Think About it Thursday

Howdy! I wanted to share with you an idea I have been thinking about lately. It came to me when my friend Carey asked me how I put together a page the other day and why it all seems to fit together. It got me thinking that good layouts are good but there is something that makes takes a layout to the next level.

Now, as most of you know I don't claim to be Becky Fleck or Becky Higgins or any other famous Becky! But I do know what I like and after 17 years of scrapbooking I have had lots of time to think about what's what and how it goes from being good to great.

I think I'd like to start a feature each Thursday where I tackle an element of my design philosophy. Exciting? probably not, intriguing, maybe.

So here's today's item to think about:

Repeating elements provide cohesion and harmony. Those elements should have meaning to the story you are telling. Cool eh? Here's what I mean:

This layout of my daughter and her BFF in their Halloween costumes shows that their shirts had a skull and cross bones on it. When I chose a feature embellishment, I chose an enamel sticker with the same skull shape on it. I also added a wooden button with a 31 (for Halloween) on it. Finally I chose three (this is a magic number in scrapbooking which we will tackle another day!) stars because we all know cheerleaders are about winning and rah-rah-rah! Repetition and meaning. Voila!

Here's it is close up too:

Here is another example where I chose a watermelon or two (you can see why) and a sunshine element. The watermelons repeat the patterned paper strip and the sunshine represents the summer in my title. Repetition and meaning. I didn't choose and ice cream die cut or use a princess patterned paper. I chose carefully so that all the elements told the story I wanted to tell.

So it's short and sweet. Try it or look at your own fabulous pages to see if you are applying the Repetition and Meaning idea!

Keep doing what you love!
Christa