Gardening in January

With temperatures reaching -30C, the only gardening I can hope for is on my kitchen table.

Twig & Petal, layouts

As winter set in, November's Counterfeit Kit, Twig & Petal lay dormant on my desk. While my scrapping mojo faltered, the Christmas spirit stepped in and found me baking, entertaining and going out, far more than I normally do. Presents were wrapped early. Tree was decorated three times over before I got it right. And after the gifts had been given and the feasting had finished; when the soup pot was set to simmer, I found myself back in the studio. Ready again to play with paper.

In the final days of December, Twig & Petal produced 11 layouts. They can all be viewed through the flikr tab link, above. Here are a couple of my faves.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

May 2013 be your best year yet.

Wishing you Health, Wealth, and Happiness!

XO

Sassy

Frosty Days, Cozy Nights.

The new year started for me with the launch of the January Counterfeit Kit Challenge Kit.  It is A Merry Winter December FIT Kit from Paper Issues, an etsy shop. The kit to copy is red, teal, lime and pink.

First of all, the kit calls for white and kraft card stock.  This time around I will pull card stock, as I need it with a note to self to make sure I do a layout or two on white and on kraft as these are not my go-to colours for backgrounds.

I began by pulling paper in the brighter colours. They pinks, reds and teals were well represented in my stash. As I flip through the different categories that my paper is divided into, any that resemble the kit get put to the side. Some of the patterns may have four or five possible candidates. When I have most of the patterned papers matched up, I begin to weed out the extras. Comparing the patterns to the example, choosing the one that best represents the colour and energy of the one in the kit. The extras are then returned to their respective drawers.

 The first two photos above shows the A and the B sides of two sided papers. The kit has eleven sheets of patterned paper in it. By the time I am finished copying each one as best I can, I have 22 sheets. 

Left to right, from the top, my paper picks are:

Beige floral, muk (manufacturer unknown)
Ki Memories, Elsie, Noel Tinsel
Creative Memories, Divine, tone-on-tone pack
Teal Chevron, muk
Monochromatic pattern in red, ebay stockpile, muk
Tinkering Inc., Westminster
DCWV, Black and White stack
Daisy D's, Striscin
Grey pattern, muk
Paper Inc., Lasting Impression, Poppy Fleur
Making Memories, Panorama, Ledger Palmtree Panorama

Kaiser Craft, Timeless Collection, Ledger. (side B, shown here looks like sudoku)
Hot of the Press, Paper Pizazz, Chocolate, Dark, Light and White stack
Small multi-coloured pattern, muk
Echo Park, Fancy Floral (side B)
Red and gold chevron, muk
Creative Memories Divine, tone-on-tone pack
Small pattern in teal, muk
DCWV, Black and White stack
Soft blue hounds tooth, muk
Kaiser craft, Distracted, Confused
Fancy Pants Designs, Frosted, Frosted Cards.

Now some of these 22 sheets are double sided. Those that are look like this:

I am thinking all this paper is going to make a lot of layouts.

Luckily the embellishments came together with a lot less effort than the paper. My pointer finger is chapped from licking and flicking through so many papers.

My counterfeit kit includes:

Red chipboard letters from Scenic Route
Card stock stickers from Bo Bunny, Holiday Cheer
Teeny alphas, teal wood grain, Glitz
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, pearl
Brads, Basic Grey, stitched

And may I interject here, what a misnomer "Basic Grey" is? In my hunt for softly patterned grey paper, it came to my attention that BG paper is not.

For the "3 random Mistable chipboard stars from Pink Paislee", as called for in the kit, I have made note to try out my new deep cutting blade on the cricut.

Cream rosette, muk
Red rosette, muk
For 2 pins, I have a found hat pin and package of Bling Assortment from CTMH
For the silver and white dots, I pulled in a package of American Craft Elements, assorted brads.

The three kraft banner pieces will be a simple item to mock-up with stash.

A card of vintage teal buttons from Gramma's button box. The price tag on the card says 10 cents.

Wood die cut branch (with bird) Kaiser Crafts
Bakers twine, seam binding, and fancy trim are all muk.

This assortment is not nearly enough for  number of layouts that will come of these papers, so I also have a basket of "go-to" items to help fill in. Some new, part used, scrap supplies and found items. It is a delicious jumble to dig through.

And my kit, Frosty Days, Cozy Nights, looks like this:

Thanks for reading. Double thanks for comments.