You might have seen our friend Denise at a cropping party. You’d definitely notice her—she’s the one with the perfectly organized Crop-In-Style. Yes, Denise is the only one who doesn’t cart around boxes and bags spilling over with paper, photos and half-completed pages. Denise is a very organized scrapper: She shoots a roll of film, has it developed right away, and immediately scrapbooks the photos (beautifully, we might add).

Well, good for Denise. Meanwhile, the other 99% of us are way behind, scrapping Christmas photos in July and wedding pictures sometime after our 10th anniversary. We’ve got boxes full of dusty old photos and more magnetic albums than we care to think about.

(You’ll notice we didn’t say what year’s Christmas photos).

One thing that can help is patterned paper. Yes, books of patterned papers are a lifesaver when it comes to quick coordinating for great pages. We’ve listened to your requests for more matching paper designs per book and put at least two coordinating sheets in each book so it’s easy to create double-page spreads or mix and match papers on one layout. We’ve got two super Christmas layouts from scrapbook specialists Arlene Peterson and Lisa Garcia-Bergstedt. One is elegant, the other is kid-themed. Both use coordinating papers from Paper Pizazz® books.

Ready to get started? Take a look!

Peace on Earth

Arlene’s Tip: Block style matting is a great way to bring the viewer’s eye right to the photos. Arlene used coordinating metallic papers and pastel vellum to mat the photos and journaling. Yes, Arlene says, you can easily mix and match two different paper patterns. Just be sure to mat each piece to separate the patterns. Pastel vellum, especially this pretty tan vellum, looks simply stunning on metallic papers.

Arlene created this pretty page with strips of star paper and pastel vellum arranged on top of the tree background sheet. One 2"-wide strip of star paper is matted on gold, then on tan vellum and placed across the center of the page. The photos are matted on gold paper, then placed on strips of solid gold, star paper and tan vellum. The journaling plaques are matted the same way to provide consistency in design.

Supplies:

• patterned Paper Pizazz®: trees, stars, solid gold Part not in database (may have been discontinued): #3262 ); tan vellum ( Part not in database (may have been discontinued): #3262

Griffin’s Christmas

Lisa’s Tip: Ribbon and beads are fun ways to add texture and dimension to your pages. Photo pens add a touch of color to Lisa’s black and white photograph. Lisa’s created a quadrant page, dividing the background into fourths—and notice how she maintained the balance of the page by placing beaded embellishments at each corner of the matted photo, and adding ribbon and sticker letters at the top left and bottom right side of the page.

Lisa cut two 6"x6" squares of tree paper and two 6"x6" squares of star paper, then taped them together to form a 12"x12" background page. The seams are covered with 1/2"-wide strips of silver paper. Lisa matted her photo on tree paper, then vellum, then star paper, then silver. She punched stars, covered them with double-stick tape and then added beads. The ribbon was folded, then added to page with double stick tape. Sticker letters decorate the ribbon.

Supplies:

• patterned Paper Pizazz®: red trees, silver stars, silver ( HOTP-3261 Metallic Silver ), white vellum ( HOTP-3072 Vellum Papers )
• Frances Meyer stickers
• punches: McGill for medium star, Marvy for small star
• ribbon
• red and silver beads
• Zig photo pens (Golden Locks and Rosewood)

What do you think of our New Year’s Scrapping Resolution? We’re pretty sure even Denise would be impressed by how much we’ve accomplished with our Christmas photos. And we’re delighted with the new Paper Pizazz® books that make our layouts that much faster and easier! For fabulous metallic papers, don’t forget to look to Part not in database (may have been discontinued): #3262 and Metallic Silver—they’re simply fantastic!

Now, to reorganize that Crop-in-Style….