts of issues.  I only used the yellow in the flower center and a few random gems.

Splash of Fun at Disney's Animal Kimgdom

I used all five colours in the scheme along with metal, flowers, leaves, and cabochon from the Evidence.  I seem to be having a problem with the Testimony part as I like to write what I want and not follow 'rules' that don't suit my photo.  But as I am only doing these for the colour challenge I suppose it doesn't really matter :-)

If you are wondering why I am suddenly back to more regular crafting it isn't just to do with things calming down around here.  No, I moved my craft room and I am loving it!!!  I am still tweaking it and trying to sort it all out but it suits my personality.  I will take some photos today and maybe share it with you all next week.  The other reason, Thursday and Friday are my 'try to take off' days as I work all weekend, so you could also say that I now get a 'weekend' like a normal person. :)

Chipper

Shimelle's Starting Point

I did a nice quick layout for Shimelle's starting point this week.  Used up some scraps on my desk and one of the NEW pieces of Basic Grey from my prize :-)  This was the starting point which you can make using any papers you have.

I used a photo from our Florida trip and created this.

Basic Grey 'Picadilly'

I used my trusty old Cuttlebug and a few new embossing folders (I think I have a folder addiction as I brought home 7 more today!) along with a few scraps, some crackle paint and two pieces of card!!  Too easy :-)

Another photo for the album done!!! Thanks Shimelle for this great starting point.

Chipper

Add to the story challenge

Since we got a digital camera we seem to take oodles and oodles of photos.  I am sure you do too.  If I was to turn them all into "masterpieces" I would be here all day everyday and never be out there living life.  But I like to have ALL of the photos in my album because after all they each add something to the story.  So I have started using the American Crafts 10x12 divided page protectors.  They make adding more photos in both directions easy as they hold three landscape and two portrait photos on each side.

You may remember this layout here ..

Well we took so many photos from the rain forrest cafe that I have added them in a 10x12 protector in co-ordinating colours.  Most of them were poor quality photos as the restaurant was so dark.  You can just see the next page peeking out from the album.  (sorry but all natural light has gone now. I'm sure you know how it is ... rented house, power saving light bulbs! LOL)

The next page in the album was this one ...

So I added more photos and made this side in the same greens and browns.  The original two pages didn't really go together but now the whole thing flows.  I really like the way this has linked the two pages.  This side even features a flower stuck to the outside of the page protector along with a funny monkey sticker!

The next two pages in the album are also from the same place and I have written out the whole story in length and put it in a 6x12 protector.  But that story is just for us :-)  One more post for now on a different topic and then I am off to work on more challenges.

Chipper

I had fun this week ...

This is the quiet part of my fortnight for blogging.  A midnight crop, lots of work and more wedding invites has meant that I have not been near my computer for two days.  But I did find time to create :-)  I feel much better after my cathartic release of earlier today and am ready to share with you two layouts I did this week in a few stolen moments.  As I scrap and play mostly at night, you will have to forgive the photo quality.  It seems to be a world wide fact that there is NO natural daylight at night time ... quite rude actually as that is when I craft! LOL

I am still working through our Disney trip and will probably be doing those photos until I am old and grey.  I was reading a local craft magazine this week and one of the articles was about using your punches on layouts.  A friend and I were discussing this and although she often used her border punches, I seem to forget that I have them!  So I challenged myself to use at least three in a layout, just because I could.  Here is the final result ...

Old Prima IOD papers

This was another Rainforest Cafe photo and this layout asks The Princess "Why do you always order mac & cheese?".  For some reason The Princess almost always ordered mac & cheese for every meal!  But she enjoyed the novelty and got to sample some of the best in Florida!  I used FOUR border lunches, a decorative cutting blade, my Cricut, AND my cuttllebug all in this layout!  True to using up all my old papers, this was made with some very old Prima papers back when they were Iron Orchid Designs, but I did combine them with new Prima flowers and a few roses.

I also made an accompanying 6x12 page that contains the story of that cafe.  The 6x12 side laying next to this page is similar to this, and the other side is very 'boy' as it celebrates The Thinker's love of RIBS!

This week I finished the LAST Rainforest Cafe photo.  It was a group table shot and I really wanted to have some sort of leaf foilage in it to reflect the ceiling of the cafe.  I brought home a new Craft Concepts leaf embossing folder and started with that.  I also had lots of fun with my sewing machine on the page. (I really enjoyed this week of crafting, can you tell?)

Basic Grey 'Urban Prairie'

I have still to unpack the bobbins for my sewing machine and it is currently threaded with black.  Luckily that was the colour I wanted (I really must find those bobbins!).  I used a fancy  stitch for the outside and a regular straight stitch for the leaf motif.  I should have gone over the leaves a few times to make them stand out more, but I fixed that with a bit of green marker.

The embossed leaves were put through the cuttlebug and then I inked with Distress Ink 'peeled paint' to darken the raised parts.  I then cut out random clusters and leaves to use on my page.  I rather like the effect.  The story is told in detail later on, but I wanted to highlight our favourite part of this dining experience on this page.  I put the white letter stickers I wanted onto my teflon mat and then inked them all with the same Distress Ink to make them green.  Then I placed them on my layout to spell out a sentence.  I also did that for my title and combined it with felt Thickers.

I had so much fun with this page and it really reflects the fun we had at the restaurant.  The best part of the meal were the 'thunderstorms'.  Every 22min the place came alive with flickering lights, thunder and crazy animals.  The noise was deafening and the kids loved every minute of it.  This restaurant was a wonderful place to cool off after a VERY hot morning at The Animal Kingdom.  I would recommend it as a must have experience no matter where you live (there is also one in London).

This is my favourite page so far and I really have no idea why!

Happy Creating
Chipper  :-)

Dance like no one is watching ...

The Extrovert loves to pose.  Ask for a photo and out will pop a crazy pose, but always with his eyes closed!  The pose in this picture was one of his favourites on this trip and appears in more than one photo.  He is who he is, and we love him for it.  My inspiration for this layout was Shimelle's sketch for this week.

It was too square for my photo so I changed the embellishments to be circles as The Extrovert doesn't fit into a box, he is the round peg that will NEVER be square!

The best part about sketches is that they are so easily adapted, and Shimelle's always have plenty of scope for your imagination.  So here is my version of the sketch featuring The Extrovert outside the Rainforest Cafe in Disney Studios!

Basic Grey 'Dasher' papers

I used some old Basic Grey papers on this one.  It was a Christmas range, but only the colours said Christmas and red and green were perfect for this photo.  Parts of the circle paper were a bit too white for this layout so I inked bits and embossed with silver on random circles.  It helped give it a more masculine effect.

Instead of adding additional smaller photos I made one of the spaces an embellishment and the other is my journaling.  I wanted more of the silver to come through the layout so I embossed the edges of one of the layers.  I also did this to the red background piece.  I LOVE to emboss! Bits of wire finish off the tag.

The silver lacey strip was actually a cheap white gel sticker.  I alcohol inked it and now it looks expensive.  Isn't it wonderful to be able to change things!  I cut up old Prima 'Say it with studs' swirls and put the larger one at the bottom and a small one at the top to help balance it out.  The title is chipboard cut on my Cuttlebug using 'Hippie Chick'.

I knew the quote I wanted to use but couldn't remember it.  So I googled "dance like no one is watching" and up it popped.  I didn't know that it was a quote from Mark Twain but it summed up my feelings perfectly.  I printed it on a scrap of Bazzill.  Just a hint on using your scraps to print on.  First print it out on a regular sheet of printer paper.  Then take your scrap and stick it right on top of the printed design using double sided tape along the leading edge.  Then run it back through the printer and print it again.  The design will now print on your scrap!

I scrapped this layout years after the event and I wanted to leave my son a note from me.  It is actually under the jounaling block and becomes visible when you swivel the circle.  I signed and dated it so he will always know when I wrote it.  Looking back at photos always makes you think of other things to say.  I think that is why we should go back and scrap older photos again, but with a new take on them.  As we reflect back on things our point of view often changes.

Have a great week,
Chipper