October Afternoon

Tuesday Sketch: All in a Row

Vivian here with our weekly sketch. Today's sketch lines photos up in a horizontal row, with the title placement and a few key page elements drawing attention to all the photos, with one focal point photo emphasized with a large chevron/arrow element:

Interestingly enough, both Roree and I interpreted this sketch as a card.

Roree rotated the sketch 90 degrees to the right and came up with this absolutely gorgeous card:

Roree had this to say about her card: "It is always so fun to see which direction a sketch will take you. Just by turning the sketch you can get a very different look. I just love that about sketches! I created my card using paper, stickers, and chipboard from the Farm Girl, Woodland Park, and Sidewalks collections. I decided to replace the photos/journaling boxes with a long strip of floral paper. I replaced the title with a scalloped edge along the paper strip. And I kept my sentiment towards the bottom like in the sketch and replaced the arrows with white twill ribbon that I misted using Comet Tail Sprinklers from the Rocket Age collection."

Let's take a closer look:

While Roree went in the gorgeous direction, I went in the whimsical direction. My card uses the sketch in its original orientation and combines patterned paper, stickers, and embellishments from the Midway line (including the fun Photo Booth patterned paper). A few white staples add the finishing touch:

We hope you are inspired by this sketch, whether you use it for a layout, a card, or any other project! We'd love to see projects inspired by this sketch, so be sure to post them to our October Afternoon Flickr gallery.

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

Introducing our Guest Designer For November—Niki Estes

Here is a little about her:

1} Tell us a little bit about yourself:
Hi Everyone!  My name is Niki Estes and I live in Oregon with my husband and our three beautiful children.  I grew up loving to draw and create things.  I started scrapbooking a little bit when we got married.  I created an album for our honeymoon trip and wedding and then I didn't scrapbook much again for a while.  When my oldest son was born in 2003, I began scrapbooking again as a way to preserve all the photos and memories of our family.  In 2007, I decided it would be fun to include some stamping in my layouts.    I've been an avid stamper and cardmaker as well as scrapbooker ever since.

2} Tell us about your scrapbook style and how long you have been
scrapbooking?
I've been scrapbooking for about 11 years and card making for about 4 years.  My scrapbook style is pretty clean and simple.  For me, it's all about the photos and journaling.  Everything else takes a back seat.  I do use a lot of patterned paper and embellishments, but in moderation.  My
card making style is pretty eclectic.  I love to create everything from CAS (clean and simple) to lots of layers.

3} Are you a layout person or a card person...or both? Both.

4} What is on your scrap desk right now?
A mess.  lol Seriously, I've been working on some cards for design team projects so there's a variety of stamps, patterned papers, and copic markers.  I've also been working on some layouts so there's a stack of photos waiting for me to get done with design team stuff.

5} What is your favorite October Afternoon line of paper?
Oh that's a really hard one!!  I love all the October Afternoon lines.  The Good Cheer line is still one of my favorite Christmas lines and I was sad to see it retire.  I'm really excited to see the new Holiday Style line. Rocket Age and Sidewalks are a couple of my other current favorites.

6} What can you NOT scrapbook without?
Like I said, it's all about the photos and journaling for me so I don't always add a lot of other stuff.  I do usually use some patterned paper and embellishments.  I usually always have to add some stitching, too.  For card making, I love using my copic markers, buttons, and baker's twine
along with lots of stitching and patterned papers.

7} What is your favorite source for inspiration?
Probably sketches.  Coming up with a sketch is usually the hardest part for me.  I keep a sketch book where I jot down my ideas and sketches for future inspiration.

8} Favorite TV show?
Thank goodness for our DVR because I never get to watch my favorite shows when they are on.  (I think I'm watching shows from about a month ago!)  My favorite shows are: Castle, The Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly, Rookie Blue, Revenge, and Pan Am.

9} Favorite 7th grade memory?
I met my husband when I was in the 7th grade so that has to be my favorite memory from 7th grade.  We were high school sweethearts and got married when I was 20 and he had just turned 21.  We'll be celebrating our 12 anniversary in January.

10} If you have a dinner with anyone living or dead who would it be & why?
My grandparents.  I miss them so much and wish I would spend more time with them.

Niki's Blog

Here is a couple cards that she made for her first post! Aren't they super cute!

 

Santa Sack Sneek Peek

Can you stand it? It is less than 2 hours away... your chance to buy one of the first Santa Sacks.

Here is a sneak of Box 1

Look at all that goodness. A mix of old and new lines... paper, stickers, mini album, wild cards, rub-ons and much much more.

Sacks are $39.99 plus shipping/handling

Shipping and Handling is as follows:
Continental USA/APO-$10.00
Hawaii/Alaska-$15.00
Canada-$18.00
and all other Countries $35.00

We will be taking payment through PayPal (Visa, MC, Discover, AX).

Hope to see everyone at the blog on 11/11/11 @ 11:11a.m. CST

There will a link to Paypal on the blog post that goes live tomorrow. It will be easy for you to purchase a box (or two).

Monday Challenge: 5+ Photos

Happy Halloween!  Roree here, and I have a challenge for you today. 

Now a lot of you know me as a card maker.  Cards are my favorite things to create, and they are what I am most comfortable creating.  I do layouts, mini albums, and altered project too, but not nearly as much.  When I was thinking about what kind of challenge to post, I really thought about what would be challenging to me.  The first thing that came to mind was layouts.  While I do like to take photos, I am not great about doing it.  I take a couple here and there, but for the most part I always forget to take my camera with me wherever I go.  I never seem to have enough photos to put together a story on my pages, so I stick to one or two photo layouts.  Maybe three photos if I am lucky. 

So with that in mind, my challenge for you today is to create a layout with 5 or more photos.   For some of you this may not be as much of a challenge so for you, try and get more on a layout than you have ever done before.  Because it really is about challenging yourself, isn't it?  

Here is the layout I created for this challenge:

I really had to dig through my photos to find a day that I took a lot of pictures.  Luckily, I found a day that fit in with a fall/pumpkin theme in honor of Halloween.

I kept my design simple to really focus on the photos.  (I think this is the most photos I have ever used on one page.  LOL)  I love the Print Multiple Photos feature on Photoshop Elements.  It prints all of my photos at one time, and has multiple sizes to choose from.  I printed out all of my photos in two sizes, and then mixed and matched them. 

And I created some fun, little pumpkins to spruce up my title and play on the theme.

 

Collections used:  5 & Dime, Rocket Age, Campfire, Farm Fresh, Fly a Kite

Lexi played along with my challenge this week.  Here is what she came up with and what she had to say about the challenge:

"We just came back from our first true family vacation and, as you can image, took LOTS of photos. I am actually embarrassed to say how many, but I am a scrapbooker so you KNOW it was a lot ;) I knew Roree had the 5+ challenge coming up and it was a perfect way to scrap several of the photos I had just taken. These are pics are of the boys seeing the ocean for the first time. I printed them all out at 2.5x3.5" and added a little bit of a white cardstock mat. I added the bit of journaling with the title on the tag, which left me room to play with some paint, ink, and lots of patterns, without it feeling too crazy.

Collections used:  Sidewalks, Farmhouse, Sasparilla, Rocket Age and Seaside

So are you up for the challenge?  If so, make sure to upload your finished layout to the OA Flicker Gallery.  We love to see what you all create using OA products!

Hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween!  Thanks for stopping by!

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!

Flickr Friday

Looking through the Flickr albums I came across this card from Linda McClain... just look at the use of Rocket Age!

You can learn more about it here.

Great card Linda!

Flickr Feature

I was just looking throught the Flicker images that tagged October Afternoon and I came across this SUPER CUTE project from Jean (Stripey Fish).

So darn cute!

Here is her recipe for it:

Framed Monogram - Simple Scrapper
Simple Scrapper October 2011 Simple Project Instructions
October Afternoon Rocket Age papers
October Afternoon Rocket Age chipboard shape
October Afternoon Rocket Age miscellany
3-in-1 Craft Glue
Recollections foam adhesive circles
Scrapbook Adhesives E-Z Runner
Acrylic paint (craft supply)
4-Way Adjustable Depth Project Frame
Large chipboard letter

Thnaks for an insipration project Jean!

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!

Our Last Inspirational Design Idea from our Guest Designer Michiyo Nobeno (aka poki)

When you wish upon a star.

What a great layout. Someone loves Rocket Age! And doesn't she make it look great. I love the added touch of the stars made out of patterned paper and the edges sewn. I just love this layout.

 Now before she goes....

One last project, a beautiful card.

Look at this super cute card from Poki. Look how she used the mini market stickers. I love how she put them around the circles. And an added touch is the sewing along the lines of the paper.

It is sad that today is last day for our guest designer Poki. She has been a great guest designer! Please help me thank her for her insiprations.