October Afternoon

Monday Challenge: With Love for Patterns

Hi there OA fans! Alex here with a challenge for you.

I love patterned papers! I don't know if you can call it a techique, but what I love the most is to mix and match different patterns on my layouts. If I could, I would squeeze in an entire collection on one page! But don't be afraid; I won't challenge you to do that! My challenge for you is to use five or more patterned papers on one layout/card. Two sides of one paper counts as two different papers.

On this layout I have used six different patterns:

If you ask me, October Afternoon papers are made to mix and match like this. They are just perfect for all of us who love patterns. This lovely Midway collection is no exception!

I created my title using a card from the Miscellany package together with a word sticker and the colorful Midway alphas. 

I have used two different papers for my background and from the rest I cut the stripes. Using stripes is a great way to incorporate many different papers on one page. I let each stripe end with a ring of the same pattern. I made the rings using two different circle punches.

Joining me today is Roree. Just look at this stunning card she has made for us!

I love it down to the tiniest little piece of patterned paper she has used!

Now lets see what Roree has to say about her project.

I absolutely love patterned paper. It is the one scrapbooking product I collect (and hoard!) the most. So when Alex gave me the challenge to use five or more different patterned papers, I was ready! I created this fun card using the new Travel Girl collection. Because many of the paper sheets in this collection have strong patterns, I decided to cut four of the papers into strips. I layered the the Guide Book and Mix Tape patterned papers by creating a division between each with thin strips of the Directions patterned paper, blocking each pattern. Doing this, I get the full affect of each without one overwhelming any. For the last piece of paper, I cut out the word "explore" from the Journaling Cards sheet and created a tag. I finished the card with some white ribbon, a Tidbits label, and a couple of Shape Stickers.

Thank you so much, Roree! Your card is amazing!

I hope we have inspired you to take our challenge and start mixing and matching those gorgeous OA patterned papers. Don't forget to share your work with us and upload your projects to OA Flickr Gallery. Show us your love for patterns!

Thursday Sketch: Circles and Layers and Arrows, Oh My

Hi everyone! It's Mandy Koeppen bringing you the Thursday Sketch.

Thanks to some helpful inspiration from my favorite Aussie friend this fun and funky sketch is full of circles, layers, and arrows. It can be easily made to fit your scrapping style just like Jill and I have done.

Here is the layout I created using the sketch.

I kept the 12x12 format but decided to use a 3x6.5 inch photo and tucked the 3 smaller photos on the sketch under my main photo just to make it more me. Of course once I did that the whole layout changed but that's the great thing about sketches you can make it your own.

The photos I used on this layout are from a trip to the fair a few years ago which made grabbing the Midway line a no brainer when I was gathering supplies. Along with Midway I used a couple pieces from Travel Girl, Farm Girl & Witch Hazel lines to create this layout. 

Joining me today is Jill. She created this beautiful layout.

And here is what Jill had to say...

I went with an 8.5 x 11 layout for this sketch challenge, and used 

woodgrain-textured cardstock as a backdrop, since the photos were kind of earthy.

This sketch was perfect to use with the three photos I captured the 

other day of my dog rolling around in the fresh-cut grass. I could 

barely hold the camera still because I was laughing so hard -- these 

are the three photos that made the cut. When planning the layout, I 

took my color cues from the greens and yellows in the photos, and 

worked in some blues here and there, pulling together papers and 

accents from the Travel Girl and Daily Flash collections. One departure from the sketch was to back the horizontal photo mat with a series of vertical strips rather than just a single strip, adding to the light-hearted feel of the page. I also relocated the title block 

to the top of the page.

I hope you enjoyed today's sketch. If you get a chance to play along, don't forget to post your project in the OA Flickr group.  I can't wait to see how you interpret it!

♥Monday Challenge: Let's Get Trendy♥

Good Morning OA Fans, Danni here with you today to share a card inspired by a current trend everywhere from fashion, to home decor to scrapbooking: ARROWS

 

 

 

 

 

 

  source for all arrow inspiration pictures:  interior collective

 

While arrows are not a brand NEW trend, they are a current trend and one I haven't played with a LOT. I love the arrows and how they look on projects, so I thought today I would challenge myself to use some arrows from the new Travel Girl line.

 

So, let's get trendy with ARROWS

 

 

I considered using my Cameo to cut arrows in various patterns and fun, but decided to showcase all the fun arrows in the Travel Girl line, from patterned paper, to tin pins, to fun die-cuts and elements.

 

We would love to see your take on this trend, whether you create your own arrows, use arrows as embellishments, create background paper, anything goes, let's see your take on this trend♥

 

 And joining me today is Amy with her interpretation of getting trendy.  Amy chose to share her take on the Trend: Ombre

 WOW what a gorgeous result!  I know you'll be inspired to pull out your Travel Girl line and create a layout inspired by her beautiful design and colors!

 

 

And here's what Amy had to say in her words:

"I just love Danni's challenge to pick a current trend to scrap. I chose ombre as my trendy theme. 

The blues greys and greens in the Travel Girl collection are the ideal colors for creating an ombre look for your pages. I chose to make my photo black and white to really allow it to dance with the ombre colors. I then brought in coordinating buttons and brads (most from previous collections) to add dimension and provide movement down towards my photo."

 We hope we've inspired you to take our challenge and pick a current trend that maybe you haven't tried in your work yet.  There are so many from color palettes, to embellies,  to design elements, so many fun ones popping up.  If you do take our challenge, please post your work in our OA Flickr Gallery so we can all be inspired! 

Thank you for joining us this Monday!

Happy creating♥

Danni & Amy

 

 

 

Monday Challenge: Something Old, Something New, Something Stamped and Something Blue

Happy Monday October Afternoon fans! Nicole here to share a fun challenge that our newest design team member Mandy helped me whip up.  There are so many different ways to interpret it that you simply can't go wrong.

We have a wedding to attend this summer, so when Mandy suggested the "something old, something new" theme, I jumped on it! There is a wee twist ... so check out our challenge:

Something Old (prior to the Midway/Farm Girl collections)

Something New

Something Stamped (there's that twist I mentioned)

Something Blue

Check out Mandy's beautiful work ... she has long been a favorite of mine!

Mandy always makes me want to enlarge a favorite photo and let it take center stage. How fun is the angle here? Lots of variations of the blue, the cool stamped pie chart, brads from the Midway collection, and older Boardwalk and Woodland Park papers round out the challenge list. Love this cluster of round embellishments to offset the graphic angle of the photo up top.

I broke out lots of the brand new Daily Flash line for my take ... you can't ask me to choose a favorite piece because it is chock full of AWESOME!

(I know, I know ... another pic of my sweet grandpa, but I just couldn't help myself!)

I cut the titles from the Focus paper from Daily Flash, backing one piece with gold glitter sock card and the other with an older dark polka dot. I tend to think "linear-ly" so I let those pieces lead the way as the starting point.

The red memory card was perfect for a touch of color, as was the blue "Snapshots" square that was cut from the Compose paper.

 I couldn't help but add a few stitched stars and pieces from the Snap Caps and Flash Blurbs.  And, as promised in a previous post, the Everyday Roller Stamp can't help but make an appearance! Don't worry about lining them up perfectly, it adds a touch of fun to have them off-kilter a bit.

I adore all the little die cuts in the Daily Flash Program.  That camera tab and the ledger word bubble could honestly end up on every page I make from here on out! I used a few of the Travel roller stamp phrases as well, but wanted to point out a neat find: each of the Decades roller stamps has an arrow of some sort built in ... like this one:

I used it on the red Memory Card with some gold ink.  Cool discovery, right?

So, let's see if I covered the challenge criteria:

Something Old - Woodland Park papers (black polka dot, green and blue stars) plus Woodland Park Alphabet Stickers.

Something New - All of the Daily Flash items.

Something Stamped - The 2010s Decade Roller Stamp, Travel and Everyday roller stamps.

Something Blue - Lots of blue elements scattered about.

I love that even with the name "recipe", Mandy and I both came up with different ways to interpret the challenge! We can't wait to see your take on this classic!

Monday Challenge: Travel Tags Inspiration

Hey everyone! Roree here. For today's challenge, I went searching through my Pinterest boards for a fun inspiration piece and I found this:

I thought this travel tags image would work perfectly!

I was inspired by the tag shapes, the travel theme, and the font used for the airport codes, and with that in mind, I created this tag-shaped card:

I used paper, a sticker, and a tin pin from the new Travel Girl collection, the Daily Flash Summer Catch Phrase roller stamp, letter stickers from the Sasparilla collection, and a sticker from the Boarding Pass collection.

I just love the way the colors and the mix of products came together. These new collections are going to be fast favorites—I can already tell!

Vivian played along with my challenge and created a travel-themed layout. Here is what she had to say about it:

"I took inspiration from three different aspects of Roree’s inspiration piece: theme, shape, and technique. I decided to create a travel-themed layout using the new Travel Girl line (with a bit of Daily Flash thrown in). The tags in the inspiration piece included multiple city airport codes and I pulled inspiration from that in two different ways: 1) I used the B side of the Plane Ticket paper as my background, and 2) I die cut letters from black cardstock and used them as my title. I loved the look of all the different-colored tags with the open holes allowing the background to peek through.

I die-cut three tags from Travel Girl papers and used them as the main color and design elements on my layout. I loved the painted tone-on-tone look on several of the the tags in the inspiration piece and interpreted that differently on each of my three tags, using Sprinklers from the Art Box, Woodland Park, and Witch Hazel lines. I used an even coat of color on the tag on the left, adding the gray Tin Type Art Box Sprinkler over the cream-colored map. For the center tag, I used a piece of cardstock as a mask with the aqua Woodland Park Springs Sprinkler, creating a strong diagonal line. For my third tag, I sprayed the ink from further away, creating a misted look with the orange Jack-o’-Lantern Witch Hazel Sprinkler.

I cut 1.5” off the bottom of each tag and layered those pieces underneath the bottom of my photos, stamping on the orange tag with the Daily Flash Travel Catch Phrase roller stamp. I finished the layout with a Shape Sticker, two Tin Pins, a Doo-dad, and a Tidbit from the Travel Girl collection, plus a Snap Cap and a Flash Blurb from the Daily Flash Snapshots mini-collection."

Isn't is just amazing!? I absolutely love each and every detail!

I hope you enjoyed today's inspiration. If you get inspired to create a project using this inspiration piece, make sure to post it in the OA Flickr group so we can all see. Thanks so much for stopping by!

A Monday Challenge inspired by Pinterest

If you're anything like me, you find it easy to get lost in Pinterest. I save/'pin' tons of images that catch my eye, never knowing when they may get used...but with lots of good intentions. Here is a recent image I fell in love with:

http://pinterest.com/pin/16677461092500755/ ]

Maybe it was the colors, or the banners, or the alphabet letters (I'm a sucker for fun alphabet/font images)...who knows?! But I invited Danni to join me in using this Pinterest image as a jump start to our Monday challenge and fell in love with the card she made!

The layered flower she made from the Farm Girl Patchwork paper is darling...and the green seam binding mimics the banner feel in the original image. We both drew inspiration from the many colors in the original image!!

I LOVED the way the banners in the image fell loosely and draped every which way, so I decided to try to achieve that feel with some seam binding from a Miscellany kit and punched scraps of various papers. I stapled a few directly to the seam binding, I attached some with a brad...I even added buttons to simple strands of jute twine and let them fall where they may.

After adding a quick stitch all the way around the border of the pink polka dot paper (making sure to catch the seam binding and jute twine), all that was left was the sentiment!!

Admittedly, I"m typically a more 'disciplined' scrapbooker...so I was worried about letting things dangle about on their own, lol. But i the end, I LOVE how it turned out!

Monday challenge: Three's Company

Hi everyone, Mou here with today's challenge!

When I make layouts, cards, etc. I rarely stay within one collection. I like to use bits and pieces of papers, embellishments, etc. from several collections. In that process, I have found that the October Afternoon collections, as distinct and beautiful as they are, also work really well together. That's where my idea for today's challenge came from: Make a project with 3 patterned papers, 3 buttons, and 3 brads. 

Here's my take...

On this card, I used 

3 patterned papers

1. Berry Basket 12x12 paper, Farm Girl Collection

2. Elixir of Eucalyptus 12x12 paper, Witch Hazel Collection

3. Paper Staws 12x12 paper, Cakewalk Collection

3 Designer brads from Cakewalk Collection and

3 Buttons from the Midway Collection

In addition, I used a little piece of cheesecloth, a Cakewalk chipboard sticker and some Mini Market Mint & Creme alpha stickers.

Today, I have Becky playing with me and take a look at what she created...

Becky says: "One of the things I enjoy about challenges, is the fact that you can make it your own. When Mou gave me her challenge, I decided to be pretty literal in my approach. I used only 3 pattern papers, 3 buttons and 3 brads, and only added non-consumables, a bit of vintage ledger paper, misting and sewing in addition to my background chipboard. Made the challenge a little more challenging, but that was good for the creative process."

You rocked it Becky! Thanks :)

You can play along too. Upload your creations on the October Afternoon Flickr gallery  for all to see and be inspired!

Happy Monday :) 

Monday Challenge: Get Those Spring Holiday Photos Scrapped!

Happy April! Vivian here with this week's Monday challenge: get those spring holiday photos scrapped! I'm finally in a spring-y mood now that our snow has melted and the daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinths are starting to bloom. I find that I often ignore spring holidays in my scrapping, probably because springtime always seems so busy and I file away the photos amidst the mayhem and then forget about them. This week's challenge gave me the jump-start I needed to pull out photos from last year. There are lots of spring holidays (St. Patrick's Day, Passover, Easter, Mother's Day, etc.), so if you're playing along, take your pick!

Nicole joined me for this week's challenge, and created this gorgeous layout with an Easter photo from her childhood:

Here are three quick tips to pull from Nicole's layout:

1. Create your own layered spring embellishments. Nicole die cut two different sizes and designs of butterflies from each of three different patterned papers, then layered and stitched them, creating a quick and easy row of stunning embellishments.

2. Use banner shapes as a shelf. Nicole cut long banner shapes from two different patterned papers and used those elements as a shelf for her main page elements (photo, title, and journaling). Banners are simple to make - just cut a triangle out of the end of a long rectangular strip of paper.

3. Design with corners. Nicole created a fun corner element in the upper left corner of her layout by layering patterned papers. She misted right below that and then echoed the misting in the bottom right corner.

I created a clean-lined layout with photos from last year's backyard egg hunt:

Here are three quick tips to pull from my layout:

1. Sometimes a blurry photo works! The picture of my kids running in opposite directions really captured their excitement and the motion of the morning.

2. Don't be afraid to use non-spring-themed or non-spring-colored products on a spring-themed layout. My kids were wearing orange and aqua so I went with it!

3. Use fun elements to draw attention to a title. After backing die cut patterned paper title with solid cardstock, I added chipboard bunnies (from the Woodland Park collection) facing toward it on either side to draw further attention to it.

So...with two layouts and six tips, hopefully there's something here that you can draw on to help you get your spring holiday photos (past or present) scrapped! We'd love to see your spring holiday layouts in our October Afternoon Flickr gallery.

Any Project Life OA fans?

For today's post, I want to share one of my weekly PL spreads, with a twist and a bit of a challenge for you readers!

What I love most about Project Life is that you get the chance to try something new on a small scale, so if it isn't perfect, or doesn't look quite like you wanted, you can try again!

For a week in February, I decided to challenge myself to use October Afternoon's "Make It Merry" collection - scraps from my other projects or leftovers from holiday projects - along with a bit of October Afternoon's "Midway" collection.

Here it is ... my Week 8:

I know lots of us papercrafters keep our scraps from projects. So why not put them to good use? Grab a traditional theme collection and use it for an everyday project like this one.  I'd love to see what you can make!  These colors were perfect for this week and I loved adding in all the bits and pieces from leftover projects!

As you can see, I like to add extras to my week, and I don't mind cutting into the plastics to make the most of them!

For this 4x6 slot, I used my exacto knife to cut into one side of the pocket so I could hide extra journaling and pictures behind my Elsa's photo.  Sometimes, for busy days, I like to add in extra photos or write journaling that I don't want to be seen on the front as a focus. Pull tabs, pockets and these folded flaps all make great ways to add more to Project Life!

I hope this inspired you to try using a themed collection on an everyday layout, card or Project Life spread. If you make something using this challenge, link us up below or share it on the OA Flickr group ... I'd love to see it!

(Watch for more from Guest Designer Shay Tibbs on the blog next Friday)

Monday Challenge...using mason jars

Hey there, it's Michelle Wooderson here today with a challenge and joining in is the very talented Marcy Penner.  It's no secret that I have a love for mason jars.  I use them for actually canning my homegrown veggies and jellies but I also love to use them for all kinds of home decor and storage solutions too.  My challenge for Marcy was to use a mason jar image from the Farm Girl collection on any kind of project.  For my project, I chose to work with the Farm Girl 12 x 12 Mason Jar patterned paper & the 8 x8 Paper Pad that I just love and some tags.  

I also love this 12 x 12 Patchwork patterned paper from the Farm Girl line.  I cut thin strips and stitched those to the bottom of my manila tags.  

Next I cut out the mason jars that have tomatoes on them from the 8 x 8 Paper Pad and the 12 x 12 patterned paper.  I used a small "b" side grid paper from the 8 x 8 Paper Pad and typed "fresh salsa".  I cut out the words and adhered them to my small white tags with pop dots.  I also attached the jars to the larger tags with pop dots.  

Now I have a nice head start on some handmade tags that I'll add to fresh jars of salsa that I make this summer.  We always have the "salsa" section of the garden that has tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno peppers and onions so there is always a batch of fresh salsa being made.  I love to bake up my own tortilla chips & give a jar of the salsa and a bag of the chips to neighbors and family.  

Here's a sampling of some simple packaging that I like to do.  I use a waxed paper bag and twine to create a simple jar topper, then add my tag before tying a knot.  I think I need a whole sheet of that 12 x 12 paper with just the tomatoes, don't you think?  Note: you can visit my blog to find out more about how I create the jar toppers.  

I was excited to see what Marcy would create with the mason jars and she did not disappoint.  She created a cute tag using a fun, confetti window.  

Here's what Marcy had to say about her tag:

"I cut the center of the mason jar and punched out some confetti. I sandwiched it in between two pieces of vellum and sewed the mason jar over top of it. I used a combination of Cakewalk, Farm Girl, and Witch Hazel on this project. They all work so well together!"

Such a sweet little tag Marcy created, don't you think?  I love that we both used manila tags, did some fancy cutting on the jars and typed out little sentiments.  I think this tag would be adorable on a mason jar full of candies or gum balls...or how about jelly beans for Easter?

Thanks for playing along with me today Marcy!  I hope you all give the mason jars a try.  Thanks for stopping by.