on holiday..........

i am dreaming of going on holiday, or just not being at work! the last break i had for longer than 5 days was in 2008. although i know how blessed i am, i also know that i need to slow down. i was forced down on Thursday - FLU! unfortunately i had to work as everyone else is on leave, but i got into bed last night, and only got up after 11 this morning! my body just refused to co-operate! i then took a bath and had the best intentions of getting up and ready for church, but i was EXHAUSTED after that! so, i excused myself from church this afternoon, and i have been very restful the rest of the day. as i was looking at new collections and tracking shipments from the USA, i stumbled upon Pink Paislee's inspiration page. i was really inspired by a digital page on the Fun Freebie page, by Rebecca Cross. i had been holding on to these papers by Margie from Girl's Paperie since April 2010, and although the shop has almost sold out of the second shipment as well, i have never found the right project to make with the papers. well, i had no idea what photo i was going to use, but i knew i was going to do an "ON HOLIDAY" page, as i have been DREAMING about a few days to myself. while i was preparing the page, i remembered that i had gone down to the beach on January 2nd, and took some random photos. there was a great photo of a beach umbrella. the colours were all wrong, so i just made it black and white. i also knew that i had promised myself that the next layout i made, had to use LOTS of patterned papers, i had to mat the photo and NO distress inks, blending etc! i did ok - i only altered the daisy chain - punched some patterned paper with the new Deep Edger EK Success Daisy Chain punch that arrived on Friday, and used Adirondack Denim Embossing powder to make it match the layout. everything else is from the On Holiday range by Girl's Paperie, except the background is a paper in the Paper Girl range. i even chalked everything and the edges of my background page. i had a blast, and it made me feel alot better! the shop still has all the papers and the sticker sheets as well as the die cuts and stamps, and loads of new EK Success punches, but we are sold out of the other Girl's Paperie embellishments after the holiday season. i might be back later to share some random thoughts . things are normalising again after the season, so i will try and get back to my regular ramblings shortly!! xxx