Spice Up Your Layouts!

Cardamom is the "secret" ingredient in my favorite homemade Christmas cookies. I picked up the tip from a friend's mother who has travelled the world. According to Wikipedia, cardamom has a "strong, unique taste, with an intensely aromatic fragrance". Used in a very small amount, it just changes everything.

Cardamom is also the fabulous stripe found in the Marrakech line of Basic Grey papers, and it is also strong, unique and intense! Just adding a small strip down the left side of this page changed the whole feel of the layout.

When I opened this month's kit and found the Masala Bella paper, I fell in love with the rich colors and bold, exotic floral pattern. This (adorable) picture of my daughter had such a rich blue in the background, I knew it was a perfect match. When I laid it down, though, I had a problem. Even with such a large scale picture, I felt like the paper was taking center stage. So I decided to add a little Cardamom! This paper echoes all the beautiful colors in the floral pattern, but it also adds bold stripes of brown and a nice soft gray. The pattern and the colors have a "muting" effect on the layout. From the stripes, I picked up the color brown and added the scalloped cardstock to create a frame for the picture. (I did a little fancy cutting on the inside to scallop the inner edge.)

When I picked up my kit at the store, I also selected some coordinating Bazzil and I used that to back the page, letting it peek through in between all the elements...kind of a color blocking technique. I left a tiny strip of blue on each side of the ribbon and around the page edges.

For the title I chose the "Daddy's Little Girl" stamp, which was in my stash. I used Stazon pumpkin ink and clear embossing powder and centered it on the flower and topped it with a button - I just love adding dimension! When Deborah Mahnken came back from CHA she brought a product from ScraPerfect and she shared it with me...the Perfect Printing Pouch. I used it on the petals of the flower and then stamped some descriptive words using a soft orange ink...and the ink didn't bleed! It was perfect!

Since I was in the stamping mode, I decided to add some butterflies from a really cute set I bought at Scrapbooks Plus (Making Memories/Flower Patch - on the *NEW* wall in the front of the store - if there are any left!). Using Stazon, I stamped onto some of the distressed "solids" from Marrakech - Palace Blue and Mandarin Slice - and used clear embossing powder again. They are little jewels of color sprinkled around the frame.

The glittered swirls were cut using the Accu-Cut die in the classroom at Scrapbooks Plus. I glittered directly onto the chipboard - no painting a base color - with Ladybug Glitter/Doodlebug Design. I actually had made these for one of my January pages, but they just didn't work. I am very glad I saved them because I think they really are the perfect touch!

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Sooo - I used a handful of easy techniques to create this layout - color blocking, fancy cutting, mixing papers, stamping, embossing, glittering - but what really makes it work is the amazing Marrakech papers from Basic Grey! Spice up your layouts with some Cardamom!