Merry Christmas Layout with new Basic Grey

I've never been much of a fan of Halloween. I think I stopped trick or treating after the 5th grade actually. So today I'm skipping straight to Christmas to share with you a layout for The Scrapbooking Studio featuring Basic Grey's new Christmas line, "Nordic Holiday."

I like Basic Grey designs and often buy it, but I have to confess I really struggle to "make it work." Partly because the papers themselves are so interesting that I always want to do fussy layouts with lots of details and embellishements. Unfortunately, I always feel like that detracts from the focal points (the photos) and I've kind of come to decide that with Basic Grey, less is often more.

Supplies: Patterned Paper - Basic Grey; Cardstock - Bazzill (red is Barkley); Die cut - Martha Stewart; Stamps - Unity, Stampin' Up, Tim Holtz/Stampendous; Ribbon - Making Memories from their "Noel" line; Pen - Sakura in Stardust; Inks - Versafine Vintage Sepia, Versa Color Vanilla, VersaMark Dazzle, Colorbox chalk in Charcoal; Numbers - cut from Grungeboard using the Storybook Cricut Cartridge.

I thought a plain white strip of paper through the middle seemed a little too boring. I was hoping to give it some visual interest and a little sheen while still keeping an open feeling about it. I used the new Christmas stamps from Tim Holtz to create this background. First, I inked the stamp with the VersaColor Vanilla and then I inked over that with the VersaMark Dazzlein Champagne. Overall, I like how it came out, but think it maybe needs to be just a tinge darker. How well you can see it really depends greatly on the angle of the light.

Click to bigify.

And of course, what is Christmas without a little sparkle, right? In addtion to the shimmer from the VersaMark ink, I also used a Stardust gelly roller pen (made by Sakura) to add a little more glam to the page by highlighting the little berries in the pointsettias. Having never been one to resist some shine, I added sparkle to the "25" numbers with some Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist (in Tattered Leather).

And there you have it, a simply elegant layout ready to accomodate two 4"x6" photos, a 5.75"x8" photo collage, or a 5"x7" photo.

Techiniques on Tuesdays is moving to Thursday this week. Check back for instructions on how to make the artisan label background using the Cricut.