OPA!

Cathy Zielske uses the acronym OPA to represent old product alert. Yes, I did open up the box of 1300 Colorbok Alpha Stax that was donated to me by Jessie a few years back. She only needed a few letters from it, so she let me have the other 1290 of them. Such a good friend!

At the time, I had no Sizzix machine, or anything that would do die cutting, so I was thrilled! They come in a delightful assortment of colors. My collection is called "Funky Holiday."

For this sketch, Cathy gave us a basic template and a great deal of freedom. We were to focus on repetition, as it is the design theme for the week.

I have to say, I love this layout. Love it, love it, love it. Scott and I piled the boys in the car (only one or two, "Where are we going?" whines from the 11 year old) and went for a Sunday drive. I grabbed the camera and off we went.

For a long time, I had somewhat of a "fall disdain" of Illinois. It was so vastly different from where I grew up. It was so flat that I felt like autumn, one of my favorites seasons of the year, was a total wash. Then, last year, we actually drove around and saw some gorgeous colors. I have grown to appreciate the harvesting, maybe because I finally have the right combo of allergy medications. Truly, I have listened to my husband and all that the people in his company deal with during harvest. These agrarians are always at the whim of Mother Nature. There are some things that are within their control... what to plant, how to treat the soil, etc. But most of their livelihood is based on having just enough rain... not too much, not too little. So, in my layout, you might notice some brown corn stalks. In the work world of my husband, this is a very welcome sight.

So, I guess after almost 20 years, I am slowly opening my eyes to what's around me. Still doesn't beat a mountain that's changing colors, but at least now I know it's out there. And you do, too.

Where's the repetition? Well, I tinkered with adding embellishments, but I really felt that they would take away from the photos. I definitely wanted the photos to take the lead. So, the biggest repetition, I think, are the colors of fall. I even dusted the white letters with chalks that I felt best represented the colors of the photos. I repeated the fill color (brown) in the text boxes as well.

I must give inspiration its credit. While thumbing through the November/December edition of Scrapbooks, Etc., on p. 94 I saw a layout by Brenda Hurd. She took some white letters and outlined them with black on the inside (I guess that's inlining?). I thought this was brilliant, and I totally scraplifted her idea. Thanks, Brenda.