a neutral layout on simplicity

The theme this month at Two Peas was a winter/holiday one. Since I had already went with the more holiday part last month with my mini album, I decided to focus on the winter part.
This photo has been on my pinterest board for awhile and I just love the still, peacefulness of it. So much beauty in it's simplicity. (I can't find the original source so please let me know if you do.)

I love making layouts of all different sizes and, once upon a time, made 8.5 x 11 landscapes all the time. For some reason I stopped, maybe because it wasn't a popular layout shape? Who cares! I just wanted to play around with that orientation again. It's obvious with this layout that I don't measure or keep anything straight. Oops. I made the photo into a 4 grid with a simple "simplify" title typed and stapled. As I've mentioned before,  I'm not much for a word of the year or anything, but the word "simplify" keeps coming to my mind lately and I do want to focus more on that this coming year.

I kept the palette neutral, but with varying texture and pattern: silver glitter, snowflake vellum, die cut trees, acetate calendar. Silver & gold (are you singing the song from Rudolph yet?) are mixed in among the stars (always with the stars) and the only pops of color come from the metal button I have been hoarding and a vintage ticket. Maybe I should have added a third piece of red. It's always good to work in odd numbers and create that visual triangle, but I'm a rebel and didn't.

You can see more photos, products used and a detailed description here. And while you are there, you might want to observe that brand new October Afternoon is in at Two Peas. 'Tis the season to shop...am I right?