Holding my own Easter Retreat

Hi everyone,
Hope you're having a relaxing Easter break wherever you are in the world.
This year we stayed home for the Easter holidays and it's been pretty quiet so far so I declared an impromptu Easter Retreat @ home, just with me LOL
Our kids are all coming over tomorrow for lunch and I'm pretty much all organised for that so what better way to spend the days than scrapping?

So far I've completed 2 pages in between what housework I have (and there's always lots to do here!!) and cooking meals for those of us at home.

I finished this page first...this is a 'just for me' layout:

I found the photo of my little grandson and his mummy walking along the beach in the ridiculous amount of photos I have of him when I was off on Retreat a few weeks back. I absolutely LOVE it and couldn't wait to scrap it.

I think I must be one of the biggest procrastinators when it comes to starting a page so I set myself a challenge on this one to just 'stick it down' without worrying about it too much and I'm really, really happy with it. 

I've used a stencil, texture paste, Gelatos and Glimmer Mist to create the background and lots of lovely layering with clusters of embellishments to finish the design.

Here's a close up of the layering and embellishments:

I just love clusters and tiny details...I really think they add the finishing touches on a layout.

That tiny little anchor you see there? I must have had that in my stash for about 6-7 years. Originally it was a sweet little gold metal charm but to make it suit my page I painted it with Gesso and then coloured it with Gelatos. 

This next page I did for the April Scrap the Boys challenge which is to use flowers on a boys layout.

To be honest I struggle with doing this, especially as my boys are all grown up but by using chipboard flowers layered with felt ones I got it to work perfectly:

 

I love this photo of my husband and little grandson who was helping our son move house on this day. Little man was so tired at this stage and was quite happy to sit in the cart moving plant pots with his grandpa. Look at his little elbow resting on the back of the cart...sooo cute.

It's been a while since I used lots of patterned paper on a page but love this Jillibean Soup kit and these papers suited the photo perfectly. Lots of distressing and layering went on here finished off with the cute stickers in the kit:

 

That's it so far but I'm about to print off a sketch and play along over at Once upon a...Sketch for the very first time. I'm loving these challenge blogs lately, they are the perfect way to get that mojo flowing.

What challenge sites will you be visiting over the break?

Have a wonderful day tomorrow and I hope the Easter bunny brings you lots of yummy eggs.

Bye for now,

Sharryn xx