October Afternoon

Tuesday Sketch: On the Diagonal

Recently, I (Vivian) have noticed a trend in billboard and sign design: a long rectangular element divided in two on the diagonal. That trend inspired this week's sketch. I decided to keep the sketch simple, adding just a title, journaling, and one other element:

Michelle and I both worked with this sketch and came up with very different interpretations.

I stuck pretty closely to the sketch, creating a layout combining wood-print patterned paper from Farm Girl and Midway with more Midway, Make It Merry, and some Modern Homemaker (using up that stash!):

I die cut my title from the Midway Main Gate patterned paper and then backed the negative space with a piece of the Farm Girl Wooden Crate patterned paper. I die cut a geotag from the same piece of Farm Girl Wooden Crate and filled the center with a label sticker from the Make It Merry line. I added strips of patterned paper and stars punched from patterned paper to finish my layout.

Michelle came up with a fun project using the sketch. Here's what she had to say: "When working with sketches, I like to see how I can incorporate them into projects that are on my to do list. Today we are taking 5 teenage girls to the big city for a little Spring Break shopping. It's a long drive so I wanted to make some fun treat sacks for the girls.  I used Vivian's sketch to create some whimsical treat sack toppers. All my products used today are from the Midway collection.  I simply trimmed my paper then stitched and stapled everything together. I used the sticker letters to identify each girl's sack."

"Each treat sack has a photo from the zany Photo Booth patterned paper. I picked out a photo for each girl and created a tag that I attached to the sacks with embellished clothespins. The girls will be given the fun challenge of having photos taken of themselves that resemble a pose in their chosen photo. I just 'had' to use the dorky guy photo for my daughter Jordan. She makes faces like that all the time so it was very fitting. When she saw her sack, she immediately commented, 'Why do I get the dorky guy?'. Ha!  We're heading to the mall and lots of fun shops so I can't wait to see what the girls come up with."

"The girls are all spending the night so I thought it would be fun for them to create a mini tag scrapbook of their photos. I'll have the girls email me the photos from their phones and then I'm planning to print them off into mini Instagrams. I have a basket full of Midway products for them to use. I'm sure we'll hear lots of laughter from the girls as they assemble their mini tag books. Be sure to check my blog soon for some photos of the finished mini tag books."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't wait to see what the girls come up with!

Michelle and I hope you are inspired to create something with today's sketch. We'd love to see your creations in our October Afternoon Flickr gallery, so please post projects there if you use today's sketch!

 

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

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!

Monday Challenge: Mix and Match

Happy Monday! Vivian here with this week’s Monday challenge. Today we’re keeping it simple with a challenge that asks you to create something using three or more October Afternoon product lines. If you haven’t already noticed, one of the great features of October Afternoon products is that the colors coordinate across lines, making it easy to mix and match products with success.

Becky played along with the challenge this week and came up with a fantastic and fun layout that combines products from several different lines, including Sidewalks, 5 & Dime, Modern Homemaker, Fly a Kite, and Thrift Shop. Note how the yellows, pinks, and aquas combine across the paper lines.

After declaring this a simple challenge I went in a more challenging direction, as I decided to see whether I could use something from every October Afternoon line ever created, from County Fair (the first October Afternoon line ever) through to Sidewalks (in stores now). It was hard, but I did it! Note how the greens, reds, yellows, oranges, and aquas combine across lines and how the alphas coordinate.

I started with a strip of paper from County Fair (the aqua at the bottom) and then cut ¾” wide strips of patterned paper, choosing one paper from each line and gluing the strips to a 12” wide scrap of cardstock to form my own striped paper. I cut the striped paper in half once I was done and used a strip both above and below my photos. Product lines not represented in patterned paper include Schoolhouse (scalloped border sticker), Modern Homemaker (apple punched from patterned paper), Boarding Pass (taller letter stickers), 5 & Dime (Red Wagon sprINKler), Rocket Age (Comet Tail sprINKler), and Sidewalks (label sticker).

If you are an October Afternoon blog reader but don’t visit the website, I encourage you to check out the products section. You can click on each line to look at thumbnails of each product and can click on those thumbnails to get a closer look at products, including the A and B sides of the patterned papers. I’ll let you in on a little secret – I use this section of the website often to help plan my projects. It’s quicker and easier (and less messy!) than pulling out all my papers and embellishments, especially when I’m looking for certain colors, patterns, types of stickers, etc.

Hope you’ll participate in this simple (or not so simple, depending upon how you interpret it!) challenge that’s also a good stash-buster. If you do participate, please link up your work in our October Afternoon Flickr gallery so we can see your creations!

Happy mixing and matching!

Chevron Background tutorial

Hi everyone.  It's Marcy here. Today I'd like to show you how I made my chevron background on a recent layout of mine.  

I've wanted to do a layout with a large chevron pattern on it for a long time and I thought it might make a great tutorial.

So, here we go.

1.  Start with first selecting the patterned papers that you'd like to use.

I knew, because I wanted my background to be a chevron, I would loose the "white space" that I love. With this in mind I chose similar colored papers.... so that they felt almost monochromatic and flat.  If my zig zags were a variety of colors the pattern would've popped even more!

Trim a bunch of pieces into 1"x3" strips.  (Here's three.  I ended up added a cream cardstock to the mix after I took this photo.)

2.  Take two of the same pieces and overlap them so they form an "L".

3.  Now trim from the "mountain" to the "valley"...

... so that you snip off two little triangles.

4.  Arrange your pieces into the first "zig" of your "zag" and grab another piece.  Place this piece off the end of one of the pieces and overlap just like you did earlier.

5. Trim from the "mountain" to the "valley" of these pieces as well.  Keep repeating till your pattern is the width you want.

Take a few pieces of another pattern and do all this over again.  Keep going with all your patterned pieces. 

6.  I chose to adhere my pattern to a smaller piece of cardstock... mostly so I could reposition it on my page until it was where I wanted it and because I wanted to sew the strips and felt that it would be easier to maneuver.  So, adhere your pieces down.

At this point I sewed the chevron down, curled up the edges and assembled my layout.  Here's a closeup of some of the stitching.

And that's it.  If you're going to give this tutorial a try I'd love to see how it turns out!  Link up in the comment section and post your layout in our gallery so we can check it out!

More Inspirational Design Ideas from our Guest Designer Michiyo Nobeno (aka poki)

Good Morning! Poki here to show you a fun layout that uses a number of elements including SPRINKLERS !

I cut out white card stock in varied size circles and then sprayed them with 6 different colors of Sprinklers. Because I love every color,  I thought if I had all the colors together, they might look like a rainbow. The white amongst all the colors somehow softens the rainbow colors.

OA Sprinklers are simply so adorable!! I used Circus Peanuts which has the stripes as a background paper and also some other scraps of paper and Rub-ons.

I machine stitched them along the stripe so that they blended in with the background paper.

The fun bubbles are represented with cut-out circles.

__________________*******************__________________

Doesn't she do a wonderful job of layering! As always super cute! Way to go Poki!!!!

Wednesday Post: Flickr Feature

I was taking a look at all of the new and fun things that people have been creating with October Afternoon and posting on Flickr. I came across a few wonderful projects posted by Jessy  Christopher from Malaysia. Look at some of the great cards she has created using pieces from wonderful October Afternoon lines.

Aren't those just great! Please stop back tomorrow and Join along with the Sketch challenge!

Challenge brought to you by Kinsey and Jill

Hey OA Friends! Kinsey and Jill here today with this week’s challenge and it’s a fun one so let’s jump right into it! This one is all about the number one…literally. It’s a one of each challenge, and I’ll admit, when I chose this challenge, I was aiming for simplicity- back to school time is hectic so the easier the better for now, ha! I was totally surprised though by how much thought went into every choice because let’s face it, choosing 1 of anything October Afternoon- related is next to impossible…I tend to use multiples of EVERYTHING on my projects and now, I’m proud to say that this challenge pulled me out of my comfort zone and made me really edit my choices more.

So here’s my take on the challenge and for this layout, I used the new Sidewalks line (LOVE!)…

My ‘ones’ are as follows: 1 large font, 1 small font, 1 sheet of pp, 1 pin, 1 photo strip, and 1 tin pin (from Modern Homemaker- couldn’t resist the cat, it was perfect).

My partner in crime today is my sweet friend Jill and she knocked this challenge out of the park! I’m so excited to show you guys what she came up with…

Here’s what Jill said about the challenge:

Given my penchant for layering and repetition on a layout, I found this to be a REAL challenge.  Only ONE of each item?  I was a little worried that it would be like scrapping in a straitjacket.  However, it ended up working for me and really stretching me creatively.  This challenge made me think about my supply choices, and along the way, I realized that there was still repetition inherent in this challenge -- it just happened to be the repetition of ones.  Most of the items that I incorporated on the layout have something to do with my daughter's schedule.  For instance, the numbers relate to the Math Team, the singing bird relates to choir, the text paper relates to the Speech Team, and so on.  I used the new Sidewalks line here, along with some Boarding Pass and a Report Card pencil stamp.  Since I could only choose one sheet of patterned paper, I went with a sheet of Sidewalks "Jump Rope" paper, since it is full of variety and has two distinct A and B sides.

Thanks so much for hanging out with us today! We hope you play along because we LOVE seeing your projects in the flickr gallery and as always, there’s a chance you might find your beautiful work posted right here for all to admire :)

Take care and have a wonderful week!

Kinsey and Jill

Fourth of July Inspiration

Before we get started, let's announce our winner from last week's Flickr Feature giveaway:

 

Congratulations IzzyB!  E-mail me at amanda.s@octoberafternoon.com and I will get your Rocket Age prize pack out to you!

Now, how many of you are ready for the holiday weekend?  Are you planning on making anything fun to liven up your celebration? 

How about these fun paper rockets from Lexi Bridges:
 
 
They look awesome hanging from the fireplace mantle.  You could also hang them from a patio or the trees if you will be spending the weekend outside.

Amy Heller put together this festive Happy 4th card:

I love how she used the Tin Pins to embellish the prize ribbon!  Such a cool idea.

Danni Reid has put together these beautiful centerpieces:
 
How fun would these be on your picnic table surrounded by all that delicious summer BBQ and fresh watermelon?  Danni has put together a tutorial to show you how to make these cuties.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And just for fun, Jill Sprott has found some cool Fourth of July inspiration from around the web to help get your creative juices flowing! 

{Heh86}

 
{A Field Journal} Check out this blog to see more adorable ways to customize your Fourth of July Celebration.  So cute! 

{Tanya*K}

 
{Yulia Brodskaya}

Thanks for stopping by today.  Check back tomorrow for a fresh, new sketch post!

Challenge: Enhance Your Journaling!

Remember the first books you read as a child, in which the words were replaced by pictures at times?  Or perhaps you can recall the fun challenge of solving a rebus puzzle (like this one by Mark Twain), where words and images come together to reveal a message.  A little wordplay can go a long way toward making your journaling engaging and fun to read. 

This week’s challenge is to integrate letters, words, and images from OA products into your journaling. Some letters might be replaced by letter stickers, some words might be replaced by words cut from patterned paper, ephemera, or label stickers, and some images might be substituted for words (like adding a chipboard star instead of actually writing "star").  Have fun with it, like Becky and I did! 
 

For the journaling on this page, I incorporated words, phrases, and pictures from a bunch of October Afternoon products, including stamps, ephemera, patterned paper, and even a Chip ‘N Stick shape.  Each little piece brings its own kind of charm to the page, while also blending seamlessly with the journaling itself.  
 

And because I’m not a believer in keeping recipes secret...
 

Becky also took on this challenge in her bright and whimsical layout. 


Her mix of letter stickers, shape stickers, and ephemera add to the playful tone of the page, complementing those adorable photos perfectly.

Now it’s your turn!  We would love to see your take on this challenge in our Flickr gallery.  This way, you’ll have a chance to be included in one of our Flickr Features on the October Afternoon blog!

-- Jill