October Afternoon

Tuesday Tutorial: Mosaic Flowers

With Mother's Day right around the corner, I (Vivian) thought I'd show you a quick and easy technique today that you can use on your Mother's Day cards. This technique was inspired by a quilt I saw in the Pottery Barn Teen catalog:

I love the black borders around each flower petal; the black makes the colors and patterns pop against the colorful background. The chevron rug next to the bed is a nice touch as well.

I decided to create a project inspired by this look by using elements from the Farmhouse Flower Sack:

In addition to the Flower Sack, I grabbed some black cardstock and patterned paper from both Farmhouse (the B side of Guest Room) and 9 to 5 (the B side of Coffee Break) and created this card, loosely inspired by the quilt:

As you can see, I decided to turn my flowers into trees against a polka dot patterned paper that looks like the night sky lit up with stars. I added a strip of herringbone patterned paper (this element mimics the chevron rug next to the bed in the image above) and a heart from the Flower Sack, which I also bordered with black. A phrase banner from the Flower Sack completes the card.

To re-create this look with Flower Sack elements:

1. Cut a Flower Sack element into "petals," using either scissors or a paper trimmer.
2. Adhere each piece of the cut Flower Sack element onto a scrap of black cardstock, leaving space between the petals.
3. Cut around each flower, leaving a bit of a black border around the outside edge.
4. Adhere black-bordered flowers to a patterned paper background and embellish as desired.

We'd love to see anything you create based on this idea! Please post projects to our October Afternoon Flickr Gallery so that we can take a look!

Monday Challenge - Design Team Scraplift

Hey everyone!  Roree here.  It's Monday, so it's challenge time again.  The girls on this team are so talented, and I admire their work so much.  They are always coming up with inspiring projects and fun techniques that I want to try.  So, I thought it would be fun to have a Design Team Scraplift Challenge. 

This is an oldie but a goodie from Marcy: 

Harvest Festival by Marcy Penner

(You can see it originally posted here.)

I just loved the chevron pattern that she created, and I have been wanting to try it for such a long time.  I decided to create a card using the chevron pattern for my background. 

Here it is:

Happy Times by Roree Rumph

I used the blue patterned papers from the Farmhouse collection to create this fun background. 

I added some machine stitching along the edges, because I just love stitching on my cards.

I also used some of die-cuts from the Farmhouse Flower Sack along with Label Stickers, a Button, and some Sidewalks Ribbon to create some soft and pretty flowers, because who doesn't love flowers?!

Marcy played along with my challenge this week, and she chose this layout by Becky to work from:

Add Such Joy by Becky Novacek

(You can see it originally posted here.)

Here is what Marcy came up with:

All Too Often by Marcy Penner

She played off of the argyle pattern in Becky's layout using triangles to create the fun background on her layout.  

Such a fun mix of patterns from the 9 to 5 collection, don't you agree?  I just love it!

Is there any of the OA designers' work that you just love and have been dying to try for yourself?  Well if there is, now's the time to try.  You have been challenged!  ;)

If you get a chance to play along with today's challenge, don't forget to post your project in the OA Flickr group.  We love to see what you are working on! 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

~Roree

Thursday Sketch Challenge

Hey everyone!  Roree here, and I have this week's Sketch Challenge for you.

While trying to come up with a sketch idea, I thought it would be fun to use up those scraps and embellishments that we all have laying around our craft rooms.  Here is what I came up with:

Perfect for those little odds and ends pieces, right?

I created two cards using the sketch as a jumping off point.  Because they are on a smaller scale than the layout, I adjusted accordingly.

For my first card, I used the Sasparilla collection. 

I used bits and pieces from the Flower Sack and Miscellany packs, plus some stickers from the Word Sticker sheet.  They are perfect for this type of sketch.

And I just love the wood grain and colors in this collection!

For my second card, I used the Sidewalks collection along with the new Washi Tape from the 9 to 5 collection and a few leaf stickers from the Fly a Kite collection.

I used the Flower Sack flowers and banner, leaf stickers, and sun in place of the squares in the sketch. 

Two totally different cards inspired by one sketch.

I hope you enjoyed today's sketch.  There are definitely lots of different directions you could go with it.  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!

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

~Roree

 

Happy String

Okay, yes, happy spring, too. :) Today's tutorial was inspired by an image I, Vivian, pinned on Pinterest a while back:

(Click on image to see source and directions for making these eggs.)

I love the simple yet bold look of these egg designs and wanted to replicate that look with paper. Today I'm going to show you just how I did that, using string to mask off cardstock prior to spraying ink over it. Let's get started!

 

Step #1: Materials

Grab the "ingredients" needed:

• White cardstock
• String
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Sprinkler color(s) of your choosing

Step #2: Mask Off the Paper

Cut several different lengths of string that will be used to make your design. Make sure each length is a little longer than either the length or width of your piece of white cardstock. Tape one end of the string to the back of the white cardstock and stretch it across the front of the cardstock, taping the other end under on the back of the cardstock. Repeat with as many pieces of string as desired. Here's what this looks like, front and back:

 

Step #3: Apply Sprinkler

Put your string-covered white cardstock inside an empty box. Spray the ink directly over the top of the string-covered cardstock, let dry, and then remove the string. Here's what this looks like immediately after applying the ink and then after removing the string:

 

Step #4: Use on a Layout (or Card)

I cut three 3.5" squares from the masked/misted piece above and used it to create this layout:

The lines looked a lot like clotheslines to me, so I used mini clothespins to "hang" stickers, Flower Sack elements, and die cuts from the Sidewalks and Cherry Hill collections.

I used this string-masking technique on another layout, creating a mat for my photo and using the string lines to draw attention to the subjects in the photo:

This layout features the new Woodland Park collection and the Cactus Sprinkler from the Sasparilla collection (which coordinates beautifully with Woodland Park). In addition to spraying ink, I also dripped some bigger blobs of ink on the cardstock for a different effect.

If you give this technique a go, please be sure to post your creation(s) to our October Afternoon Flickr Gallery for all to see!

Happy String/Spring!

Tuesday Tutorial :: SprINKlers = Custom-Colored Embellishments

Hi everyone! It's Amy here today with your Tuesday Tutorial this week! I thought that I would do a couple things for this week's tutorial. 

1) Feature some of our BRAND NEW collection papers intermixed with some of our current collections to show you just how seemlessly they work into your current stash, 

2) Create some Valentine's cards for the upcoming holiday - which is now just 2 weeks away

and

3) Show you some new, fun ideas for using our absolutely fabulous product line, SprINKlers.

I love the look of misting. I ADORE the look of paint droplets and splashes. However, I have yet to master either of these wonderful techniques. BUT there are some things that I have experimented with and LOVE using my SprINKlers for. Today I'm going to show you 7 different materials that you could use your SprINKlers on, that you may not have thought of before. So let's get started!

Above, I've gathered all the different materials that I have used my SprINKlers, and without fail, they have been successful!!

1) The obvious - patterned paper, or cardstock - but have you thought of using them on our Flour Sack pieces?

2) Canvas embellishments - all the rage

3) Paper doilies - inexpensive and plentiful for mass producing those fun Valentines

4) Crocheted doilies - I purchased mine at a local big box craft store for 50¢ ea.

5) Wood - Here I have clothes pins, but it works on ANY of the various wood embellishments out there on the market - LOVE that!

6) Bare Chipboard - SUPER way to spruce up those pieces of chip in our Miscellany packs!

7) Cotton Ribbon - such as the one in our Farmhouse Collection

When applying your SprINKlers to ANY of these materials, there is no real technique involved, simply spray until you achieve your desired look. All of these materials take and hold the ink perfectly and dry relatively quickly. Let's take a look at what these pieces look like after being inked.

I chose a Valentine's palette to make my samples and went straight into spraying (inside a corrugate box, so as not to get any ink where I didn't want it). Once I acheived the color I wanted, I removed my pieces from my box, and let them dry, probably for about 10-20 minutes depending on the material.

Below I have written out all of the colors that I used for my materials.

1) Large Clothespin - Hopscotch (Sidewalks), Small Clothespins - Buttermilk (Art Box)
2) Flour Sack Piece LG - Santa's Hat (Holiday Style), Flour Sack Pieces Small- Ice Box (Farmhouse)
3) Canvas Flag, Left - Brown Bag (Art Box), Canvas Flag, Right - Screen Door (Farmhouse) 
4) Chipboard Frame - Santa's Hat (Holiday Style), Chipboard Ampersand - Tin Type (Art Box), Chipboard Cameo - Tinsel (Holiday Style)
5) Paper Doily - Hopscotch (Sidewalks) 
6) Cotton Eyelet Ribbon - Strawberry Cream (5 & Dime)
7) Cotton Crochet Doily - Frequent Flyer (Boarding Pass) 

Really neat, right!? I just LOVE using my SprINKlers on these other types of materials to help them match my papers and other OA embellishments perfectly!

So, here's what I created from these fun custom- colored embellishements! A full array of Valentine's cards using papers from the BRAND NEW collection, Cakewalk, and current collections, Farmhouse and Sidewalks. 

SprINKler'd Pieces (Paper Doily, Small Clothespin, Canvas Tag, Chipboard Frame, Chipboad Cameo)

SprINKler'd Pieces (Large Clothespin, Flour Sack piece-masked)

SprINKler'd Pieces (Small Clothespin, Cotton Crochet Doily) 

SprINKler'd Pieces (Cotton Eyelet Ribbon, Canvas Tag, Chipboard Ampersand)

I hope you've enjoyed learning about some new ways you can use your SprINKlers! I've had fun getting them out and playing with all these materials all at once! Thank you so much for stopping by and have a wonderful Tuesday!

Monday Challenge-Scraplift yourself....

Scraplifting yourself is just the beginning of this challenge. Becky here today, with a multi-faceted challenge. Every year in January, I challenge myself to create a layout and then duplicate it for each of our grandchildren. You can interpret this as you wish...I would suggest a couple of ideas. Maybe you could recreate layouts for each of your children, or perhaps you have a great photo (or more than one) of a group of friends or family members who you could create a page for. This year we added two new grandsons, so last year I made 8 layouts based on one design and this year, I made ten! 

The second aspect of this challenge is to convey something across the board. Something that is important to you. Something you can communicate in a page. 

And the third aspect is to use past collections and scraps. I still adore many of the past October Afternoon collections and wanted to use them and not just hoard them : ) 

Take any part of this challenge and make it your own. Spin it, turn it, interpret it as you like! It's just a starting point. I've enjoyed challenging myself to do this for the past several years and there is something extremely gratifying and freeing to me about it year after year. 

This year, I assembled all of my photos and had a design in mind before I started. Once I began, it went very quickly. This is not my usual creative process. I normally have a mindset of doing something very fresh and of masterpiece quality! But for this challenge, I allow myself freedom. No pressure to create something completely fresh or new, no pressure to make it just right. It's more an exercise in creating and conveying a sentiment. 

On a sidenote, I make a lot of pages for my grandchildren. My goal is not to make albums that document their lives. They have parents who can document their lives if they choose. My reason for creating pages about them is to document my feelings for them and my memories about them from my perspective. I keep a book (or more) for each child that they will be able to take someday if they want. Right now, it's fun for me to do. A creative outlet.

So here are the ten layouts based on one design:

I don't know if I've ever made ten layouts in a day and a half before! But using this process really did work. If I were going to a crop, I think this would be a fun approach. 

Wilna joined me in this challenge and I asked her to interpret it as she liked...and I like how she chose to do it! She went back and found a layout she had made in 2005-

From this layout, she created this beauty-

I think it's great! kind...smart...important. LOVE. 

So please take up this challenge, any part or all of it and share with us what you make! Please post your take on the OA Flickr group! 

Thanks!

Sketchy Thursday

good morning everyone.  danni here with this week's sketch.  today i decided to switch it up a little and create a lo sketch but it could easily translate into a card sketch or mini album sketch. 

 

 

with all the cute banners in the Farmhouse and Sidewalks lines, fun chipboard stickers, Miscellany packs and Little Flyers, i wanted to create a sketch that would include a banner as one of the focals.

 

 

here's the sketch   

 

 

 

 

 

 joining me today is marcy who created this amazing lo.  i love her splatters, her notebook, her titlework, her banner, it's all...well, "rad"

 

rad by marcy

 

 

here's what marcy had to say about the sketch creating process

 

"I made a few tweaks to the sketch. I kept the little notebook element in the middle, moved the title down and extended the banner. In my little notebook I included additional photo and some journaling as well as layered some labels from the Farmhouse collection. To make my banner I trimmed triangles from the patterned papers and also trimmed some of the flags in half." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and here is my interpretation

 

tea by danni

 

 

i created my banner, cutting one of the lace banners from the Farmhouse  pp here:Clothesline, die-cut a scalloped circle which i folded in half and stitched onto the banner, cut an additional block banner from the same sheet of pp, layered on top of the lace banner, layered with some buttons and tin pins and even a paper strip from one of the pp titles.

 

 

 

 i decided to move my title down so as to allow the butterfly to remain the focal on the left side.

 

 

 
 

    the layered notebook element inspired me to layer my picture several times and create a layered large butterfly focal. to create the butterfly, i printed the large butterfly image on the backside of my pp, decreased it in size, printed it on the backside of additional pp. i then layered the butterflies and stitched them together.

 

 

 love all the chipboard pieces in the Miscellany packs, they are so much fun to create with and layer

 

 

 

we hope you enjoyed today's sketch. if you can play along with us this week, please share how this sketch inspired you in our OA Flickr group.

happy creating♥

danni

Monday Challenge: Using Your Not-Quite-What-You-Expected Photos

Happy Monday! Stacey here, bringing you a new challenge for this week.Use a photo (or a pile of them!) that didn't turn out right. It could be blurry, too dark, really light, or have something weird in the background. Or maybe your child got ahold of the camera and took pictures of things from his perspective. (This happened to me once, and I had a whole lot of pictures of dolls, stuffed animals, and feet - and this was before I had a digital camera, so they were on real film and I paid to have them developed!)

The inspiration for my challenge is a photo of my daughter that I had printed in 8X10 size for the grandparents for Christmas (scroll down - there's a lot of white sky at the top of the photo):

Since it is a digital photo, I had to pay close attention to the cropping when I sent it to Sam's Club for printing. I printed about 40 photos that day and digitally cropped them all - except for this one! In the layout below, you'll see what happened. I still LIKE the photo, but it's not what I was looking for (I needed more than her head for the framed gift photos). As soon as I saw the mistake I'd made, I knew I could use it for a scrapbook page...I love white space on photos, and this one has an abundance of white space!

The title on this is inspired by a sign I found on Pinterest. The big alphas are hand cut - I just eyeballed the letters. It's been a while since I cut anything out freehand like that, and I like how they turned out for this one! I used several October Afternoon collections - even some older ones like Night Light and Cherry Hill!

Here's a closer shot, just for fun:

When I told Jill Sprott my challenge theme, she said she knew just what pictures she wanted to use! She said she had some that turned out blurry, but she still wanted to use them. Here's the layout she did - I love how she cropped and edited the photos a little so that the blurriness isn't so obvious. Here's what she said:

"Taking photos of my husband is always a challenge, but recently, I was able to hold him hostage for a minute outdoors.  That didn't stop him from clowning around the whole time, though, resulting in a lot of blurry photos.  Still, I found myself smiling as I went through the photos, and knew that they would be perfect for this challenge.  How do we judge what is a "usable" photo anyway?  A little blur is inevitable when you're trying to capture life as it happens, after all.  

One way to make blurry photos a little easier to work with is to make them smaller, which is what I did on this layout.  It also helps to make the photo black and white, as I did with one of the photos.  This way the expression on my husband's face becomes the emphasis, and the fact that most everything else is out of focus becomes inconsequential.   

Imperfect photos can share space perfectly with other elements.  On this page, I pulled together lots of blues, greens, and neutrals from various lines, including Rocket Age, Sidewalks, and Farmhouse.  I had so much fun layering and embellishing the patterned rectangles and journaling cards."

I really hope you enjoy this challenge!

Thursday Sketch with Write.Click.Scrapbook. and Holiday Style

Happy December, everyone! Vivian here with a little bit of an unusual Thursday sketch post to kick off the month.

Let's start with the usual, the sketch and the layout:

I had fun working with this sketch with Holiday Style, particularly the Flower Sack. All those shapes tucked behind the photo/title/journaling block add fun pops of color without overwhelming. I stretched the Flower Sack die cuts here by cutting each one in half, which allowed me to use each one twice. This sketch would work well with lots of different products - instead of the Flower Sack die cuts you could use buttons, bits of Miscellany, strips of patterned paper, etc.

Now for the unusual...

Today we're partnering with Write.Click.Scrapbook. for a Holiday Style giveaway. That's right, I said "Holiday Style giveaway," or, as it's called at Write.Click.Scrapbook., give.away.day. What's Write.Click.Scrapbook.? It's an inspiration collective that's an outgrowth of the now-defunct Simple Scrapbooks magazine. Every month a new gallery launches at the site and every day a new blog post goes up. Every Thursday is a give.away.day. Please head on over to Write.Click.Scrapbook. to check out the site and follow the directions on the December 1st blog post over there to be entered to win Holiday Style. (You're welcome to leave us a comment here as well, but to be entered to win you need to leave a comment over at Write.Click.Scrapbook.)

If the chance at one giveaway isn't enough for you, please take a moment to check October Afternoon out on Facebook. We're really close to having 10,000 followers. That's a pretty special number, and rumor has it that there might be a prize or two or more when we hit that number. :)

Here's hoping you've enjoyed our slightly unusual Thursday sketch post! Remember to post projects created with the sketch to our October Afternoon Flickr gallery so that we can admire them!

Thursday Sketch

It's Stacey here...bringing you a sketch that is designed to help you use lots of photos - even if they aren't your favorites!

For me, the winter holidays are a source of wonderful memories but busy, indoor (so kind of dark!) photos. The inspiration for this week's sketch came from my large (digital) pile of not-so-great pictures of past Thanksgivings and Christmases. I would like to use so many of the holiday photos I've taken, but a lot of them are poorly lit and have pretty cluttered backgrounds. So I shrank them down, put them in strips, and added the story - lots of photos on a page with plenty of space for journaling. I really need to do this more often - using several of photos on a page is easy if the photos are smaller, and I can tell the whole story on one layout.

Here's my layout:

 

And here is the sketch:

I sent Wilna the sketch, and of course, she came up with something fabulous! Here's what she said about the sketch and her take on it:

I love the Sketch this week! Stacey's idea of using rows of little pictures are genius and super fun to work with! I used tags to adhere my pictures to and my square punch came in handy to make little square pictures.

Thank you for looking!

Wilna

If you create a layout with this sketch, we'd love to see it! Make sure to upload your finished layout to the OA Flicker Gallery.  We love to see what you all create using OA products!