November 2023 - Ch... ch... ch... ch... Changes

 Normally, we have our Kill the Kit feature on the last day of the month but as you know, I very rarely kill my kit in the month I make it. For the last year or two, I've created a summary of the ideas the team have had through the year which is always very inspiring so I do suggest you go back over the posts from this year to remind yourself of our ideas.

This month is different though. This month we have some news we'd like to share and some changes to the team that you'll see in the next month or so.

We have some people to say goodbye to which always makes us sad. Our talented Design Team really is a family and there is a lot of fun and chat and inspiration behind the scenes. We have each others' back, we support each other and are very much there for each other. So it is ALWAYS sad to say goodbye to anyone. Therefore, it's with a very heavy heart that we have to adieu to three wonderful team members who we are already missing:

Anna who was only with us for a short time but wowed us with her talent and readiness to help out wherever needed. She moved on a while back but I've been waiting to make the announcement.

Laura was with us since 2018 and I loved bringing in a little more European influence to the team! She had a great attitude to putting her kits together - making it work for her, printing digital elements to make up parts of her kits, moving to digital kits when her printer died and her aversion to Blogger! I think we can all relate to that!

Leslie has been with us for a very long time! If I'm correct, it's more than 10 years which is a LOT of kits and pages and forgeries and so much inspiration. She is a creative force to be reckoned with.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contributions to our team over the years and we will miss them. 

Please join me in sending them a virtual group hug and we hope that they will join us in the community when they have time.

But wait, there's more 😉

I'm also stepping down from the team and from the administrative support of the team overall which means that this month - the kit I picked out, the challenges, the pages, the GD and the Follower Showcase - have all been my last! It was quite bittersweet to be honest. But it's been a long time and I have so many years of Counterfeit Kit Challenge memories to make me smile! 

I first played along in early 2011, became a Master Forger in October 2011 and then took on the administration of the team in 2016. I've only missed one single month in all that time and I've just looked up how many kits and mini-kits I've made and it's scary! Let's just say too many to count - I kept skipping numbers and now I've given up actually trying to come up with a definitive number!! I've lost count of the pages and projects I've made but let me just say that the dozens of completed LOADs over the years would not have been possible without those piled up, un-killed kits on my shelf! I've been inspired by the team, by our process, by the challenges and of course, by our followers. So it was a very hard decision to step down and away, but I am leaving you all in the best of hands. 

The most wonderful Tara will be taking over the responsibility for running the team and I know she is going to be AWESOME!!

No doubt she will make some changes - maybe even big changes - but she is as passionate about what we do here as I have been and I know she will do a fantastic job. 

I leave you all in good hands and I can't wait to watch from the sidelines!

I'm not heading out just yet though - I'll be contributing to "Sketching Around the Christmas Tree" so I'll see you there!

Lisa

Goodbye and Good Luck!

Image by rawpixel.com

Once again, I find myself drafting a "Goodbye" post and I wanted to look back and see what I'd written in the past. 

I came across this post here "Musings, news and a Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Design Team Call – July to December 2021" and realised that every single word I wrote about what this team means to me is STILL true today. 

Who we are, what we do round here, what we want to offer the scrapbooking community, and how we want it to look to the outside world. 

We are truly a low-key challenge community. We are still gentle and still a little bit "old school" (basing our posts on the blog), and we still stay true to our core mission of creating kits from our own stash and making pages and projects in the hope that our community is inspired to do the same! 

The team at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is STILL friendly, fun and talented and I'm STILL grateful to have them as my crafting buddies! And it's STILL sad to have to say goodbye to anyone on the team. 

So, again, it is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to the very talented Juliet. We already miss her a lot and hope that she hangs around in the community to make us smile with her layouts and creations! 

A very heartfelt thank you Juliet for being such a fabulous member of our happy team!

Which brings me to a happier part of this post: 

Design Team Call for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team in 2023

We are looking for a couple of passionate kitters and paper crafters to join the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger team for 2023. 

If you would like to apply to join our team as Master Forger for 2023 please apply to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com by Friday 31st March with the following: 

• Pick any inspiration kit featured in 2022 on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog

• Create your own (new) page kit / mini kit using the inspiration

• Create a (new) project using one of the two featured challenges from the month chosen

• Send us bright and clear photos of your page kit, your kit project and two other projects (don’t need to have been made in connection with CKC) you have created which showcase your crafting style
• Include a short write up about your creative  process, choices, design decisions for the kit and layouts your are showcasing

• In addition to your kit and project photos your email should include some information about you, any current design teams you contribute to, your crafting story and where we can find you online (social media, blog, online galleries, YouTube etc). We’d like to get to know you!

As a Master Forger for 2023 we’d like you to: 

• create a kit each month based on an inspiration kit and showcase it in a design Team hop via social media (please state your preferred method - blog, YouTube, IG, FB)

• create a project for at least one CKC challenge each month

• contribute to the Forgery on the Fourth blog post on a regular basis with your own creations or links to ideas or tutorials online

• take clear, bright, good quality photos of your kits and projects and/or videos

• contribute to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook community on a regular basis

• comment on projects which are linked up by our followers in the CKC FB community and Instagram 

• organise, be responsible for, and coordinate the inspiration kit, challenges and blog posts for one kit month a year

• be an active team member and contribute to the smooth running of our small, close and friendly team 

I will contact you and make the new team announcement at the beginning of April so that the new Master Forgers can showcase their first kit in May 2023!

We are excited to hear from you and are looking forward to adding you to our team of friendly, motivational, supportive and inspirational crafty peeps! 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com if you have any questions or queries or DM me (Lisa) on FB – I’m here to answer any questions you have! 

Image by rawpixel.com

Musings, news and a Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Design Team Call – July to December 2021

I’ve been part of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team for a loooong time. I first joined in during March 2011 and joined the team that September. 10 years in the scrapbook challenge blogging world is a lifetime! I’ve seen a lot of changes here but it remains a constant in my scrapbooking life and I’m so happy that we are still here. Still making kits from products we have in our own stash that we love, still making layouts and projects, still finding inspiration in our photos and still here on the blog and in our FB community (here).  

We are a low-key challenge community and I like that! It’s not frantic or frenetic round here. We stay true to our core "mission" which is to create kits and make pages and projects. You might say that we are still a bit old school – posting our kits and challenges over here on the blog but along the way, we have moved with the times a little and now our FB community is where all the interaction is. Where we share layouts and thoughts and a bit of chat! But I still like the fact that the blog remains chronological and that it can be a source of reference that’s easy to manage so the blog posts aren’t going anywhere.

But from time to time, we do have a behind-the-scenes heart-to-heart on where we are going, if we are still relevant, if we still love what we do. And so it happened this week. And YES! We still love what we do and we still want to keep on kitting and challenging and inspiring and creating!

The team at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is fun, friendly and incredibly talented and I’m so, so grateful to have them as my crafting buddies. I love having them in my life and value each of them for their fabulous crafting, their friendship and their contributions to our community - both “front of shop” as well as behind the scenes. And so it breaks my heart all the more when we lose some of our “family” to pastures new. These team members are stepping down to concentrate on different adventures: 

• Master Forger Lori stepped down from the group in April and always amazed me with her ability to contribute to so many teams at the same time! Her kits were inspiring and her layouts fun and creative!
• Master Forger Susan who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes for us on Instagram and our fantabulous monthly moodboards will move on at the end of the month
• And Master Forger Clair who has delighted and astonished each month with her incredible micro-kits and simply gorgeous mini-projects will be leaving at the end of June.

I miss them already – more than they know. So a warm and heartfelt thank you to you for all that you’ve done for usand I hope you will still hang out here at CKC with us! 

Which brings me to a happier part of this post: 

Design Team Call for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team in 2021 June to December 2021) 

We are looking for a couple of passionate kitters and paper crafters to join the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger team for the second half of 2021 (June to December 2021). 

If you would like to apply to join our team as Master Forger for 2021 please apply to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com by Sunday 13^thJune with the following: 

• Pick any inspiration kit featured in 2020 on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog

• Create your own (new) page kit / mini kit using the inspiration

• Create a (new) project using one of the two featured challenges from the month chosen

• Send us bright and clear photos of your page kit, your kit project and two other projects (don’t need to have been made in connection with CKC) you have created which showcase your crafting style to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com

• In addition to your kit and project photos – along with a short write up about your choices - your email should include some information about you, any current design teams you contribute to, your crafting story and where we can find you online (social media, blog, online galleries, YouTube etc). We’d like to get to know you!

As a Master Forger for 2021 we’d like you to: 

• create a kit each month based on an inspiration kit and showcase it in a design Team hop via social media (please state your preferred method - blog, YouTube, IG, FB)

•  create a project for at least one CKC challenge each month

• contribute to the Forgery on the Fourth blog post on a regular basis with your own creations or links to ideas or tutorials online

•  take clear, bright, good quality photos of your kits and projects and/or videos

• contribute to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook community on a regular basis

• comment on projects which are linked up by our followers in the CKC FB community and Instagram 

• organise, be responsible for and coordinate the inspiration kit, challenges and blog posts for one kit month a year

•  be an active team member and contribute to the smooth running of our small, close and friendly team 

I will contact you and make the new team announcement in the third week of June so that the new Master Forgers can showcase their first kit in July 2021!

We are excited to hear from you and are looking forward to adding you to our team of friendly, motivational, supportive and inspirational crafty peeps! 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com if you have any questions or queries or DM me (Lisa) on FB – I’m here to answer any questions you have! 

Good luck!

Lisa

Some news and a Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Design Team Call – 2020

The team at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is fun, active and incredibly talented and I’m so, so grateful to have them as my crafting buddies. I love having them in my life and value each of them for their fabulous crafting, their friendship and their contributions to our community - both “front of shop” as well as behind the scenes. 

Master Forger Susan has decided to step away from the creative activities of the CKC team, which means we will all miss her immense talent and kind words of support. Her projects have me ooo’ing and ahh’ing each and every month and she makes me want to be a better scrapper. But I’m thrilled that she will be staying with us in a support function helping us over on Instagram as well as creating the incredibly awesome mood boards each month for our sneak peeks. 

Ex-Master Forger Clair has delighted us all for many months with her {Killing Kits} series where she has inspired us all to use up those pesky little scraps and embellishments we find at the bottom of our kit box. Her videos and blog posts have offered simple but effective ideas which were easy to adapt to our own supplies. November will be her last month as she has decided to focus her energies in new directions! I wish her all the very best and hope we will see her over here at CKC from time to time. We miss her already. 

So a warm and heartfelt thank you to both of you for all that you’ve done for us and I hope you will still hang out here at CKC with us!

Which brings me to a happier part of this post: 

First up, I’d like to welcome two new members to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team – drum roll…. Please join me in welcoming the fantabulous Shannon Allor and Tara O’Rourke who will officially start their CKC team work in January, but no doubt we will be seeing a lot of them until them as they begin to flex their counterfeiting muscles! We are beyond thrilled that they agreed to join us and I know that they will be a perfect fit for the group with their kit skills, not to mention their wonderful craftiness! Shannon will also be offering us ideas at the end of the month for using up our kits as she continues the {Killing Kits} series as of January

. 

Please join me in welcoming them both to our crafty family! 

And that’s not all… we have space for ONE new Design Team member so…..

Design Team Call for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team in 2020 (January to December 2020) - as well asGuest Designers for single months during 2020

We are looking for one passionate kitter and paper crafter to join the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger team to join us in 2020 (January to December 2020) as well as Guest Designers for our monthly kit showcases during the year. 

If you would like to apply to join our team as Master Forger - or for a Guest Designer position - for 2020 please apply to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com by Monday 25^th November with the following:

• Pick an inspiration kit from one of the kits featured in 2019 on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog 
• Create your own kit using the inspiration 
• Create a project using one of the two featured challenges from the month chosen 
• Send us bright and clear photos of your CKC kit, your CKC project and two other projects you have created which showcase your crafting style to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com
• In addition to your kit and project photos – along with a short write up about your choices, your email should include some information about you, any current design teams you contribute to, your crafting story and where we can find you online (social media, blog, online galleries, YouTube etc).  We’d like to get to know you!
• Please state clearly if you’d like to be considered for Master Forger 2020, Guest Designer for a month or both! 

As a Master Forger for 2020 we’d like you to: 

• create a kit each month based on an inspiration kit and showcase it in a Design Team blog hop (or other social media platform) hop
• create a project for at least one CKC challenge each month
• contribute to the Forgery on the Fourth blog post on a regular basis with your own creations or links to ideas or tutorials online
• take clear, bright, good quality photos of your kits and projects and/or videos
• contribute to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook community on a regular basis
• comment on projects which are linked up by our followers on our blog, the CKC FB community and Instagram 
• organise, be responsible for and coordinate the inspiration kit, challenges and blog posts for one kit month a year
• be an active team member and contribute to the smooth running of our small, close and friendly team

As a monthly Guest Designer we’d like you to:

• create a kit based on an inspiration kit and showcase it in the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog hop (or other social media platform)
• create a project for one CKC monthly challenge
• voluntarily contribute to other CKC activities during the month such as Forgery on the Fourth or the second challenge 
• take bright clear photos of your kit and projects and/or videos and share them online during your guest month

We will make the new team announcement in December, before Christmas, and the new Master Forgers will be able to showcase their first kit in January 2020!

We are excited to hear from you and are looking forward to adding you to our team of friendly, motivational, supportive and inspirational crafty peeps! 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.comif you have any questions or queries! 

Good luck!

Lisa

Some sad news and something to look forward to!

You know how much I hate these posts but it's time to officially say goodbye to a couple of our much-loved Master Forgers - Kelly and Clair :-( 

You might have noticed that they have been missing from our little family for some time now but as always, I waited a while to make it official in case they change their mind - ever hopeful! 

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for their contributions to our team over the years and we will miss them. 

Please join me in sending them a virtual group hug and we hope that they will join us in the community when they have time.

However, there IS some good news that I'm delighted to be able to share with you!

Even though Clair is no longer officially part of the Design Team as a Master Forger, she is still going to be joining us twice a month (15th and 30th of each month) with a new scrapbooking video series that she has produced. I'm thrilled that she thought of us and I'm so happy that she is still going to be part of the family. I'll leave it to her to introduce you to the details so make sure you tune in on 15th May for the news!

On that note, I'll love you and leave you. 

Tomorrow is of course the first of the month and I'm excited about our new inspiration kit as well as an awesome Guest Designer. 

See you there!  

A few sad goodbyes and a Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger Design Team Call – 2018

First of all, I’d like to make a long overdue but ever so sad announcement about some of our wonderful Master Forgers who have left, or are leaving, our very close and happy team.

Master Forgers Stephanie, Jemma and Lesley decided some time ago to move on to different things and we already miss them greatly. To be honest, I held off announcing their departure as I was hoping that they would decide to stay on with us, and I know that they are "lurking" in the background which I love and they are very much welcome to continue to do so, but now is the time to thank them from the bottom of my heart for being so awesome when they were with us and to wish them all the very best for the future. I’ve met each of these lovely women in real life and hope very much that we will meet again in the future! 

Their contributions, not only in the scrapbook kits they made and the projects they shared with us, but also behind the scenes on the blog, the FB community page or within the team were generous, creative and an asset to us all. 

Please join me in thanking them for their time, energy and creativity!

I’m also sobbing over my keyboard while I’m writing because I have to announce that Master Forger Susanne will also be leaving us at the end of the year. I’ve “known” Susanne for even longer than we’ve been on the CKC team together and as a fellow Scorpio, we have a connection that spans the many thousands of miles between us. She has been making me smile with her inimitable wit since I've known her and she has continued to make me laugh out loud each and every month in the very wonderful “Scribbles from my Scrap Studio” here on the CKC blog in 2017. Oh yes, and she’s a fabulous crafter to boot!

I’d just like to add that the door is always open to them in they ever want to come back to us, and they should feel free to lurk as much as they like! 

So thank you to you ALL and we miss you already.

Which brings me to a happier part of this post:

Design Team Call for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge team in 2018

January to December 2018

We are looking for passionate kitters and paper crafters to join the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Master Forger team to join us in 2018 (January to December 2018).

If you would like to apply to join our team as Master Forger for 2018 you need to do the following and send your application to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com by Monday 11^th December:

• pick an inspiration kit from one of the kits featured in 2017 on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog
• create your own kit using the inspiration
• create a project using one of the two featured challenges from the month chosen
• send us bright and clear photos of your CKC kit, your CKC project and two other projects you have created which showcase your crafting style (these two projects do NOT need to be new NOR do they need to have been created with a CKC kit) to thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com with a short write up about each
• in addition to your kit and project photos, your email should include some information about you, any current design teams you contribute to, your crafting story and where we can find you online (social media, blog, online galleries, YouTube etc).

 As a Master Forger for 2018 you will be expected to:

• create a kit each month based on an inspiration kit and showcase it in a design team blog (or other social media platform) hop
• create a project for at least one CKC challenge each month
• contribute to the Forgery on the Fourth feature by making items for your kit with photos and instructions or by finding links/ideas online to link to in the blog feature
• take clear, bright, good quality photos of your kits and projects and/or videos
• contribute to the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Facebook community on a regular basis
• comment on projects which are linked up on our blog or the CKC FB community by our followers
• organize and coordinate the inspiration kit, challenges and blog posts once a year

We will make the new team announcement in December, before Christmas, and the new Master Forgers will be able to showcase their first kit in January 2018!

We are excited to hear from you. 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on thecounterfeitkitchallengeblog@gmail.com if you have any questions or queries!

Good luck, we can't wait to see your creations!