First layout with the Either Way Scraptastic Kit (July 2014) - 12 X 12 travel related

Happy Thursday to all !  I hope you are having a fun and amazing day !  It is one of those cloudy, heavy, blah days here - feels like rain but so far, it has held off.  I am off on Thursdays and usually get a lot of the chores out of the way so that that my weekends are not all cleaning, cooking, washing etc....  but more garden fun, scrappy fun, tennis fun, photo fun and any other fun I can drum up!  How about you ?  How is your week shaping up?

I have broken into my July kit.  I must say that I was a little intimidated with this one at first... for just a bit.  The papers are so beautiful; the colour scheme is really right up my alley.  And with the touch of gold throughout, the kit felt a little regal. As I was sorting through my photos, I kept thinking they were not up to the standard of the kit LOL.  I felt I needed THE photo, just the perfect shot, the important photo .... you know the one that records that all important moment.  But truth be told, I don't actually have many of those photos (or those moments!!).  So, I just took the plunge and started.  And, I am sooooo loving this kit; truly!

My first layout is a scraplift of a layout by Tracy Banks (mercytiara on You Tube and a member of the Scraptastic Design Team).  She made her layout for the Bingo challenge during the 4th anniversary celebrations.  She mentioned that the L shape was one of her go-to designs and I just loved her layout.  So, to lessen the "awe" factor of this kit, I went with a scraplift of her lovely layout.  And I am so pleased with the outcome, This design will definitely become one of my go-to's as well.  I also find that I am enjoying scrapping 4X4 photos a lot recently.

My layout :

Since this is my first layout with this kit, there is very little from my own add-on, or from my stash.  Everything is from the kit except for :

• The October afternoon Mini Market alphas in mint and cream for part of the title
• The woodgrain photo mat and scalloped circle in the top RH cluster are from the 6X6 Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine paper pad
• The cork stars are from a previous kit (the May kit maybe?)

The scraplift is pretty much integral except that I journaled to the right of the photo as opposed to the top part of the L,  where Tracy had added speech bubbles for her journaling. 

The story:  This is one of those really great travel stories - well actually a story of how kind people can be.  In Feb. 2006, I was into the eighth month of my backpacking trip and was travelling with a friend in Porgugal.  We had spent a fantastic week in Porto and were on the train going back Lisbon.  We arrived at the Fatima station, and since my friend's uncle is a priest, he asked if we could get off there and visit for a bit, take photos for his uncle and go onto to Lisbon the next day.  So on the spur of the moment, we got off the train!!  Well, little did we know, the Fatima train station is 30+ km from the town of Fatima.  So there we were, in a station, in the middle of nowhere - there was a restaurant, a bar, a tourist office and a very long line of taxis just waiting to charge 50 euros or more to take unsuspecting tourists to the town LOL.  Well my friend, who is a little "hot blooded" was ranting, raving and using quite colourful language (in Canadian French).  I was laughing, which wasn't helping matters.  All of a sudden, we heard a French (from France) accent say "Eh les canadiens!!  Etes-vous perdus" (Hey are you Canadians lost?); hence the title of my layout.  This gentleman (Luis) had just returned from a work trip and was on the same train as us.  His wife (Marie-France)  was picking him up and they lived in a nearby town called Tomar.  To make a long story short, they took us to lunch, took us sightseeing in Tomar and absolutely insisted that we stay with them until we could go on our way the next day.  We went to the market, I cooked dinner, my friend bought some wine and we had a more than lovely evening.  They told us about a lovely fishing village called Nazare, so the next morning instead of getting back on the train for Lisbon, Luis and Marie-France took us to the bus station and we boarded the bus for Nazare where we spent another absolutely lovely week !!!

There is just a little bit of journaling on the front of the layout - I journaled the whole story on the back :)

Hmmm you know what?  The photo itself may be just one of my newfound friends, not the "life-changing, worthy" one I was searching for when I first looked at this kit; but boy the story sure is!

Thanks for joining me today and I'll be back on the weekend with the second layout!  Hugs xoxo