A bit retro...

The latest range of Basic Grey papers have been some of the best, and I was pleased to receive some of the Offbeat range in my DT kit this month.

This range screams 'retro' at me, so I decided to use the papers to scrap a photo from my uni days - not exactly retro, but getting that way! The photo might seem an odd choice to scrap, showing me and my friends collected round one of those Weakest Link machines you get in pubs, but I had had a few to drink and got into a long battle with Anne Robinson that night! It was also the evening when my housemate and workmate got together, so it holds special memories that I wanted to record.

I took a sheet of brown cardstock, and layered the blue patterned paper (which I had trimmed around the edges) centrally. I then cut a slightly smaller rectangle from the white paper and layered this slightly off centre. Both papers were edged with blue ink for added depth before being stuck down. I then tore a strip of the brown paper, and a smaller strip of the blue paper and layered these horizontally across the page.

I stapled a few ribbons across the bottom of the photo, and then used blue brads and gems to decorate them. I added my title using American Crafts vinyl thickers, and some Making Memories teeny alphas. I had to make the second 'e' in the title out of a 'c' because I had run out of vowels - I think this hardly notices and is a good way to make sure you don't waste an alpha because you have run out of key letters.

Using the blue inkpad, I inked around the edges of the chipboard frames, still leaving them mainly raw however. I then mounted them on pieces of card - the two smaller ones on scraps of the blue paper, the larger one on a white lined patterned paper by Scenic Route. I added my journalling to the larger frame, and my date to the medium frame. To decorate the medium frame I added a scrap of the ribbon and a small paper flower - to the large frame I added some gemstones and a stamped image by Autumn Leaves which I had stamped on acetate using Stazon and cut out.

To finish, I adhered the chipboard frames to the layout and added a suitable quote from a 7 Gypsies 97% complete sticker sheet on the right hand side of my photo. A special layout for some special 'retro' memories!