October Afternoon

♥ Sketchy Tuesday: Oh the Possibilities! ♥

Hi everyone, Danni here with you today with a new sketch, the new, fun Travel Girl line and several interpretations.  (I hope you'll look closely as I have shared almost every piece of the patterned papers from this new amazing line)

As I have shared with you, I love to create as many cards as I can with one sketch in a sitting. I love that it stretches my creativity and is a fun challenge.  So let me begin by sharing my sketch with you.

 

                                                     card sketch by danni reid.

 

As you can see in the sketch, I really wanted to be able to play with a lot of patterned papers and the "tilt design" that is so popular everywhere, giving a slightly different feel to cards and layouts.

  The Travel Girl line is absolutely ADORABLE and I love it for all it's travel-themed possibilities, but what to do with those scraps after a layout or PL page?  So, hopefully this sketch will inspire you not to stash, throw out or store those scraps.......

just waitin'

and waitin'

and waitin'

for the perfect time to pull them out again (if you're anything like me...smile)

 

So, let me share my variations of the sketch with you and YES, a whole lot of the patterned papers from the Travel Girl line.

 

 

smile card

 

 

hello card

 

 

 

hello sunshine card

 

 

 

 

you are a peach card

 

 

 

 

 

AND maybe, just maybe you have the perfect paper without adhering strips to your cardstock as i saw with this fun paper in the Travel Girl line

 

 

 

happy father's day card set

(fun notecards to send to loved ones for father's day)

 

 

I hope you will save the sketch for your scraps and give it a try.  If you do, please upload your creations to our FLICKR GALLERY

 

Thank you so much for joining me today!

Happy creating♥

danni

Monday Challenge: Embellish with Phrase Stamps

Hi everyone, Mou here with today's challenge: cook up some roller stamp fun with a Phrase Stamp! 

Once, I started playing, I wanted to use every single phrase in the same layout. That works great because each set is themed. I picked travel. Then kept rolling and stamping along the left edge of the layout to create a fun border.

Here's a closer look at that border 

and some detail shots

Other than the phrase stamp, I used the following October Afternoon goodies on my layout:

Daily Flash 12x12 paper Focus

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Postcard

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Subway Token

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Stampbook

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Directions

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Plane Ticket

Travel Girl 12x12 paper Passport

Travel Girl Tin Pin

Travel Girl Tidbits

Hope you'll take on today's challenge and share your creations with us at the October Afternoon Flickr Gallery!

Crafty goodness grows in Melanie Fink's October Afternoon garden!

This is my last post as the October Afternoon Guest Designer this month. I have enjoyed sharing projects with you and seeing all of your lovely comments - and, seeing my projects pop up on Pinterest too! Also, I want to extend a special thank you to those that have started following my blog (http://www.thepaperretreat.blogspot.com) and/or Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ThePaperRetreat). I love October Afternoon and will continue to share projects on my blog using their AWESOME products!

Since this is my last post, I wanted to make my last project a special one! I have so many fond  memories of my grandparents' garden.  As kids, my sister and I would spend a week during the summer with my grandparents and we would always help pick all of the goodies out of their garden. Picking strawberries was my favorite. To continue the tradition, I made a gift box filled with mini pots with seeds to start a garden. The Farm Girl collection was PERFECT for this project!

The first thing I did was create the box. The box and fence are SVGs by SVG Cuts. As with my other projects, I had to use SVGs! I love SVGs so much and they provide so many possibilities! I modified the sizes of the SVGs so I could fit six mini clay pots inside and so the fence would fit nicely on the back of the box.

First I cut out the SVGs for the box and fence and assembled them.

Tip: Add cardboard or lightweight chipbpard to the bottom of the box. This will make the box sturdier so it can hold all of those pots@

Next, I decorated all four sides of the box using scraps I had from the Farm Girl collection. What a great way to use up those scraps!

The next part of assembly is making the cute little seed packets! The finished packets measure 2.75-inches x 2.25-inches. I created a template (below) that you can use for the packets. (Print on an 8.5-inch x 11-inch sheet of paper.)

Cut on the solid lines and fold on the dotted lines.

Tip: Use your paper trimmer to cut these lines easily and to score the dotted lines for folding. I used by Fiskars 8.5x11 trimmer. Just slide the blade over the cut lines and use a bone folder tool on the dotted lines (the groove in the trimmer acts like a scoreboard).

Once you have assembled the packet, poke a hole in the center of the lid through the middle layer. Then place a brad through the middle layer and the lid so that the back of the brad is used as the closure for the packet. Then ink the edges of the envelope to give it that worn look.

To finish the packets, cut out the desired seed labels from the 8x8 Farm Girl "Wheelbarrow" paper (from the 8x8 paper pad) and glue them to the fronts of the packets. Then add the seeds to the packets! Aren't the finished packets adorable?!

Next, adhere each packet to a wooden stick using a mini clothespin. I used skinny popsicle sticks that I found at a craft store. This is a fun way to display the seed packets in the pots! Later, when the seeds have been planted in the pots, the packets on the sticks can be used as label markers so you know what is planted in each of the pots! Fun idea, huh? I was proud of myself for coming up with this one ... LOL!

Then, we add the sticks to the pots! To do this, I added mini styrofoam balls to the pots. Then I pushed the sticks into the styrofoam balls.

To cover up the styrofoam, I added some Spanish moss to the pots.

Next up - embellishing the pots! First, wrap some burlap around the base of the pots and secure the burlap using twine. I used twine from October Afternoon's Woodland Park Trims Pack. The burlap looks nice and it provides some protection between the pots. A gift of broken pots - not acceptable!

Then add all of the embellished pots to the gift box.

To embellish the box, I decorated the fence with the Farm Girl Sew Fun Banners (my first time using my sewing machine!), Stickey Keys Alpha Stickers, and buttons from the coordinating Miscellany Pack and Flair Pack.

Also, I created a cute chalkboard sign using lightweight chipboard, a die, a stamp, Farm Girl brads, and chalkboard paint. I just love the sentiment on this sign! The sign can be used as a pot embellishment for any indoor plant! I listed the gift box contents on the cute Farm Girl "Garden Favorites" journal card and aded this to the box too!

To finish the box, I added some seam binding ribbon around the base.

A HUGE thank you to October Afternoon for having me on their blog this month! I will be forever grateful to OA for this opportunity!  If you would like to see more of my work and future work, visit me at http://www.thepaperretreat.blogspot.com.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

P.S. - I'm giving away goodies from the October Afternoon Midway collection (12x12 collection kit,  8x8 paper pad, brads, sticky keys, flair and more!)  The giveaway ends today, April 26th, at midnight!  Stop by my blog to enter if you haven't already ... the lucky winner will be announce don my blog on Saturday!

Melanie

 

Leftovers anyone?

Hi October Afternoon fans! Nicole here on Technique Thursday.  If you're like me, you don't do very many "artsy" techniques but you love to play with paper.  I wanted to encourage you to reach for a favorite tool instead, and for me that would be my corner rounder!

Raise your hand if you can't bear to toss away a piece of pretty paper. (Mine is raised, LOL). Instead of hoarding them, grab your corner rounder and go to town! Here's the file I started with:

You can see no piece is safe, even some of the Miscellany ephemera fell victim to my beloved corner rounder.

Next, just start layering them on top of one another ... allow yourself to cover up bits and pieces. I played around with mine for a bit, and once I found a formula I was happy with I just grabbed my tape runner and got to work. Here is the finished result:

I know, I know ... my sweet Grandpa is distracting because he's so dang cute, right?!

After adding the photo of him, plus some journaling about our day trip for ice cream, all I needed was to add some Tidbits and Doo-Dads around the edges to finish things up.

Notice I also rounded the corners of the grey cardstock to kind of tie it all in together.

In addition, I managed to sneak in a few stamped phrases from the Everyday Roller that is part of the new and soon-to-be-released Daily Flash Program ...  that one is most likely going to end up on every project I make for a very long time.

The next time you're stuck with a bunch of "leftovers," make sure you get a'round' to using them by layering them all together!

October Afternoon welcomes two new members to its Design Team

October Afternoon is pleased to announce two new additions to its Design Team! Mandy Koeppen and Aleksandra Gadji will join the OA Design Team beginning in May.

MANDY KOEPPEN

Mandy is a 30-something mother of three who juggles many job titles in her everyday life – from being a chauffering family accountant to a zoo-keeping therapist. She lives a small-town, country girl life in Potterville, Michigan with her husband, Mr. K, and her children, Teagan, Mavrick and Avery.

When she has time, Mandy loves to get creative with paper, browse her local antique shops, raise autism awareness for sweet Mav, and have fun with family and friends.

Mandy’s work has been published in Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Trends, Scrapbooks Etc., Create Quick & Easy and Somerset Memories. She currently designs for Cocoa Daisy Kits.

To see some of Mandy’s work or to get to know her better, visit her blog at http://www.mandykoeppen.blogspot.com/ or follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

ALEKSANDRA GADJI

Aleksandra, who also goes by “Alex,” is a mother, a daughter, a big sister and a lousy driver who resides in Stockholm, Sweden.

When she’s not scrapbooking, Alex works as a software engineer within the medical technology industry, writing software for medical devices. She loves to think that a code she has written will someday, somewhere save someone’s life.

Three months ago she gave birth to a baby boy and plans to be a stay-at-home mom for the next year or so. “Saving lives can wait … I have more important things to do now,” she says.

A native of Serbia, Alex has four different nationalities in her blood and none of them is Swedish, yet Swedish is how she feels. She moved to Sweden when she was 14-years-old and says her heart is in what she called the most beautiful city in the world: Stockholm.

Scrapbooking has allowed Alex to combine her creativity with something she feels is very important: preservation of memories. And she says joining the October Afternoon Design Team is “a dream come true.”

To see some of Aleksandra’s work or get to know her better, visit her blog at http://www.colorsofalex.blogspot.com/.

Watch for projects, tips and more from both Mandy and Aleksandra on the October Afternoon blog beginning in May!

Tuesday Sketch: Round 'Em Up

Happy Tuesday!  It's Jill here, with this week's sketch, which takes the guesswork out of deciding where to place the items on a layout.  Just round 'em up -- arrange them in a circle, stitch over and around them, place the title and some journaling in the middle, and you're done! My own layout incorporates a series of labels, on which I added my journaling -- a list of my daughter's pet peeves. She and I had some fun coming up with this list together. After printing the journaling, I arranged the labels in a circle over a piece of Postcard patterned paper from the new Travel Girl line and stitched over them. 

The labels are from the Sugar Shack and Licorice label sticker sheets.  I get a kick out of how the abbreviation "No." on a few of the stickers actually comes to mean "no" here, placed amidst a list of the things that get on my daughter's nerves. I also love how the "This Way" Travel Girl tin pin starts to answer the question posed in the journaling just under the title. 

The die-cut title is taken from an expression my daughter uses often. I like the visual pop of the bright yellow (from a piece of Daily Flash Snapshots Focus paper) against the aqua background. 

I also had a chance to use the new Daily Flash Catch-Phrase "Inspiration" and "Travel" stamps here, repeatedly stamping a few "catch-phrases" among the labels. 

I'd love to see how you make this sketch your own.  Be sure to share your layout in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery.  Happy scrapping! 

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!

Put some Spring in your walk with Woodland Park!

Melanie Fink, Guest Designer

I LOVE October Afternoon's Woodland Park collection! The cute little fox, turtle, mice and bunnies are what first made me fall in love with the collection.  Taking a closer look, I noticed how versatile this collection really is and how inspiring it is.  I was thumbing through the miscellany and I smiled at every single piece of it!

I was very inspired by the yellow strip of paper in the miscellany pack that says "laugh, enjoy the sunshine, play, go for a walk, feed the ducks, lay in the grass."  Who doesn't love going for a walk on a beautiful day, laying in the grass and having a picnic with someone you love? So, I decided to make a tote with treat holders (milk cartons in this case) that can be brought along on a walk. When you want to take a break from your walk and lay in the grass, you can enjoy the treats inside!

As I mentioned in my guest designer introduction post a couple of weeks ago, I love making things for others. This could be a fun gift for newlyweds or couples that have been together for years. It just makes a special day even more special or an ordinary day memorable.

The  tote and milk cartons are SVGs by Lori Whitlock. There is a video tutorial on how to assemble these SVGs at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdtQLToNyVE . The video tutorial is very easy to follow.

I first assembled the tote. I chose a solid green color for the tote so the Woodland Park paper and embellishments would really stand out.

Next, I cut out the cartons and assembled them. I used gray twine from the OA's Farmhouse collection to close each carton on top (just untie to enjoy the treats inside!).

The final step is embellishing the tote. There are so many gorgeous embellishments in the Woodland Park collection, I had a hard time picking out what I was going to use!

To give my tote a whimsical feel, I added flying butterflies. The butterfly die-cuts are from the Woodland Park Flower Sack and Chip-N-Stick sticker pack. To make the butterflies fly, I cut three 4-inch long pieces of craft wire. I curled the wire by wrapping it around a pen. Next, I hot-glued the butterflies to one end of each piece of wire. Then, I hot-glued the opposite ends of each wire to the tote.

The last step was decorating the front of the tote. I added the yellow strip of miscellany that inspired me in the first place, as well as coordinating Shape and Chip-N-Stick stickers, and die-cuts from the Flower Sack. Overall, I achieved the whimsical, romantic feel I was going for.

Now if I could only make the weather here in Minnesota feel and look like spring! More snow is in our forecast! I can't wait for that first walk in beautiful spring weather!

If you missed my post last week, I mentioned I had a surprise on my blog! I am giving away a bunch of goodies from the Midway collection (12x12 collection kit, 8x8 paper pad, brads, stickey keys, flair and more). Stop by my blog at http://thepaperretreat.blogspot.com  to enter! The giveaway ends next Friday, April 26th!

Melanie

buttons, buttons...

Hi everyone! Becky here today, sharing a few simple ideas for using what you have in your stash...specifically buttons. In my opinion, buttons are one of the most economical embellishments to use to add depth and impact. The October Afternoon buttons available in many of the collections come in an abudant package, so you can use them without feeling as if you should "save" them. Whenever I use buttons, I thread twine or thread through them. My friend Kelly has a thing about the buttons being threaded, so I guess it rubbed off on me. I can't seem to use a button without having it threaded! 

For this layout, I only used about 1/3 of a package of OA buttons, so there are plenty left over to use for other projects.

I simply lined them up to border the pattern paper that the photo will be adhered to.

There's actually a mistake on this layout. This is from Addie's 5 year session, not her 6 year session. 

I also tried something I've wanted to try for a while on this layout, I used an OA sprinkler sprayed on a stamp. The OA sprinkler that I used was Witch Hazel Witches Brew.  You can see the stamp from the Midway collection that I used here. 

I think it worked fairly well! Fun to play around with for sure. I did dab it on paper towels before stamping to get rid of some of the excess. 

I also did a little machine stitching to adhere the ribbon and label down at the bottom of the page.

I hope you enjoy trying one of these ideas and share what you make with us on the OA Flickr gallery!

 

Tuesday Sketch: Banners

Hey everyone!  Roree here with today's Tuesday Sketch Challenge.

I was totally inspired by the Little Flyers flags and embellishment stickers in the recent collections. With those in mind, I came up with this card sketch:

Here is the card I created using the sketch:

The banners remind me of birthdays, so I thought Cakewalk would be the perfect collection to use with this sketch.

I used a Here & Now Chapter page for the base of the card, along with Little Flyers stickers, Miscellany, Chip 'n Stick, and Designer brads to embellish the banners.

Mou played along with the sketch this week and created this absolutely adorable card. (We definitely had similar ideas on how to use the sketch!) Here is what she had to say about it:

"When I saw Roree's sketch, I immediately thought celebration! With my son's birthday coming up, I'm in the mood for party invites right now. I used papers and accents from the Cakewalk collection in layers to make the card with a couple of banner strips at the bottom."

I hope you enjoyed today's sketch and the samples Mou and I created using 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!