October Afternoon

Mother's Day Accordian Album

Spring seems to fly by over here.  Maybe it's because we have a big yard to tend to as soon as the weather warms up?  Maybe it's because my kids all seem to get cabin fever as soon as April hits. Whatever the case I find that it's in my best interest to plan ahead and get cards and gifts planned before I forget about them.

 So, today I have a quick and simple little tutorial for you on how to make a quick, little accordian album brag book.  This one's going to my mom.  :)

 Start by determining what size you want to work with.  I knew I wanted to use one of the October Afternoon journaling cards so I determined my length and width from that.  Take your desired width and cut a few pieces of cardstock to size.  Score a line representing the height of each piece and fold.  

 

 Now, unless you only want two to three pages you'll have to glue those cardstock strips together... so do that now.  Trim off any extra pieces if you have any.  Now you'll have one long accordian fold card.

Select your patterned papers and trim so that they're slightly smaller than your pages.   I thought that the spring-y vibe from the Sidewalks line would be perfect for this project. 

Close your accordian book so that you can decide which flaps going to be the cover and the back.  Adhere a patterned paper to the back flap.  

Open your accordian book and adhere papers to ALL the pages on the opposite side. 

Now, back to the cover.  Take a piece of ribbon and position it so that when the book is closed you can tie it evenly along the opening.  Adhere your cover papers over the ribbon.  Sew in place if desired.  

That side should now look like this.  

The other side has patterned paper on every section.

 

NOTE:  Keep in mind, that if you're sewing you may want to do that before the papers on the other side are adhered.  Unless you like messy sewing (like I do).

Decorate your cover and add your photos on the inside.

I'm hoping that my mom either carries it with her or hangs it up in her house from the ribbon at the top.

See... super simple... easy peesy.  But perfect for Mother's Day.

What projects are you tackling for Mother's Day?  If you're making something we'd love to see it!  Share your creations in our Flickr gallery and you may find yourself featured on our blog!

- Marcy

 

 

Challenge: Letter stickers...

Hello! Wilna Furstenberg here with a fun challenge! We all have letter stickers in our stash that we bought because we loved it but for some reason do not use it. So, Jill Sprott and I made some pages with this use-the-letter-stickers in mind to give you some creative inspiration! So, join us in the challenge! Show us your pages!

Jill's page is stunning (as always). She said: "I used a variety of letter stickers and clustered them together to create a frame around the photo.  Mixing styles and sizes creates a whimsical, playful feel (at least I think so!).  I also embedded the title in the layout by running letter stickers down the sides of the journaling block."

For my page, I decided to write all the journaling with letter stickers. Then i misted over it all so tone it down a bit:

So, you can show us your pictures by uploading it to Flickr, your blog or an online gallery like 2peas, then you can click the inlinkz thumbnail below and it will show a little thumbnail of your page here + link it to your page!

Thank you for participating!

 

 

Thursday Sketch Challenge :: A Creative Burst

Hi OA fans! It's Amy here today with your Thursday sketch! Have you noticed the trend in sunbursts lately? I have! They are so fun! There are so many ways to interpret them, too! I've seen them created using mists, patterned paper, taking up small portions of a layout, or even over the entire page! They certainly add a lot of energy to any layout! Today, I thought I'd incorporate a sunburst into our weekly sketch. Up until today, I hadn't given the sunburst a try yet, so I thought what better way to give it a go, than to include it in our sketch and see what others come up with, too! Here is my take on the sketch, I rotated it 90 degrees and flipped the sunburst so that the large beams were closer to my photos. I used a variety of October Afternoon papers ranging from Modern Homemaker, Five & Dime, Farmhouse, and even from our upcoming Cakewalk collection to create my pink burst of energy pointing to the fun photos of my daughter just playing and being silly.  

I asked Marcy to join in on my sketch with her own unique rendition. I have to say I was SUPER anxious to see what she would come up with! And I LOVE how her page turned out!

This is what Marcy had to say about her project.

"I stayed really close to the sketch... I love sunbursts.  :)  I substituted the three photos for four and moved the title up."

I just love the rainbow effect that she created, don't you!? It's gorgeous, and yet still "SUPER" hero cool! SUPER job, Marcy!

Well, that's going to do it for me today! I hope you got a creative BURST with our sunburst themed sketch this week! I hope you decide to play along and upload your gorgeous creations to our Flickr gallery found here. Thank you so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!!

I dare you....

to create a page using only 4 products! Becky and Amy here today with a challenge for you. Here are the "rules":

We're giving you a few freebies: scissors, writing pen and adhesive. You pick 4 additional products to make a page. 

From Amy: Becky’s challenge was just that for me - a challenge!! I never knew I relied so heavily on so many different types of product/mediums when creating a page. I didn’t even sew on this page (gasp!) and for me that’s a big deal. I didn’t thread my buttons or anything. 

The four “things” I chose to work with were patterned paper, ribbon from the Miscellany packs, buttons and alpha stickers. I found myself really struggling to make my page flow in a way that I thought it needed to. Finally after lots of experimentation, I was able to get a design I am happy with. I’m especially happy with the how the colors work together. Both the ribbon and the buttons became integral elements in the design, both in creating attention and in toning down attention (as in the yellow ribbon over the plaid paper in the bottom left corner) which is something I’m really happy with. I didn’t need to sew on it after all. :)

Here's her awesome page!

I adore the color mix! 

So pretty! 

My 4 items were: 

sewing machine

pattern paper

paper distresser

alpha stickers

I hope this challenge pushes you to try something new! We'd love to see your projects on the OA Flickr gallery.  Thanks for participating!

Spring Cards for a Friday!

Happy first Friday of April, OA friends! It's Amy here today with a couple ideas for some Spring-themed cards in celebration of Spring's official arrival and the upcoming holiday weekend. 

I used the darling Sidewalks collection to create two cards in celebration of flowers blooming, birds chirping, grass growing and perhaps a vistit from Peter Cottontail this upcoming Sunday. :)For this first card, I really wanted to create a fun embellishment with the adorable game spinner found in the Sidewalks Miscellany package. The great thing about some of the pieces in the Miscellany packs, such as this game spinner, is that they are printed on both sides, so when I went to use my punches on this piece I was able to use the side without the numbers on it to create this fun, and super whimsical flower full of Spring festiveness.This next card is a bit of a teaser, because along with Sidewalks, I've added just a couple pieces from the up and coming NEW collection, Cakewalk to the mix. I simply couldn't resist using the adorable little bunny from the "Party Hat" paper for the centerpiece of my little Easter card. Isn't he just darling? And I don't mind at all that he's holding balloons instead of a basket. It just adds to the festive feel! Plus, it shows how beautifully these two collections will collaborate together, don't you think?Well, friends, that's going to do it for me today! I hope these cards have put you in the Spring spirit! Thank you so much for stopping by today! And if you are celebrating over the weekend, I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend! :)

Thursday Sketch: Collaged Elements

Looking for a fun way to use lots of embellishments? If so, today's sketch is for you! Brought to you by Vivian, with added genius from Danni, today's sketch features collaged clustered elements topping a photo and journaling/title block:

I used this sketch to create a layout with the Boarding Pass line, collaging pieces from the Miscellany pack with chipboard embellishments, a sticker from the 12 X 12 sticker sheet, and a bit of patterned paper:

Danni used today's sketch to create this fun card featuring the Sasparilla line:

I love how she scaled the collage to work on a card by using label stickers and word stickers along with three-dimensional embellishments. Here's a close-up of that portion of the card:

Adding a rub-on in place of the title in the sketch is also a fun way to interpret the sketch for a card:

So...get out all of those embellishments you've been hoarding and create a collage! We'd love to see your interpretations of this sketch, so please post your work to our October Afternoon Flickr gallery if you create something!

Monday Challenge: Fill a Frame

Lexi here. So, I don't know about you, but in my neck of the woods it's yard sale season. Anyone out there like to yard sale or hit up thrift stores? (Raises my hand!) I have a running list of things I am on the look out for anytime I have a chance to thrift and one of those things are empty frames. I don't know why, I just like them. Maybe it's because you can do so many different things to them. If you can look past an ugly picture or fake painting you can snag some great frames that way too. I found this particular frame a few years ago for 25 cents . Score!

I've never painted it, always just liking the way it looked, although spray painting a found frame would be super easy. It's become something that I decorate as the seasons go by and today that's what we are going to do: spring-fill our thrifted frame.

I like to use the wire in teh back to hang things from so today I am taking plain, mini clothespins and adding some washi. Springify (pretty sure I just made up that word) your clothes pins using washi in spring-ish colors and prints. And did you notice the top roll of washi? That's one of the tapes being released with the 9 to 5 line! 

I laid down the green chevron part of the tape and cute the date section off.

The reason for the clothespins? I'm using my Silhouette to cut out the letters for the word "spring" and will need something to hang them up with. I have a paper scrap drawer just of OA scraps (is that so wrong?) and arranged some the scraps on my mat to get the most of out them without having ot cut into full sheets of paper. 

All hung up

I felt like it looked a little too plain. I punched some spring-ish shapes (butterfly, scalloped circle, flower) and decided a mini banner was in order. 

The twine is from the Sidewalks line. I used two shapes on each side of the twine and stapled.

All together now

...better, but it needed something.

Ah, yes, natural eggs and a handmade chick. A "springified" filled frame. 

This is such a simple decor project. Just my kind :) Do you have an empty frame you could fill? Link us up if you do. We would love to see! 

Happy Monday!