Mintay Papers - Christmas Blessings - It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Today I'm starting to get in the Christmas mood with a layout to share  using the new Christmas Blessings collection from Mintay Papers. I was really drawn to the unusual colour palette used for this Christmas collection - beige, brown and muted blues. It has a warm and cosy feel to it which is perfect for scrapbooking a warm, homely Christmas vibe. For this layout I chose to use some photos taken of the shop windows in a nearby market town in the lead up to Christmas a couple of years ago.

I started with a sheet of beige cardstock from the Bazzill Matchmaker Pack and onto this I layered a slightly trimmed down sheet of smooth white cardstock to leave a narrow border. In the centre of the layout I added a 10" square piece of paper #5, which I had inked the edges of with a Vintage Photo Distress Oxide inkpad, and using my sewing machine and white thread I stitched a straight stitch round the edges.

I cut three strips of paper #4 roughly 1" x 9", inked the edges and placed these horizontally on the layout to create a series of shelves.



I then set about creating a cluster of embellishments and photo on each shelf.



Each cluster contained a 3 x 4 photo and images fussy cut from paper #9.



Some of the images were mounted on 3D foam to add some dimension.



I also added a pale green doilie into each cluster to give the layout a more homely feel.



In my stash I found some wood veneer stars in various sizes and added these to the clusters as well as some blue and beige sequins.



Finally I die cut on the Silhouette Cameo the word Christmas from a scrap of brown card and added this to the bottom of the layout and completed the long title with some very old teeny tiny letter stickers.

Mintay Papers - Autumn Splendor - The Golden Hour

Today I have another layout using papers and embelishments from the Autumn Splendor collection from Mintay Papers, and this time I have also teamed the collection with a sheet of paper from Echo Park's Woodgrain collection.

This layout was inspired by an older sketch I found on Pinterest which was created for Scrapbook Werkstatt. I can't remember ever using triangles on a layout before but thought it was an interesting sketch and would work well with the supplies I have.

I started but gutting the centre from a sheet of Echo Park's Warm Wood Grains - Tan Wood Grain paper and then layered an 11.5" piece of smooth white cardstock on top. Using some brown thread I machine stitched round the outside edge of the white cardstock.



Using my mini brayer I rolled some watered down Dried Marigold Distress Oxide Ink onto areas of the layout where I planned to added other elements and when the ink was dry I splatted some Spiced Marmalade ink on top. The Dried Marmalade ink was more yellow in colour than I had expected but I think it still works well with the layout, adding a bit of contrast to the orange and brown in the patterned papers.



From papers #2 & #4 I cut some triangles - 2 large and 4 small. I machine stitched round the edges of each triangle and then stuck them to the layout with 3D foam underneath.



In my stash I found some bronze metalic washi tape and tucked some torn pieces of this under the edges of some of the triangles.



My 4x6 photo was printed with a white border and this was placed on top of the triangles. I love the lighting in this photo - I think it gives the photo a real cosy feel.



From the leftover Echo Park Woodgrain paper, I die cut the title using a cut file on the Silhouette Cameo. The title was placed above the photo.



Paper die cuts and images fussy cut from paper #9 were used to embellish the layout, creating a cluster in the bottom left corner with some washi tape and on the corner of the photo.



Brown word strips were created and printed on the computer and placed below some of the triangles.

Finally I scattered a few bronze coloured sequins here and there and added the date with some tiny letter stickers.