Monday, 24 August 2015

My Reveal for Counterfeit Kit Challenge DT Call!

Hi! In today's post I'm doing something I haven't done before, and that is making up a kit for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge! Have you heard of this fun challenge? The idea is to be inspired by a given kit from existing kit clubs, and put together a Counterfeit version from your own stash.



Then there are three challenges every month that you can join, using the kits you have made. My post today has a different purpose, though: I'm applying for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge DT and in this post I present my kit, together with a challenge for how to use those papers!

The kit I was given to forge is Basic Grey's Second City by Kelly Purkey. It's a mostly paper kit, so I was given a list a some other items to include in my kit. But let’s see the papers first!



I was lucky to get this kit to counterfeit, I can tell you! Basic Grey was the first paper brand that I found and loved. I have lots of their old papers left, even if I've also used them faithfully. However, as I've tried to cut down my paper shopping the past year or two, the colour palettes of my old stash look very outdated. I can find a lot that fits, but getting a consistent look with such a burst of colours and patterns is a challenge.

Therefore I gave myself a sligthly higher budget than I normally would: approximately 20 €/22 USD. That allowed me to buy a few new papers and a couple of alphabet sheets!

I had just one of the Second City papers from before, called Ashland, and decided to start from there!



For more inspiration, I googled the collection name and found that Second City is a nickname for Chicago from the time when it was the second largest city of the USA. I’ve never been there, but an imaginary big city is definitely the inspiration for my kit as well.

Think vintage industrial, a town or city a bit grungy and abandoned in places, but also friendly and alive with colourful streetlife! The combination and contrast of dark and light, bold and bright is what defines my kit.

And drumroll, here is my kit:



The papers in my collection are:

First row, left to right: Cardstock in orange, purple, teal and bright sunflower yellow and a bright coloured mosaic patterned paper, manufacturer unknown.

Second row are all Basic Grey papers, left to right: Out of Print/Reprint, Sweet Threads/Summer Wedges, Nordic Holiday/Wedge and Color Me Silly/Celebrate.

Third row: American Crafts: Lucky Charm (hearts, first on the left and arrows, last on the right) and Color Conspiracy: Everyday (in the middle).

Fourth row: Chinese Lantern patterned double sided paper in Peach/Grey, manufacturer unknown, American Crafts: Summer (cameras) and Sodalicious: Journey/I Love My Bike and Time for a Cup of/Cozy Moments.

The three first BG papers are double sided. The backsides are here, from left to right: Nordic Holiday/Wedge, Out of Print/Reprint and Sweet Threads/Summer Wedges, together with a doily from the Basic Grey Eerie line, which takes takes us to a spider inhabited building at night, or maybe through old wrought iron gates or bridges!



Then again, the happy heart, arrow and lantern patterns tell the story of street festivals, with banners and lights, while the two black and white Sodalicious papers portray a bike-friendly city with lots of nice cafés to sit down at and get some artsy inspiration.



The bold colours of the cardstock are good for contrast, as they are in the original kit.

In addition to the papers...

1. Paper Choice: Second City from Basic Grey

My kit was to include the following:

2. Tools: Glitter. My Swinging Skyline kit has four colours of Stickles glitter glue: Turquoise, Icicle, Pineapple Crush and Gunmetal, and glittery stickers called Twinkle Goosebumps.

3. Embellishments: Border strips. A couple of my papers suited well for cutting border strips, the American Crafts ones with the cameras and the colourful arrows. Washi tapes make great borders, too, so I picked a few that went along with the rest of the kit.

The yellow Sodalicious alpha look like a border in its own, and that gave me the idea to make the layout title look like a border! You'll see that in a minute...



4. Materials: Vellum. Yellow, patterned yellow, turquoise and lavender vellum – see how I used these in an embellishment down below!

5. Tiny bits: Brads (together with my Glitter selection)



6. More Embellishments: Layered embellishments

I made a large flower that combines many of my elements: it has vellum, brads and is made in layers. I fuzzy cut it from the BG Out of Print paper and added a second layer of petals cut from vellum.



I also altered a frame with layers of alcohol inks and stamping. Here it's pictured together with a few stamps I've picked for my kit. The grey rubber ones are from 3rd Eye and the acrylic insta-heart one came with the Craft Stamper magazine.



7. Fun extras: Pocket page cards. The coffee themed Sodalicious paper, Time for a Cup of/Cozy Moments, would look great as pocket page cards, I knew it immediately! I cut half of it into 3x4 pocket cards right away. You can see one of them hiding in my layout!

I run out of time before I could cut more, but I think many of these papers will look nice as pocket cards. The backsides of the Sodalicious papers and the Color Conspiracy one are neutral enough to be also used for writing the journaling on.

And now to my challenge.

I love to buy papers with bold prints and patterns, but find them too often left in my stash when their more neutral companions have already gotten into use. Anyone else have the same problem? Good news! There’s a way to use up these.

And that’s the challenge I’m giving today.



You can use gesso, paints, modeling paste, add texture by glueing cheese fabric or napkins onto the paper, or doodle, stamp, collage, or any way you like! The idea is to turn a loud background paper into more neutral and more usable. The fun pattern will not be lost but it’ll be just the first layer instead of a ready-to-use (but dominating) background.

You can probably tell why I would never have used these papers as such, let alone combine these two!



It is a good idea to start with white.



I used acrylic gesso here. You can see that where the layer is a light one, I’ve mixed gesso and water. In other parts, I’ve put a thicker layer of the gesso and used a stencil to make another layer of patterns.



My new stencil from Tando Creative was perfect with these papers, repeating the mosaic pattern!



My layout is beginning to get shape! After I got the background this far, the next things I did were the choice of photo and placing the large flower embellishment.



I added some paint to highlight the corners of the layout, and drops of white acrylic ink and dark grey mist here and there.

Then I matted the photo with two papers, both from BG – Nordic Holiday and the backside of Out of Print. Next thing I did was add the borders and make the title.

The Sodalicious pocket card and the altered photo frame went in their places… Dots of Stickles, some brads and stamping, and there you are, my challenge layout!



Taking part in this DT call was a lot of fun and I can tell I'd love to join the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Team. I sure look forward to hearing from you over there!

And those of you who have never had a look at the CKC blog, I really recommend it, those talented ladies are sharing some great ideas for using up your old stash!

11 comments:

  1. WOW - what a great way to use up that ancient BG Colour Me Silly patterned paper! I still have mine somewhere!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love how you took the "city" part of the inspiration kit to make your own and gave us different scenarios for what you did with your selection! a lot of fun. and the challenge of covering up a loud background is a good one even if I can't imagine doing all that mixed media stuff myself- looks fun though! Good luck with the entry :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. What an entertaining peek into your process! I hope that whatever the outcome we will see you over at CKC. My favorite is the narrative you wove into the description of your choices & that you were inspired by your mythical city to create a kit that was innovative & very fresh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your layout looks wonderful.The city inspirations are an inspiration and work so well on this kit.Good luck! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a lovely kit! I really like the little flower that you made from the BG patterned paper :) You're obviously a fellow fan of Sodalicious, isn't it sad that they've gone? (Sob!)

    Good luck with the DT call x

    ReplyDelete
  6. Fabulous take on the challenge :) I love the process you went through to find out about the name too :) Well done! The only thing we had in common was the paper line to choose from you had lots to play with too and love how you toned sown some of that paper with gesso (will have to give that a try :) Good luck with the DT Call

    ReplyDelete
  7. Especially love the embellishments you picked! Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Don't you love how one collection can lead to sooo many different interpretations. Great kit & love your tute. I also have way too many of those bright beautiful pp's that end up sitting around so will have to give this a go. Good luck with the DT call

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love the way you have treated the background and some really cool techniques, good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  10. That is one super cool layout. Loved the mixed media effect of the layout. A great inspiration for the kit you put together! Loved the altered frames. Good luck with the DT call

    ReplyDelete