October 2023 - Mini Kit Reveal & Project

Sometimes you just don't have the time or motivation to make and use a full kit. No problem, you can make a mini kit! 

Our Master Forger Lisa is here to get you started. 

Let's have a quick look again at the inspiration kit this month. 

My Creative Scrapbook Kit Club - October 2022 Limited Edition Kit

Hi! Lisa here. Well, I hope Leslie won't mind but I went a bit rogue with my mini this month - both in the colours I picked out from this stunning kit but also with what I put into my "mini"-kit!

However, what we always say round here are that there are NO rules! 

Your kit, your interpretation, your creations - so I hope she will forgive me 😉

Now, I LOVE this kit - the colours are so rich and gorgeous and totally my thing for autumn. The motifs are so pretty and very much what my style was a few years ago - all those scrummy florals and richly detailed butterflies. But I have to say, that I was not in the mood for all that pretty. 

Being October, I knew that things in my circle of scrapbook friends would be very Halloween focussed and we have a present swap at the end of the month as well. So... would I be able to turn this pretty collection into something spooky? 

I decided to have a go at a colour palette generator (Colours.co ) to pick out what I could see as some typical Halloween shades hidden in this kit photo - orange, green, yellow, black and grey. And I thought that a shade of blue could also be useful - just to make it less harsh and soften it up a bit. I mean, it is MY kit after all AND there were a lot of different blues in the original kit!

Look what I came up with!

My October mini-kit palette created at Colours.co

I can totally imagine these colours appearing in Halloween collections that I seem to have piled up in my stash (even though I don't make Halloween pages - ha ha ha!) so off I went to see if I could come up with anything. I suspected that many of the papers would have a focus of black and purple and I knew that I had a pink and black collection from last year which would not fit this scheme. But as luck would have it, Simple Stories very often avoid the purple and focus on orange and black instead. 

Limiting myself to Simple Stories then, I had a look at a couple of collections: Simply Vintage October 31st is all organge, black and grey but Spooky Nights feature exactly my colour palette - the yellow is a bit brighter and the blue is a little prettier and the green might be a hint more lime but all in all, this is the collection that fits the palette I had created! Result.

I checked out a sheet which seemed to feature all the colours and decided that this would be the starting point of my mini.

Simple Stories - Spooky Nights - Tag Paper

This is where I REALLY went rogue. The more I looked at my selection of products in this collection, the more I realised I wanted it ALL! So my mini kit really consists of the WHOLE Spooky Nights collection - all the papers, the embellishments, the die-cuts - everything. And a few other smaller add-ins such as a couple of stamps, some sequins and two dies. Whoops!

Can you forgive me for making a rather huge mini? But I promise you that I will only be making ONE small mini album from it so that does fit the project idea of a kit to make a single project and not a kit that will keep you going all month long!

Anyway, here is everything I decided to include in my mini-kit - as you can see, there are a lot of papers, stickers, die-cuts, enamel dots etc and a few addition items that I thought would be interesting for a mini-album. Obviously, I will not be using it all but a nice selection is a good starting point!

Now to have some fun! 

I decided I wanted to make an album from scratch and I have to admit that this is the first time I've ever done one like this! I got out my little plastic spacing tool and got to work. I'm quite pleased with the result - even if I say so myself - although I made a few mistakes along the way.  If I'd had more time, I probably should have watched a YT video or two to give me some guidelines, but I just went with instinct and even though there's room for improvement, it's not bad for a first attempt!

I wanted a way to close the front of the album and a large, orange ribbon came in handy - and it looks so pretty too! I might add a small magnet to the overlapping part of the cover but I couldn't for the life of me, find my supplies. Something for the shopping list!

I kept it simple on the cover with layered papers and a sprinkle of embellishments - I was determined to try and use something from each part of the collection - dies, stickers, brads, enamel dots, puffy stickers!

And here you can see that there is a little bit of embellishment inside as well as the main part of the mini-album. I have to say that I was inspired by a friend who included two ring elements in a similar album and she in turn was inspired by one of the fabulous designers online but I can't for the life of me find which album or designer that was - sorry!

Anyway, I cut up the tag sheet, and two cut apart sheets of paper and then just piled them up so that there are different colours, sizes and shapes as you go through. Super easy technique. Then I opened up the journal bits die-cut pack and ended up using the whole pack. I just added them in as I wanted to add interest. I punched a whole through the back of the album as well as all my elements and threaded them all together on a ring. I can't tell you what fun this was and how easy this part of the album was!

A hint of decoration on the back of the album and it's now ready and waiting for all the mini photos, tags and decorations that I get in our Halloween swap and a small amount of journalling. There will no doubt be some more decorating going on too as I fill it up and it will get nice and full and chunky and fun to look through. Exactly how I like my mini albums!

So.... what do you think? Will Leslie forgive me for going soooo rogue or can you also see this inspiration in the original kit? Why not give a mini-album a go - I have to admit that these little gems are quite addicting!

Here is what the rest of October will look like - don't miss a thing!

• 12th October- Challenge #1 - To inspire you to get creating from your own kit.
• 18th October - Challenge #2 - To inspire you to get creating from your own kit.
• 24th October - Follower's Showcase - who has caught our eye this month.
• 31st October - Killing the Kit - focusing on using up the bits and pieces left in your kit.

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 #ckcoctober2023).