July 2021 - Mini-kit reveal and projects

Welcome back to today's post and it's all about going small. 

Perhaps you don't have time to do a full kit, or maybe you just like certain aspects of the kit? Then a mini kit maybe the answer for you! 

We'll be sharing a couple of mini kits, created by our Master Forger Laura and me, Lisa, along with  some projects to give you a little inspiration!  

 A quick reminder of our inspiration kit this month. New Episode by Paper Person is full of great colours, fun patters and super cute motifs. Plenty here to base a mini-kit on ;-) 

MF Laura brought together a bunch of products to make her digital mini-kit and while it may be bigger than some mini-kits out there, this is a really small selection of products for Laura 😂

"I started my mini kit by being inspired by the striped Obed Marshall paper which I fell in love with! I decided to make my own digital version using the paintbrush tool in my digital scrapbooking software. I literally just painted digital stripes in similar colours. 

After that I picked a further 5 papers that were similar to those in the inspiration kit. 

I'm obsessed with all things Heidi Swapp at the moment so went through my digital project life cards and found some that matched well and re-coloured some to match in, along with some other co-ordinating embellishments. 

It might not look too 'mini' but it's definitely a smaller kit than I would normally put together! 

I made a layout remembering one of the many walks me and my little one have done over the last year.

The actual photo was out of focus but I liked it, so made it a smaller size on my page to de-emphasise the fact. 

This kit just reminds me of summer and the beach and I can't wait to use it to scrap some more with it!"

You can find Laura over at Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/mrsp_scrapsandtea/

MF Lisa here! I couldn't make up my mind to begin with which direction to take. The colours were perfect for so many different things - a summer mini-book, a set of greetings cards, a layout. 

In the end, the page kit won out and I started with the acetate from the Obed Marshall collection and then used one of the colour palettes from my "Just the Gist of It" post and pulled in a darker blue paper from Pink Fresh (Days of Splendour), a teal-green-ish dotty paper from Simple Stories (Safe Travels) and a peach floral by Echo Park (Baby Girl). The Buenos Dias puffy stickers and enamel shapes were complemented by some labels inspired by the original kit and a cute washy-tape.

I decided to record another angle to the fun National Scrapabilly Day that I recorded last month with a less than perfect photo of us all proudly presenting our digital CV-19 negative test results which has become the norm round here when any socialising happens! You can't see that detail on the photos but a screenshot of my own official result and the accompanying journalling rounds off the story of what has become standard as restrictions have lifted. You either have to be fully vaccinated or take a quick test so that everyone knows that everyone is "safe". Another "norm" that was unimaginable 18 months ago that needed recording. 

I added in the die-cut title which I had left over from last year when Ali Edwards released a free set of CV-19 word art. I used some on layouts back then but thought it would be fun to fish out this combination for my title.

To make life easy for myself, I used a two-photo sketch from the Simple Scrapper membership - where I'm on the Creative team. I love the fact that you can search by number of photos! It makes it so easy to scan through dozens of potentially gorgeous sketches and pick one that works for you. As always, I tweaked it quite a lot to fit my photos but it came together really quickly. This one also gave me the space to add more journalling which was appealing.

Ps. Did you notice that I managed to sew down the strip of acetate back to front! Oh well, learning to live with the imperfections of my craft!

And of course, as always, we have a full month of inspiration to keep you inspired! 

You can look forward to these posts in July:

• 6th July: Mini-kit Reveal and Project Showcase - inspiration for a smaller kit or project idea 
• 12th & 18th July: Challenges #1 & #2 - to inspire you to get creating from your own kit 
• 24th July: Follower Showcase - who has caught our eye this month 
• 31st July: Killing Kits - an idea or two for using up the bits & pieces left in your kit box 

You KNOW that we always love to see your work, so please share your kits and projects with us. You can post them in our Facebook Community, or share them on Instagram (we are @counterfeitkitchallenge or tag us using #counterfeitkitchallenge and #ckcjuly2021). 

 Thanks so much for stopping by! We can't wait to see your kits and projects this month.

Lisa