April's Review	Andrea's Review	Randi's Review	Catherine's Review	Chris' Review

Review by April

Basic Grey is known for creating beautiful heavyweight patterned paper, die cuts, stickers, rub-ons, and other scrapbook embellishments. I always look forward to seeing their new lines and I'm a big fan of their products. I was very excited to be included in the review of their new Figgy Pudding Holiday collection. This collection has it all, with a mixture of playful and elegant designs, each with a slightly distressed feel, and colors like deep red, aqua, pine green, rich browns, off whites, and the occasional pink.

For this review, I received a Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Variety pack! This awesome pack included:

• A Figgy Pudding paper pad. This included 36-6" x 6" designer papers from the Figgy Pudding Collection. There was 1 sheet of each, they were heavy in weight and very sturdy.
• One Undressed Holiday chipboard pack with 54 pieces of Holiday fun! The chipboard shapes come in ornaments, snowflakes, reindeer, lights, holly, stars, birds, a Christmas tree, and more, each 1.8 mm thick and all self-adhesive.
• One set of Santa Baby clear stamps, & One set of North Pole clear stamps. Each stamp set came on a 4" x 6" sheet, and the stamps were made of high quality durable material. The North Pole set came with cool snowflakes, swirl designs, a letter stamp, a calendar, words and phrases like dear santa, and more. The Santa Baby set contained more swirls, snowflakes, a Santa image, a piece symbol, and phrases like Deck the Halls.
• One 12" x 12" sheet of Figgy Holiday stickers. There are over 20 different stickers, each beautifully printed in Figgy Pudding paper patterns, in shapes like ornaments, snowflakes, a Christmas tree, a stocking, a sled, and more.
• One Figgy Pudding Fibers that came with 3 feet each of 10 different fibers in beautiful deep reds, greens, browns, and white.
• A Figgy Pudding Ornament Kit that included 8 die cut and scored ornaments decorated in Figgy Pudding paper patterns. There were 2 small, 4 medium, and 2 large ornaments, and plenty of gold cording to hang the ornaments with.

I used a little of everything from my variety pack on my first layout. I cut out my pictures and patterned paper with a circle punch, and then decorated each one. I colored the chipboard letters with a watercolor brush marker and then went back over them with a glitter pen. I added some stamped images and journaling to complete the layout.

Title: Happy Jolly Holidays
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics in White)
Patterned Paper (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding 6" x 6" Paper Pad)
Chipboard (Basic Grey Undressed Holiday Chipboard)
Stickers (Basic Grey Figgy Holiday Stickers)
Stamps (Basic Grey Clear Stamps: Santa Baby & North Pole)
Fibers (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Fibers)
Glitter Glue (Ranger Stickles)
Pens (Sakura Gelly Roll, American Crafts, Staedtler Watercolor Brush Marker)
Ink (Clearsnap Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink)
Rhinestones (Heidi Swapp)
Jewel Brad (Imaginisce)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I went a little freestyle on my second layout but had a lot of fun using all the embellishments. Everything on this layout is from my Basic Grey Variety pack except for the mediums like glitter glue, pens, ink, and paint. I liked how the snowflake sticker and matching chipboard provided me with 2 coordinating yet different embellishment effects.

Title: Time for Peace
Products used: Kraft Cardstock
Patterned Paper (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding 6" x 6" Paper Pad)
Chipboard (Basic Grey Undressed Holiday Chipboard)
Stickers (Basic Grey Figgy Holiday Stickers)
Stamps (Basic Grey Clear Stamps: Santa Baby & North Pole)
Glitter Glue (Ranger Stickles)
Paint (Ranger Paint Dabber)
Pens (Sakura Gelly Roll, American Crafts)
Ink (Clearsnap Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

When I saw the Undressed Holiday Chipboard, I thought some of them would actually make perfect ornaments for the tree! I chose a snowflake, snowman, ornament, and the reindeer to decorate for my third project. I used the matching Figgy Pudding Holiday stickers to dress up the snowman and the reindeer. I painted the snowflake in metallic silver, then used glitter glue on the last ornament. To complete the ornaments, I added rhinestones, brads, glitter doodling, stamps, fibers, and more glitter glue!

Title: Altered Ornaments Set 1


Title: Altered Ornaments Set 2
Products used: Chipboard (Basic Grey Undressed Holiday Chipboard)
Stickers (Basic Grey Figgy Holiday Stickers)
Stamps (Basic Grey Clear Stamps: Santa Baby & North Pole)
Fibers (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Fibers)
Glitter Glue (Ranger Stickles)
Paint (Ranger Paint Dabber)
Pens (Sakura Gelly Roll, American Crafts)
Ink (Staz On)
Rhinestones (Heidi Swapp)
Jewel Brad (Imaginesce)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I also made all of the paper ornaments in the Figgy Pudding Ornaments Kit. After completing the first one, the rest were easy to fold and adhere. I wanted to dress them up a little, so I used glitter glue, rhinestones, and added some of the Figgy Pudding Fibers!

Title: Dressed Up Figgy Pudding Ornaments
Products used: Ornaments (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Ornament Kit) Fibers (Basic Grey Figgy Pudding Fibers)
Glitter Glue (Ranger Stickles)
Rhinestones (Heidi Swapp)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner, K&Company Craft Bond)

I loved working with the Figgy Pudding variety pack because I felt inspired to be creative and try new things. I'm not used to working with 6" x 6" papers, but after experimenting with different ways I could use them on my scrapbook layouts, I fell in love with them. All of the papers, stickers, and embellishments were perfectly coordinated, easy to use, and really put me in the holiday mood. This would be a great holiday collection to create layouts, projects, and home decor with!

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Review by Andrea

BasicGrey is a company that everyone holds their breath in anticipation for the new releases to come out to see what great themes will be covered at that time. The holiday themes are always beautiful with customers grinning ear-to-ear at the innovative designs. Dasher, Blitzen, Fruit Cake and now Figgy Pudding pave the way for fantastic projects showcasing the winter holidays and weather. Figgy Pudding is a terrific blend of the previous designs and some new additions to keep it fresh. A big welcome to this year's "...seasonal palette of Wintermint Blue, Frosty White, Pinecone Brown, Berry Red and hues of Juniper."

The Figgy Pudding Collection Pack arrived in a neat package of 18 double-sided heavy weight papers accompanied by a sheet of Alphabet Stickers and Ornament Stickers. The patterns on the papers are a fresh, contemporary version of the old favorites: snowmen, gift packages, poinsettias and holly with some new adaptations of snowflakes, holiday candy and dots. Seven of the 18 sheets have mostly solid colored backs which offer a good foundation for some of the other more busy patterns. The Alphabet Stickers come in 2 colors on the same sheet, uppercase and lowercase, in a script font that accents the paper very nicely. The Ornament Stickers are full-colored and match a set of Undressed Chipboard Ornaments available separately.

Along with the Collection Pack, I also received 2 additional sets of Undressed Chipboard Letters in Margie and Hip fonts, the Monogram Stickers sheets to match both fonts, a set of Toffee Rub-ons and Fudge Rub-ons and Figgy Fiber! There was such a nice selection of products, that I couldn't wait to get started! I could easily burn through the product creating Christmas layouts, so I jumped in with both feet!

One feature that I immediately noticed about this collection is that it is great for any holiday photo - heritage, childhood or new. The colors are contemporary, but have a great distressed feel to them making the switch to older photos very easy. I used 30 year old pictures for the following page to show how the patterns and colors blend easily together supporting the era that the pictures were taken in. The Mini Monogram Stickers were a perfect match for the chipboard, making a great dimensional title. Once I got started, the elements just flowed together to the end. A little glitter glue on the letters added the festive touch at the end!

Title: "maine"ly Christmas
Products used: Patterned Paper (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding: Balsam, Trinket, Silent Night)
Alphabet and Mini Monogram Stickers (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding)
Fiber (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding)
Chipboard Letters (BasicGrey Hip)
Ornaments and Star Die Cuts (Spellbinders Style Dies: Decorative Ornaments and Sleigh Ride)
Die Cut and Embossing Machine (Spellbinders Wizard)
Stickles (Ranger: Icicle)
Journaling Office Sheer (Maya Road Steno)
Eyelets (Making Memories)
Red Pen (Sakura Glaze)
Sketch (ScrapFriends)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Fast forward 18 years to the next set of Christmas pictures...and Figgy Pudding STILL works beautifully! I used one of the more solid background papers with the patterned paper accents at the bottom for grounding. Some stamping and doodling accented without overbearing while the rub-on title blended right in with the design. The rub-on was applied with no overdue pressure, rubbing or tearing. The rich color of the Toffee tone was exquisite when placed near the brown stamped flourish. I really liked the detail to the rub-on and can't wait to use more! The paper handled the stamping well since it has no surface texture. Another great page using the coordinated products in the Collection.

Title: Deck the Halls
Products used: Patterned Paper (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding: Trinket, Silent Night, Red Ryder)
Rub-ons (BasicGrey Toffee)
Stamps (Fancy Pants, Heidi Swapp, Autumn Leaves)
Ink (Ranger Adirondack Espresso)
Bling (Target)
Journaling Office Sheer (Maya Road)
Pens (Sakura Glaze and Creative Memories)
Photo Corners (Canson)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I couldn't resist using a neat little mini mailbox for the last project. The more solid side of the Pepperberry paper was a gorgeous deep red color with a small detailed pattern that just said "love" to me! A section of the 12" x 12" paper wrapped perfectly around the box and some additional pieces from the reverse side of the paper cut to fit the end doors as a nice contrast. The Undressed chipboard letters and hearts matched the theme that I was looking for, in style and color. I just loved that this pattern was versatile enough to use for an occasion other than Christmas. Actually, there are a number of patterns that can be used for other occasions outside the traditional holiday end of year timeframe. Just use your imagination!

Title: Love Notes Mini Mailbox
Products used: Patterned Paper (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding: Pepperberry)
Alphabet and Monogram Stickers (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding)
Fiber (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding)
Chipboard Letters and Hearts (BasicGrey Margie)
Rub-ons (BasicGrey Transfers: Fudge)
Ink (Ranger Distress: Broken China, Vintage Photo)
Flowers (The Rag Shop and Prima)
Brad (JoAnn's Scrap Essentials)
Mini Mailbox (Target)
Ice Stickles (Ranger: Arctic Ice)

I love BasicGrey's product line, with Figgy Pudding at the top! I could make cards and layouts all day with this collection. Each one would be different and have it's own personality, I'm sure of it. The addition of die cut stickers to match the chipboard fonts is a great idea. It's such a simple thing, but offers a lot of value. The double-sided patterned paper gives the crafter more options for not a large price difference. All around, BasicGrey is still at the top of the list in my book!

You'll want your own share of Figgy Pudding, so definitely put it on your wish list now!

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Review by Randi

What excitement there was when the new holiday-themed collection from BasicGrey arrived! The Figgy Pudding Pack contains a mouth-watering assortment of eighteen double-sided 12" x 12" acid and lignin free papers, one sheet coordinating letter stickers and one sheet coordinating ornaments stickers. You get all of this for about $21.00 retail -- what a steal! Need MORE? Be sure to pick up a pack of coordinating fibers for about $4.00. If you aren't ready to take the entire collection, individual papers are available for 85 cents each, and the stickers for $3.00 per set.

I was thrilled to create a quick and easy layout using a photo I've been INTENDING to scrap for over a decade!

Title: Christmas 1992
Products used: Wonderful paper, Figgy Pudding Collection, BasicGrey
Red Ryder paper, Figgy Pudding Collection, BasicGrey
Figgy Ornament Stickers, BasicGrey
Border and Flower from Figgy Pudding Card Kit, BasicGrey
Rub-On Transfers, BasicGrey
Figgy Fibers, BasicGrey
Nero Exclusives Cardstock, Prism Papers
Permanent Bond Glue Runner,Adhesive Tech

If cards are your thing, and you wish to create some exceptionally QUICK cards, check out their Card Kit. One of the best features of this kit are the sketches and instructions to make eight different cards. It includes the cardstock,(it is from Prism, hurray!) rub-ons, chipboard, die cuts, and fibers to create them all, and its only $12.95! Of course, you can get even more creative and come up with ideas on your own. I chose to complete three of them pretty much as they presented them. What a quick way to make special holiday cards!

Title: Holiday Cards
Products used: Figgy Pudding Card Kit, BasicGrey
Permanent Bond Glue Runner, Adhesive Tech

The [un] dressed holiday ornaments chipboard is packaged with five 5" x 10" sheets containing twenty-one designs from trees to holly to snowflakes, and sells for about $6.50. Use them for actual ornaments, gift tags, on cards, layouts or altered objects. The possibilities are endless! The chipboard can be altered however you wish. You might try paint, stamping, embossing, ink, paper or any number of other embellishments. Couple with the self-adhesive Figgy Ornament Stickers ($3.00) and you have a super-fast way to dress them up. One unique and really cool feature of the chipboard is the self-adhesive on the back. My gift tags are ready to peel the backing away and stick on a holiday package!

Title: Holiday Gift Tags
Products used: Figgy Ornament Stickers, BasicGrey
Holiday Ornaments Chipboard,BasicGrey
Rub-on Transfers from Figgy Card Kit
Figgy Fibers, BasicGrey
Permanent Bond Glue Runner, Adhesive Tech

I am totally set for holiday gift/card preparation and scrapping some special memories with this wonderful collection. Definitely a must have this holiday season. Get yours quickly so you can begin!

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Review by Catherine

I must say that like many other scrappers out there, I have a huge weakness for all things BasicGrey. Since their very first release, I seem to have made it my job to collect each and every piece of paper and product the BasicGrey Company comes up with, and often several of each. It’s no surprise then that I jumped at the chance to work with the newest release from BasicGrey, “Figgy Pudding”.

BasicGrey’s new line is the Christmas Holidays release for this year called Figgy Pudding. There are eighteen Christmas/Winter themed papers in this line, along with fibers, chipboard ornaments, ornament stickers, three sets of alphabet stickers, cardstock stickers, two sets of brown rub-ons, a card kit, and an ornament kit. As well as their newest product development, three sets of clear stamps! In my review kit, I received a Figgy Pudding Card Kit, a Collection Pack, the Toffee Rub-ons, and a set of Figgy Pudding Fibers. I really enjoy the deep colors in this line, in contrast to most Christmas paper lines that are extremely bright reds and greens. Not all Christmas or Holiday pictures are bright enough to go along with those types of papers. There are also browns, and blues thrown into the mix in these papers, which makes scrapping any holiday or winter themed picture extremely easy. And, of course, all of the papers carry BasicGrey’s signature distressed look that has made this company so very popular. BasicGrey did distress before anyone else, and they do it extremely well!

On the evening that I received my Review Team kit, I wasn’t feeling well. I had been sick for over a week and really wanted to do something creative. When I opened the BasicGrey packet, I noticed that I had received one of the BasicGrey Card Kits. I knew I didn’t feel up to starting a layout from scratch, so the BasicGrey Card kit was the perfect answer for me. I was easily able to create eight elegant and beautiful cards for holiday giving in very little time. Creating Christmas cards is one of those things that I enjoy, but I have a hard time doing. I don’t like to create the same card over and over, but coming up with a different design for each and every card. With the use of the Figgy Pudding Card Kit, these cards were considerably easy to put together.

Title: Figgy Pudding Cards
Products used: Everything from BasicGrey Figgy Pudding Card Kit
Cardstock (Prism Papers)
Patterned Paper, Chipboard, Rub-ons, Fibers, Die-cuts (BasicGrey)

For my next creation, I decided to use the “Trinket” as the starting point for a layout. The addition of cardstock and a little glitter was all it took to complete this layout after using several of the different BasicGrey products available in the Figgy Pudding line.

Title: Christmas Sweetness
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Papers)
Patterned Paper, Chipboard, Rub-ons, Ornament Sickers (BasicGrey Figgy Pudding)
Adhesive Rub-ons, Glitter (K & Co.)
Acrylic Shape (Heidi Grace)
Frame (Li’l Davis Designs)
Adhesive (Adtech Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

For my next layout, I decided to scrap some pictures from last year’s holiday celebrations. Because these pictures were taken at night, they are dark. I love that the deep, rich colors of the BasicGrey papers do not compete with the colors in the pictures.

Title: Sleigh Ride
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Papers)
Patterned Paper (BasicGrey)
Chipboard, Rub-on, Ornament Sticker (BasicGrey)
Alphabet Stickers (Making Memories)
Star outline Stickers (MM)
Journaling Rub-on (Hambly Screenprints)
Adhesive (Adtech Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

What a wonderful pleasure it has been to use the BasicGrey Figgy Pudding collection to scrap a few of my Holiday pictures, and create cards for family. The colors are deep and rich, the quality is outstanding, and the overall feel of these products is elegant. I also really enjoy the fact that these papers are double-sided, which makes the choices of paper to use even more varied. The Collection Pack for this line is jam-packed with beautiful papers and products; enough for at least ten to twelve layouts or a complete mini-album. After using the BasicGrey products that I received for this review, I have plenty left for many more products, and plans galore for those as well. If you are looking for the perfect Christmas Collection for this year, then the BasicGrey Figgy Pudding line is it!

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Review by Chris

BasicGrey’s Christmas collections are always much anticipated and this year’s Figgy Pudding does not disappoint. Filled with rich, deep reds and browns, olive greens and shades of aqua, it is certainly not your traditional Christmas/winter paper. But the colors are rich and work extremely well together. Including both traditional and whimsical designs, the collection is filled with creativity and inspiration.

There are 18 two-sided papers in the collection. Seven of the “flip” sides are the gorgeous inked solids we have come to love from BasicGrey. The other eleven are patterns, giving you a total of 29 different patterns to choose from! Accompanying the papers are the familiar sheet of upper and lower case alphabet stickers which also includes numbers and punctuation, and a sheet of die-cut seasonal stickers, which include ornaments, snowflakes and stars all in varying sizes. Of course, there are new rub-on transfers beautifully detailed in brown, as well as coordinating fibers. Quite a package!!!

For this review I also received gorgeous coordinating alphabet stickers and two undressed chipboard alphabets in the Margie and Hip fonts. The self-adhesive chipboard letters are easily removed from the surrounding sheet and each set includes punctuation and extra elements. The stickers, created from the different patterned and solid designs of the Figgy Pudding papers, fit the chipboard letters perfectly, making it oh-so-easy to create beautiful, coordinating titles for layouts and projects. Wow!!!

Scrapping Christmas photos really helps to get me in the holiday mood. Maybe that’s why I always wait to scrap my Christmas photos until just before the next Christmas! This first layout has a cluster of photos from our tree-decorating last year. Matt has always loved this part of our holiday tradition, and he is very particular about where each ornament is placed. I used the rich cappuccino metallic Prism cardstock for the background. The chipboard letters were inked using a direct-to-paper technique with Ranger’s Adirondack cranberry dye ink. The letters accepted the ink amazingly well! This has now become my favorite (and easiest) way to color these chipboard letters! The BasicGrey paper has a nostalgic look that I love for my Christmas layouts. The small die cut ornaments were the perfect embellishment. I added a little “bling” with some stitched accents using metallic thread from Kreinik.

Title: Christmas Magic
Products used: Patterned paper (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding Collection, Kringle, Red Rider)
Stickers (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Ornament Stickers)
Chipboard letters (BasicGrey, undressed, Margie and Hip)
Cardstock (Prism, Metallics, cappuccino)
Metallic thread (Kreinik)
Ink (Ranger, Adirondack, Cranberry)
Rhinestones (EK Success)
Corner punch (EK Success)
Pen (UniBall Signo white)
Font (Bookworm)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Tape Runner)

I love how the BasicGrey papers coordinate so well with each other. No matter which ones you choose, you are assured that they will look beautiful when grouped together on a layout. The distressed effect on the patterns gives instant character and dimension to any project. Another thing that I like about BasicGrey is that many of the collections coordinate with each other so that you can mix and match from your stash to achieve a completely new look. The “red” in this collection is more of a burgundy and Ranger's aged mahogany distress crackle paint is a perfect complement. I applied it to the ampersand and then added a little bling for contrast. I created the tree element myself out of felt from my sewing stash. The large paper flower is from a project available at creatingkeepsakes.com. Again I selected a rich metallic paper by Prism to provide some glimmer for the background.

Title: Merry & Bright
Products used: Patterned paper (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Tinsel, Pepper Berry, Kringle, Peppermint)
Chipboard (BasicGrey, undressed, Margie)
Transfer (BasicGrey, Fudge)
Fiber (BasicGrey, Figgy)
Alpha stickers (BasicGrey, Figgy)
Cardstock (Prism, Metallics, Greed)
Paint (Ranger, Distress Crackle, Aged Mahogany)
Flower design (creatingkeepsakes.com)
Pen (UniBall Signo white)
Rhinestones (EK Success)
Button (Making Memories)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Tape Runner)

I'm sorry to make you look at the same Christmas photo twice, but I also scrapbook layouts for my niece and she has specifically requested this photo. Although I usually scrap in 12" x 12" size, I found that the designs of the Figgy Pudding papers also work well on smaller-sized layouts like this one. Here I used the alphabet stickers and the margie font to create my title. I love the dimension that chipboard gives to my layouts and the ease of simply selecting a sticker and applying it to the chipboard letter makes creating perfectly coordinated titles a snap. No X-acto knife or small scissors required!

Title: Noel
Products used: Patterned paper (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Forest, Toyland, Trinket, Toasty)
Monogram stickers (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding)
Chipboard (BasicGrey, Margie)
Rub-ons (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Toffee)
Cardstock (Prism, Metallics, Desire)
Crystals (Prima, Say it in crystals, Swirls Bright)
Ink (ClearSnap, ColorBox Cat's Eye, Chestnut)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Tape Runner)

Finally, I wanted to create a door hanger for my scrap room. The “winter” themes papers with gorgeous snowflake designs were perfect. They remind me of the snowfalls of my youth. After covering the door hanger with a background paper, I cut a long transfer in half and applied half to each edge. I used raised dots to elevate the ornament from the background and added a metal hanging hook to it. I punched three snowflakes from the reverse side of the patterned paper and also used raised dots to attach them to the door hanger. Now I’m all set for the winter months!

Title: Scrap Magic
Products used: Patterned paper (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Silent Night)
Stickers (BasicGrey, Figgy Pudding, Ornament stickers, Alphabet Stickers)
Transfer (BasicGrey, Toffee)
Wood door hanger (Darice)
Die cut (Sizzix, Snowflake)
Adhesive (Xyron; EK Success, 3D dots)

You simply cannot go wrong when you create with BasicGrey. Their unique designs, fine quality materials and attention to detail are outstanding. The color palettes are often a little unusual, but that’s part of their charm. Although I hate to “waste” paper by using one side of two-sided paper, I do enjoy the added variety of a collection that offers designs on both the front and back of the papers. The delicacy and complexity of their rub-on transfers, along with their ease of application, certainly set them apart from others in the marketplace. If you have not already done so, run to your favorite local or online store and grab up this collection while it is still available. You know you’ll only be sorry if you wait!

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