Facing another scrapbooking phobia...  It's #3 I am up to (for whomever is counting).  Scrapping on brightly patterned paper.  Yeah, I admit it.  Me, who loves pattern and color and layering... I have an issue scrapping using a brightly colored and patterned background paper. 

I like it when I see it on other peoples pages... but not so much when I've used a bright colored pattern paper as the base for my page. 

But I am facing this and working through it.  It's just not something I will ever be totally comfortable doing.  I think we all have color combinations that we like more than others and patterns and such--- and a bright background is just not something I am probably going to reach for a whole lot. 

So here it is, my take on using a brightly colored background paper.  It's my Isabella girl from last summer.... her and her sidewalk chalk.  These photos seemed strong enough to hold up to brighter colors and I also found it was more appealing to my eye to group the photos tightly together making them bolder than the papers. 

 

The background paper is from the Little Girl collection from Echo Park.  The layering papers were from a couple of bargain packs I got (of all places) at  Michaels.  They had some sort of super duper deal of the day ($5) on some 8-1/2 x 11 pattern paper packs (one was Dear Lizzy and the other from Maggie Holmes so they are fairly recent and are actually cardstock weight!) 

I placed the photos as a block on a small floral pattern (it's a pattern I am not likely to use all on its own--but the navy color was good behind the pictures).  And I cut up a sheet that had strips of patterns on it so that I could use just the strips I wanted.  Placed all the pink and navy patterned strips above and below the photos.  Cut a couple of banners from another pink patterned paper from the bargain packs, colored a "hello" wood veneer with a pink and then a red ink pad to get it to be a bold pink.  The journaling piece was a cut-apart from the same Little Girl collection.  "Cuteness" is a sticker from Heidi Swapp, as is the hello arrow.  The flowers are from a really old pack of Sandy Lion flower stickers--I did peel off a green layer on a couple of them to keep to my hot pink and navy color theme.  Punched a few little hearts from a scrap of navy cardstock and that was it.  I did not add paint splatters or such--was really afraid it would be just too, too much. 

The journaling really isn't about Bella; the photo of  her squatting down to color on the sidewalk reminded me of my mom and how tickled she would get to see the little ones playing like this.  She always used to say it looked as though they were sitting on an imaginary little stool.  I want Bella to know some of these funny little things about her great-grandma.  And how better, than to include these anecdotes on some scrapbook pages!

It's early evening, so I think I will try to sneak off to my little room and do some scrapping. 

Cheryl