Simple Stories - Simple Vintage Christmas Lodge - Hello 2023

Hi there,

Claire here and today I'm sharing my final layout with the Simple Stories Simple Vintage Christmas Lodge collection.

You may remember, this month I'm challenging myself to use up all the scraps and see how versatile a Christmas collection can be.

For this layout, I'm focusing on the green and woodgrain elements of the collection to create a wintery layout with no sense of Christmas in sight! (apart from a very small amount of Holly, but I hope you'll let me off!)

Here's how it turned out.

I prepped my 12x12 Premium White Cardstock with clear gesso, leaving it to the side to dry.

In the meantime, I cut the Leafy Frame Trio cutfile by Pinkfresh Studio, sized to about 9" wide. You can download the file for free in their Facebook group.

I backed the square frames with the Jolly St Nick paper, making sure to include some of the white holly and distressed pattern for extra interest.

Next, on to the leaves which I backed with a combination of the Christmas Wishes Paper and some Parakeet Bazzill Cardstock.

Once all the leaves were backed and the gesso dry, I added quite a lot of water to the background before spraying Distress Oxide Spray in Bundled Sage and Antique Linen. This helped to dilute the ink, resulting in a light colour wash rather than bold mixed media.

Whilst waiting for the ink to dry, I set about printing my photo. I resized it to 2.5" (including the white border), mounting it on a piece of the b side of the Boughs of Holly paper with a layer of white tissue paper behind. 

For extra interest, I also added a tag from the Bits & Pieces pack.

Next, I created some clusters on top of the file, mainly using the Bits & Pieces Ephemera and Woodland Bits & Pieces.

Alongside the cardstock ephemera pieces, I added extra dimension by using some of the foam pieces from the Foam Stickers which have really helped lift the layout.

For my title, I again reached for the Foam Stickers. Remembering this was not going to be a Christmas layout, I needed to find something more generic. Luckily, there is a sticker saying Hello which provided me with lots of options to create my title.  As this was one of the first layouts I made this year, I reached for some older gold Thickers from my stash and added 2023.

I scattered some heart ephemera pieces, raising some on foam and some flat for extra dimension, and added a few splatters of gold ink to finish the page.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. I don't feel like it says Christmas at all and has a much more wintery feel. I hope it will inspire you to get more from any Christmas collections you have and push the boundaries to see what else you can create. 

Have fun!!

Claire xx

@scrappysoulmate