Scrapbook stitching

This weekend I had a little time to myself and I decided I wanted to do some scrapbooking. I have so many crafty ideas at the moment and a huge list pinned up next to my desk that my head is a bit confused and looking at an enormous pile of unscrapped photos didn't help much either. I've learnt that I like to follow a challenge at times like these. Just a little suggestion to get me pointed in the right direction. I really enjoyed the challenges Shimelle set for International Scrapbooking day and so I had a go at her sketch for this week too.

The large photo is printed onto linen from Crafty Computer Paper and I made the photo a little paler before printing too. I couldn't resist a bit of free-motion stitching again and you'll see on the close-ups that I did it twice as I tried it in white but it was too subtle and could barely be seen so I did it again in blue.

I saw a tutorial at the Maya Road Design Team blog about microbeads on chipboard, so I had a go at that too. I took photos of the layout to put on here and when I looked back at the pictures, the red bucket seemed to jump off the page. The colour ties up nicely with the bucket and spade in the photos but it looked too much. I added the blue starfish to the top (which echoed the colour of the shorts in the photos) and created the triangle of colours. I think it all works together much better now.