Counterfeit Kit Challenge

Last month I mentioned that I have started following and participating in this blog. I wanted to share what I've been doing for this challenge so far this month. The first challenge was to create a kit from my own stashed based on this monthly kit club's February kit:

The kit is from a club called Scraps of Darkness. I have to admit, I was a little intimidated by the dark and pink/heart themes of this kit. But I certainly had tons of stuff to throw into my own kit:

Phew! Now what am I going to create with all this? I've been sitting on it waiting for some of the mini challenges to get me going. And the first one is quite a challenge. We were challenged to create a layout with no photos, using hand journaling as the focus of our layout. While I have several layouts for my Egypt trip that I will be creating without photos, it didn't 'feel' right to put those layouts on the papers from this kit. And I am soooo not in a sappy, romantic mood (which these papers would be perfect for). What to scrap, what to scrap. Then I decided to focus on the 'dark' element of the papers and tell a story from my teenage-hood that is certainly worth preserving. The layout is entitled "Home Invasion", and here she is:

I knew when I assembled my counterfeit kit that I would be altering the heck out of most of papers when I got around to using them, and that's exactly what I did for this layout. I sprayed the white and pink (roses) paper with some pink and black glimmer mists, distressed the edges and inked them with black. I colored the black velvet damask paper with some 'haunted shadow' glimmer mist, and I just love how this turned out. So yummy and sparkly (the sparkly is hard to see in the photo).

I splatted the entire layout with some black acrylic paint to symbolise the terror I felt on that crazy morning. And I used some more Glimmer mist and some silver glimmer glaze to alter my little chipboard element. While I was waiting for it to dry, I covered it with a paper towel to keep it safe from my cats. The towel created a surprise texture on the chipboard... I think I might cover more chipboard with towels while they dry, cuz I kind of love how this turned out.

The only pieces on this layout that aren't from my counterfeit kit are the journaling papers (because none of my kit papers were journal worthy) and the strip of vintage lace to the left of the journaling. When all is said and done, I'm glad we had this challenge and that it inspired me to create this layout. And in case you can't read the journaling in the photo, here's the long and short of it: I was home alone for the weekend and someone tried to come in the back door while I was trying to close it. I was terrified. It turned out to be my dad who'd come back home unexpectedly to pick up a few items from the storage building out back before he returned to the convention he and the rest of the family were at. Happy crafting, everyone!