Bon Voyage and a Bean Feast!

Hello Blog Friends,

Well, J. went off to Normandy this morning.  We walked round to school, towing those two bags behind us (and no-one complained that he had 2 bags, rather than one - no problems at all!).  We met up in the hall and the children went to their Groups that they had been given last term. Everyone was excited and it was really rather fun.  Then the coaches arrived and we parents spent a very chilly half-hour standing outside, watching our kids loading their bags, getting on the coaches and messing around, waiting to go.  Just after 9am, off they all went, with lots of mums and dads to wave them off!

So it's been a quiet day.  For the first time in ages, I have had an entire weekend day all to myself... very strange.  I have been busy - after all, what does a Scrapper do when she (or he!) has a whole day free?

Shimelle has been hosting a Blog Scrapbooking Party all weekend.  I decided to join in, so I printed off a few photos and got to work.  This is my take on her Sketch Layout Challenge.

You'll probably notice that I've shifted the whole thing upwards a bit, to fit in the big luggage tag for my title. I spent a looong time working out this layout. It was supposed to be a quick page - but it took me hours!  The main issue was the background. 

I found the various elements for the page and put them together, quickly decided I needed to mat things onto kraft cardstock, worked out most of how the layout would fit in with the sketch... but I couldn't decide on the background!  I tried all sorts of colours of Bazzill cardstock. None of them looked right.  I was getting really fed up, because I thought I would never find the "right" paper for the background.  Then I remembered this lady's fondness for patterned paper backgrounds (which always work amazingly for her!)  So, I got out my patterned papers (some of them!!).

Half an hour of faffing around later... lo! A lovely sheet of Chatterbox paper (double sided - this is the plain side)... It was just the right colour and had just a little bit of texture in it, to set of the design as I wanted.

I was a bit surprised that this deep turquoise worked so well, as I had tried every shade of brown, moss, red, charcoal, black, white, cream, sand and grey... then I started with the blues and voila!

I trimmed off a quarter inch and matted it onto kraft cardstock, partly because it was paper, not cardstock, but also to make it work with the other elements.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this; but it took me so long to do! I must get speedier at my scrapping! This is the fallout from being a perfectionist - it has to be "just right", or I won't do it!

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And while I was working away, it was lunch time.  I went in the cupboard to look for some tuna, but found these:-

I don't remember the last time I ate Beans on Toast! It was super-yummy!

Off to do some more scrapping - I still have 6 photos left!