Christmas 2019

Hello, and welcome back to my blog! Today I am working with the Stick It Down December 2020 double page sketch:

Each year I make a double page layout about our Christmas Day celebrations, which goes into a separate album. I love flicking through this album, to see how my kids grew and changed over the years! I try and squeeze as many photos on these layouts as possible, so this month's sketch was perfect for this purpose. Here is my completed layout:

I started this layout with the wreath, which I cut out of green cardstock. I was quite limited by the shades of green I had in my stash, so I had to choose one that coordinated well with the greens on the rest of the layout. I ended up selecting this deep shade of pine green, which, added to the deep red patterned paper, threatened to make the layout too dark. So I decided to choose a light background; this was tricky business, as I had to find a colour and shade which didn't make the contrast with the deeper colours too jarring.

I ended up choosing a patterned paper with a text print from an older Simple Stories Christmas collection. This was perfect - the white-ish background had cooler and warmer tones of white, which matched the off-white of the embellishments, as well as the cool white of the photo margins.

Rather than using four square photos on the right, I used two rectangular 3"x4" photos - two of vertical and two of horizontal orientation. I arranged these to resemble a pinwheel shape - this works well on most layouts.

I replaced the large photo on the left with a collage of small photos. This is something I often do when I have lots of photos to include on a layout.

I replaced the two photos in the centre with accent cards; I included some of my favourite embellishments on these cards. I also added a couple of embellishment clusters around the wreath, but kept these small, as the layout was getting rather busy. I used gold foam stars around the embellishment clusters across the two pages to bring the layout together.

I hope you like my Christmas layout! For more inspiration check out the Stick It Down blog - there's a new team reveal each week! Thanks for visiting! Have a joyful, peaceful, blessed holiday season!