My biggest challenge on this album is turning out to be the backgrounds—for some reason I am struggling to make them cohesive, especially at the gutter. Which takes time. What's working more or less is using a solid or semi-solid paper for the two background pages, then adding transfers and overlays from the Artplay Palette down the middle to enhance color and texture. In this case I also dragged a piece of driftwood into the gutter for some visual interest at the centerline but can't decide if it's too cluttered. Will leave it for now and come back to it later, if time. My other concession to the looming deadline of Christmas is to streamline text. Since I told most of the story on the previous spread, this spread has just a few bullet points instead of a whole description. Not writing a screed for every page is new to me and somewhat disorienting as I am unsure of myself, but onward! I have learned so far that working chronologically through my pictures rather than skipping here and there through the various days is really helping to keep me on track.