Trends on Tuesday - Busy Backgrounds

I thought I would do a Christmas-ish page for this post....and the trend is using busy patterned papers as a background.  I used this paper from the MME All is Bright range, and it is quite a busy pattern with lots of different elements to it (take a look at Mel's class from the retreat (the 3rd page on this post) which uses the patterned paper in a totally different way).

I tend to always mount my photos on white card stock or a plain card to help them stand out against a busier background, but also to tone down the background a little I use some gesso - dry brushing it on the page and then I did a little stencilling too with a knitting needle measurer (yep use a few household objects to see what effects you can get :)).  I added lots of layers too which is another popular trend at the moment.  Another tip is that if you have a busy background paper a layer of vellum  behind the photo matts can just mute it a little and help the photos pop out.  So this week I would like to encourage you all to dig out some of your patterned papers and use them as the base layer for a page and I would love to see anything you create to so post a link on this post if you do.

I also want to wish you all a fantastic Christmas and New Year as this will be my last Tuesday post before the big day.