Be Merry This Christmas

Hi there scrappers.

We've had a week of really weird weather here. I hope it's been better where you are.

The new Christmas kit from Scrappy Chat Designs is out and I got to have a play with it. I've had a blast! The kit includes some gorgeous Simple Stories papers, a Pan Pastel and some Liquid Pearls among other things.

For my first layout, I took the title 'Be Merry' quite literally. Here's my layout:

I seem to keep scrapping layouts lately where I have to explain about my very silly family! Aunty Rita is such a joker and always comes armed with a supply of gizmos to make people laugh. As you can see, she has no shortage of people willing to help share the silliness! Those fake teeth were just gorgeous - not!

The chalkboard look is hot right now and this background paper is a fabulous one. It allows colours to stand out so well. I mostly used the 3 x 4 Journaling Cards Elements paper on the remainder of this layout. I fussy-cut some items from the cards to use as features, then layered the leftovers and other whole cards behind the photo as a mat. I inked all the edges to help define the papers.

Included in the kit is a bottle of key lime Liquid Pearls. This is a bright lime green. Normally I wouldn't associate a strong colour like this with Liquid Pearls but I'm so glad I gave it a go. I've fallen in love with it! To make the strands of 'Christmas Lights' behind the photo mat I first randomly glued down handfuls of cotton thread. They're only glued under the photo mat. I then carefully placed dots of Liquid Pearls over the top of the cotton. I had to hold the cotton down at first, but once the Liquid Pearls dries, it acts like a glue and holds the cotton in place itself. I think the result is really effective and this technique would look great on a layout about Christmas lights.

The 'Christmas Lights' forming the border were made quite differently. There was no way I could get cotton to sit like that while I put Liquid Pearls on it to glue it into place so I just drew the white lines on with a gel pen. This is a lot easier way to create the lights and looks almost (but not quite!) as good as the cotton method.

I hope you get to scrap some fab Christmas layouts this year.

Happy scrappin'

Heather