Reading “The Night Before Christmas” was always a big deal in our house, and we cracked it open starting every Thanksgiving. I found a board-book version with a pillow-top cover for Elliott's birthday to keep the tradition going.

I started this layout by dragging the frames onto the canvas, filling them, adding two Multi-Media Holiday elements, then placing my iPhone extraction. I also plunked down a big photo of Elliott's Christmas tree to the left, figuring I would blend it into whatever background I chose. This turned out to be Solid Paper # 4 over Artsy Paper #4 on Overlay Blend mode. I changed the blend mode of the Christmas Tree photo to color burn at reduced opacity, then brushed around a bit to blend with Artsy Brushes. This sparkled things up a bit and revealed a hint of the presents underneath the tree. I also made the wood in one of the Multimedia Elements “woodier” by duplicating it on color burn blend mode.