Family | Amy Kattenbelt | No Cardstock

Over on the UK Scrap Addicts this month, you might have seen we have been challenges to create a layout without using any cardstock. Now, this was quite a challenge for me, as recently i have been enjoying using white cardstock to create mixed media backgrounds. Let me share a few ideas I had about this challenge....

So I decided on picking a patterned paper to use as my background in replacement of a mixed media/cardstock combination. By picking this ledger style paper, that has a lot of detail and faux stamping on, i really feel that it made what was a very quick and simple layout look effective and interesting. This would also work well if you are yet to dabble in the world of mixed media (I totally understand its not for everyone, in fact I used to say it definitely wasn't for me at all until last year!...so do think about giving it a try...but i digress...). I also used a large photo to help cover up more of the page to make this challenge less daunting....and if you look at my paper choices carefully you will see that several of the papers have a very subtle pattern (watercolour wash effect) which helps stop the page being overly busy.

Other methods i had thought of using was that i could pick a very neutral plain (maybe a small repeating pattern) background and simply treat it as if it were white cardstock...maybe adding some white gesso to the centre and then working from there.

Or I thought i could create my own pattern using patterned paper if that makes sense. Using stripes of paper to create layers, or using 4 papers (maybe in 6 inch squares or 4 triangles) to create a complete 12x12 background.

Or i considered using two or three patterned papers layered horizontally. I do this a lot...i like to have 4 inches of paper at the top, then a 1 inch strip of a contrasting paper followed by 7 inches at the bottom of yet another paper.

I've done all of these ideas in the past. Please do pop over to our Facebook group and share your No Cardstock layouts with us, I would love to see your ideas.

And finally, I will leave you with my completed layout and close ups. Do also check out the process video, its only a few minutes long and you can see for yourself just how easy this type of page comes together.