I made this page about my daughter's trip to Costa Rica last January, but recently revised it with a repeat pattern of a blue postage stamp, set on different blending modes, to make a border. (Tutorial coming soon on the aA blog.)

Products:
Postage stamp: Together Artplay Palette: http://www.oscraps.com/shop/ArtPlay-Palette-Together.html
PapersMagic Rabbit Artplay Palette [ link ] Traveler Artplay Palette [ link ] Crazy Life Artplay
Palette [ link ]
LoopedUrbanThreadz No. 1: [ link ]
BeadBeadedThreadz No. 3: [ link ]
Leaves: FotoblendzLayeredTemplate No. 9 (retired)
Metro Graffiti Brushes (retired)
Paper Textures No. 2 (retired)
Tire Tread Frames No. 1 (retired)

Process:
I started with the photo, clipping it and duplicates of it to a variety of brushes. I added the Tire Tread frames, blending them into the background with various modes. I pulled in the leaves from the template and clipped a green paper to them, and then the fun began. I distressed everything with brushes and textures, recoloring some of it, but mostly relying on black, blending modes, and changes in opacity. I added the title and journal snippet last.
EDIT: The empty space around the edges of the layout just called out for something, so several months later, I chose a repeat pattern of the blue postage stamp to pick up the blue in the photo. I duplicated the stamp and made a drizzle of shapes on each side, blending each stamp into the background using various modes. To alter the stamps even further, as a last step I adjusted the color of some of the stamps with the hue/saturation tool.