From Dining Table to Kitchen

The formal dining room is one of the rooms off the main hall. It was set for a lavish Christmas feast. Not only are the dishes fancy, but the tableware and room ornamentation is rich and vibrant! I remember from a previous visit that the house has been examined by historical paint analysts (I'm sure they have a real title but that's as much as I remember). They take chips of paint and analyze the colors dating back to the original coat, so this is likely the original color of the room. It's rather bright for my tastes though.

I made this layout based on a sketch that was part of Tammy McEwen's 2023 end-of-year challenge. It was also a sketch from the September 2023 Worldwide Virtual Crop by CM (See sketch #5). You've seen it before in the Scrimshaw layout I made for the New Bedford Convention. To pick the colors of the papers I analyzed the photos. I chose the blue cardstock background to match the blue walls in the dining room, and the distressed red to match the wooden pieces of the room. The yellow is a natural match for red and blue (think of a brighter-hued red and how that would resemble a childhood-type layout). The borders are stickers I've had from a formal sticker pack (not CM).

From the dining room, I headed to the kitchen. As this is not seen by the company, it is much less decorative in appearance. However, you can see that all of those fancy dishes came from here! And what astounds me is that all of it was created on a fireplace or in boxes heated by coals. I wonder how long it would take me to figure out how to cook in those circumstances!

This layout is another double use--it was part of the CM virtual crop and also part of the 2023 Tammy McEwen challenge. In fact, you've seen this one before too! Remember the President's dinner from my New Bedford trip? Same layout but different papers. Because I was dealing with the kitchen I dug out my "Food" theme box of papers and embellishments. I thought I would use a wood texture paper to represent the table tops and cutting boards. I again matched the background cardstock to the walls of the room (sort of a muted yellow). As there was a bit of fruit on the table I decided to add some of the last pieces of "Locally Grown" papers with their citrus theme. The last sheet is a coral cardstock that helps tie in the citrus flesh. Instead of a photo in the circle, this time that became my title box.