Ahhh is for Autumn

Autumn. The most delectable time of year. It arrives with dignity and builds to a crescendo of golden delight before retiring gracefully to rest.

A week ago, I was able to tick one of my Top 3 from my lifelong Must Do List: to see New England in the fall.

Mumps are to blame as the seed for this desire, that and the weekly piles of pancakes at breakfast while growing up. You see, when I was ill my dad would stop at the Public Library (remember those?) on his way home from work and bring me a new pile of books to read to help pass the time. I loved books and I loved having this personalized delivery service, too!

One book captured my imagination during my bout with mumps. I no longer remember its title but it was about a family harvesting maple syrup in Vermont. Maple syrup + pancakes = smile. What a charmed life to have a never ending supply of syrup right from the trees around you! That image, naïve as it was, conquers up all sorts of warm and fuzzy childhood associations. Most of them coloured with the warm autumn tones of pumpkins and cinnamon, contrasted by cool mornings,  crunchy leaves and crisp apples.

I grew up in Houston. Hot and humid for most of the year. But those few weeks of autumn were the BEST of the year for me. Of course our canopy of colourful leaves was limited because of the dominance of the native pine trees and the flat landscape. Rolling over red, orange and gold hills and walking on carpets to match under a deep blue sky... now that seemed heavenly.

And it was. As was the pure, warm apple cider and ... yes, pancakes drizzled with locally made maple syrup.

Yes. Ahhh is for Autumn.

We travelled 1500 miles and took twice as many photos in over our 8 days on the roads of New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts. So I will be making lots of collage pages like the basic one I created here. I loved using the FREE single photo templates at Pixel Scrapper  from Janet Scott to showcase some of my favourite photos from our trip. Kits used were 'Quilted with Love,' 'Its Elementary My Dear' from Janet Scott Design, and 'Tangerine' from Persnickety Prints (the free kit when you join the site).

My Current State

I am going a bit retro this week because of the yellow school buses that are running up and down our sleepy little street.

It is the start of a new school year here in Oklahoma and I am seeing some of the neighbourhood kids for the first time, as they emerge from and retreat back into their homes wearing new shoes and carrying new backpacks.

So it is with a strange kind of nostalgia that I watch my young neighbours, aware that for all the decades between us, their school journey is more closely aligned to mine than to that of our aussie boys who never shopped for a flash new school wardrobe, rode yellow buses, ate their lunches in cafeterias or said the Pledge of Allegiance before a day of study.

And yet, some things do hold true. The tangible thrill of growing up is embodied in every child ready to step out into the big wide world and embrace it as their own. It was over 18 years ago that we took these photos, and it seemed right to bring them out of their shoebox for this layout. Working with them reconnected me with memories of our son's lightly tempered eagerness to embrace the unknown of the year ahead knowing he would emerge better for it.

It is a feeling mirrored in my current state (pun intended).

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Kit used: It's Elementary, My Dear by Janet Scott Design. I lightened the background paper and cut the apple and crayon paper to make new elements. The paint splatters were especially fun to play with; kinda like being a kid again! ;) Layout created with Panstoria's Artisan software.
NEWS FLASH: Today, Janet Scott was announced as a new designer at Pixel Scrappers. Check them out to find out how to get this kit for free!

A New Palette

The process of moving overseas certainly throws a life in the air, redefining comfort zones in ways that sometime feel like being dropped without a parachute and hoping that somehow the landing will be soft! Thankfully, we have now recovered from the bruises our landing delivered, and are starting to unwrap this wonderful new life experience.

While still in Australia, I imagined that these months would be a time of doing new things. I didn't want to repeat anything I had previously done. But it hasn't worked out like that. The things that resonate and pull on my heart remain constant. So, it looks like some familiar colours will remain in the new palette after all.

One of those is the decision to rejuvenate my interest in digital scrapbooking. To that end, I joined the Creative Team at Janet Scott Design!  My first layout for JSD is featured here using the beautiful kit On The Beach, which was a shoo in to feature the story of an unexpected whale sighting during our 'bon voyage' family getaway in early July.

While in transit to our new home, I then discovered that Simple Scrapper was offering a free sampling of some of their membership benefits. This template in the sampler caught my eye. I immediately visualized Janet's papers, the photos, and the story exactly as you see it here. That was the easy part.

To use it, though, I first had to learn how to work in Photoshop! I am so grateful for the many tutorials that can be sourced online, but mostly for a helpful personal tutorial over the phone from a good friend who provided my 'aha' moment. As a first time user of scrapbook templates in Photoshop, the 'aha' was understanding the jargon - namely 'clipping masks'.

Generally, I am not a fan of templates, as I prefer creating my own layouts, but this made using Photoshop so much easier that I am now looking forward to working with more of them.

So, in between the varied demands of settling into our new home away from home and the challenges of using new software and computer systems (I am now working on a Mac), this new palette is already adding freshness to some of my favourite colours. What will be next?