I am still trying to make the most out of the space I have in my spare room to find the best way to store my mounting pile of supplies. In my reorgnization efforts, I discovered last year that taking apart some of my paper pack was a good way to finally get some use out of them. Our style and tastes tend to evolve over time and there are older packs (and let's be honest, recent ones, too) that I have a hard time getting inspiration from, so I took them apart and stored the papers in my scrap drawers, by dominant colour. This also frees up a bit of room in my bookcase at the same time. I had done this exercise last year, and I revisited my pile of DSP to see if more could be dismantled. I made three piles: keep together, dismantle, unsure. The Santa's Workshop was in the maybe pile. The patterns are adorable, but I have found that I have a hard time designing with papers that only include two colours as it is hard to layer things or mat pieces without everything getting lost.
As I was looking at the papers to decide which pile it would end up with, I noticed that one of the papers had a really nice scalloped frame around it and I thought, this is something I should have used in my scrapbooking. The center of the piece is a mishmash of characters that are perfect to fussy cut, so in order no to waste, I figured I could cut the center out and layer another patterned paper over it. And because I had already started fussy cutting some of the images, I was left with a missing corner to the page, so I figured I could roll the corner out.
At that point, I was really curious to see how that idea would look, so I dropped the organizing and went to my work table to put inspiration to paper. The corner idea was not working to my liking, so I switched gears, tore up other papers and layered them over instead. I decided to only glue the edges so that the paper could become pockets and I could slip stuff in there.
I had a leftover strip from another paper that made a great border, so I added it at the bottom of the âge and lined it with the All the Trimmings ribbon (currently offered at almost half-price in the Clerance Rack currently, so check it out!). Then I fussy cut some images from the paper center I had taken out and started organizing images on the page.
I was looking at sketches for inspiration, but couldn't find something that worked with what I already had, so I threw caution to the wind and decided I would design from scratch. I matted my photo with the candy cane pattern and this is where I was a little stuck because of what I was talking about: the two colour problem. Couldn't add red or green in between, but the gold on the edge of the ribbon reminded me of some vellum I had found while organizing my patterned papers. I was part of a Holiday-themed collection from My Mind's Eye, but I realized I could use the vellum more sucessfully if I got it out of the paper pack and put it with my specialty papers. I have some heay-duty pockets in which I store my metallic papers and glitter papers, so I added a new one for vellum. It was fresh in mind so I remembered to use it, and it worked so nicely.
I wanted to slide a large tag in my corner pocket and unfortunately, all of the tag topper punches from Stampin' Up! are 2" wide, so I went to my Elizabeth Craft Designs' Planner Essentials dies and found just what I needed in the Wave Pocket pack. (I am really getting my money's worth out of those planner dies!) On a whim, I decided to make a second, smaller tag out of patterned paper and insert it in the first pocket, to layer. While looking through the planner dies, the ones with Christmas trees caught my eye and decided to make a tree to go with the gifts I had fussy cut. I realized that some of the images had a really small touch of Pool Party colour in there, so adding that third colour gave me more options for design. I incorporated the colour in the tree, the garland I added to the tag and my retro marquee used for the title.
I started looking through my Stampin' Up! dies because I remembered the retired wreath set had the word "Noel" in there, but while going through the stack, I started pulling other things that could be of interest. So the garland and the bow on the tree come from the skate set. The marquee was from a birthday set, available only in English, but that I got because I really loved that shape (and I'm surprised it's the first time I think to include it in a layout). The retro snowflake is from the dies that went with the Santa's Workshop suite. And even though I did find my wreath dies, I found a prettier Noël in a sentiment set from a couple years back, so I went with that one instead. For the year, I went to my Alphanumeric dies and selected the Script collection to match the font style. I was again struggling to pick a colour (wasn't liking the look of Garden Green cardstock) - I remembered the Holidays glitter paper pack we had a couple of years ago so I pulled it out to check the colours and I love how pretty the green looks.
I had the Santa's Workshop Enamel Shapes and I was pleased to find that the small dots were the perfect size for the "lights" in the marquee. I didn't have enough white, so I decided to alternate colours and I love how that turned out, as I think the alternating colours look better than a monochromatic look would have, so this worked out.
I will admit this is a busy page, but I like where I ended up with it and that I managed to use more of that patterned paper. The journaling I added has nothing to do with the moment you see on the picture. It was our family Christmas dinner in 2017, but my journaling talks about me now looking at this picture with a very different perspective, after being forced to stay apart last year due to the pandemic. It was a reminder that the opportunity to see our loved ones should never be taken for granted. And I finished with a quote from one of my favorite song:
"And then we'll understand
We held gold dust in our hands"
- Tori Amos
Supplies
Cardstock: Pool Party, Whisper White, Gold Foil, Green Glimmer Paper (Stampin' Up!);
Gold Glitter Paper (Unknown)
Specialty Designer Series Paper: Santa's Workshop (Stampin' Up!);
Vellum (My Mind's Eye)
Dies: Detailed Skate, Joyeux Noël, Santa's Signpost, Broadway Lights (Stampin' Up!);
Planner Essentials 12, Planner Wave Pocket (Elizabeth Craft Designs);
Alphanumeric Script Alphabet (Tim Holtz for Sizzix)
Accessories: Stampin' Dimensionals, Santa's Workshop Enamel Shapes, All the
Trimmings Ribbon Combo Pack, Gold Basic Designer Buttons (Stampin' Up!);
Gold and White Twine (May Art); LePen Markers (Marvy Uchida)
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