October Afternoon

CHA Sneak Peek - Treasure Map

Make sure you’ve brushed up on your nautical alphabet and fitted your peg leg - our pirate boy is calling all hands to set sail on his next adventure!

We will need to navigate by the stars, avoid the Siren’s call, and keep the wind in our sails to find that elusive X which marks the spot.  With the help of our Treasure Map^TM, we can make our own fortune and ensure that our deeds are remembered when pirate tales are told.

Capture all your nautical adventures -- whether sea-side or trans-Atlantic.  Record the buccaneering exploits of young and old alike with October Afternoon's "Treasure Map" line.

PRIZES, YAY!

Comment about OA's "Treasure Map" line and also tell us your favorite store.  We'll draw a lucky winner to receive a "Treasure Map" collection kit!  Your store will win too.  We'll send them a free unit of "Treasure Map" collection kits!

So grab your spyglass and head on down to the docks – we sail with the tide!

New Lines for Summer CHA

Summer CHA is just around the corner and we have a bunch of new collections to share with everyone.  We have decided not to exhibit at the show in Las Vegas, although a few of us will be attending.  You will find sneaks, reveals, and more info about our new product lines here and on our website throughout the week of the show.

Itching to see what we have in store for you?  First, we have three brand-new full-collections.  These lines contain all of the OA products that you know and love!  Here are the logos for each of the new product lines:

For all of you that have been anticipating the release of our brand new Daily Flash (TM) program, Volume 1 is now available to order!  Volume 1 contains the first four Daily Flash mini-collections and a huge selection of general products.  We're talking Decade Stamps (TM), Phrase Stamps, Washi tape, Clear Pockets (TM) and more!

Daily Flash is a modular scrapbooking system that emphasizes variety and creativity!  Make your scrapbooking fast and fun -- but above all creative!

Click on the logo below to explore the products of Volume 1:

Volume 2 of Daily Flash will add three even-bigger mini-collections and more general products to the Daily Flash program!  These mini-collections really stand on their own.  Whether you do traditional or modular scrapbooking, these timeless designs capture the heart and the eye.

Look forward to School, Fall, and Christmas themes...

October Afternoon 5708 Upper 147th Street West Unit 101  Apple Valley, MN 55124 866-513-5553 phone (toll-free) 952-891-5539 phone 952-891-5339 fax To inquire, please send e-mail to: [email protected] Copyright © 2013 October Afternoon, All Rights Reserved

Fifty Shades of Red - An Adventure in Color Matching - Ink Pads

As the final installment to this series of colormatching posts, today we will talk about Ink Pads.

An ink pad, simply put, is a block of absorbant material saturated with ink, and used to transfer ink evenly to a stamp. 

Ink pads come in several varieties from dye ink to pigment ink.  The type of ink that will work best depends on your project and, more often than not (at least at my house), what you have on hand.  For today's post we are only concerned with color, not type of ink.

Gathering matching cardstock is pretty inexpensive - ink pads, not so much. I have a complete collection of Stampin' Up! inks which I have since discovered are pretty out dated.  Alison, thankfully has a great collecion of ink pads and she is so organized that she has swatches made up from them all (I love working with her).  Even with all the options we had on hand we had very few perfect "Matches" for Travel Girl. 

As we our collection of inks and swatches grows, we hope to update these lists. Below we have listed both color matches (in bold) and colors we found to coordinate well with the line.

Stampin' Up! 

Summer Starfruit (Match)                            

 

Crushed Curry

 

Real Red (Match)

 

Blushing Bride

 

Pool Party

 

Gumball Green

 

Wild Wasabi

 

 

Ranger Distress Inks

 

Tattered Rose

 

 

Barn Door

 

 

 Wild Honey

 

 

Weathered Wood

 

  ColorBox - Pigment Ink

Cupid

 

Old Rose

 

Marigold

 

Pool

 

Fresh Green

 

 Hero Arts Inks

Soft Sand Shadow (Match) 

 

 

Charcoal Mid-tone Shadow (Match)

 

 Soft Pool - Shadow

 

With the Maggie page I tried a few different techniques with my ink.

 

I started out by totally stealing Jill's idea from Tuesday's "Free Hand Title" Tutorial and giving it a try for myself.  I kind of like how it turned out for a first try.  I decided to use my ink pads as a watercolor ink to fill in the letters and give a color wash to the paper.  Be cautious with this technique because your paper will wrinkle if you get it too wet.  Mine is a little wrinkled which could be fixed with an iron but I don't have one here at work.  With my Stampin' Up! inks all I had to do was squeeze the closed pads until there is ink on the inside of the cover and then you can use that as a pallet.  If you are using something other than Stampin' Up! you can either find a plastic surface that you can rub your ink pads onto (a sheet of acetate or large acrylic block) or get a silicone mat that works great for this purpose.  I then used the same ink pads to stamp little images on the background.  The colors coordinate without being too matchy but I don't have to worry about them contrasting too much.  I used the Stampin' Up! pads Real Red, More Mustard, So Saffron and Not Quite Navy.

For this page I started with a doodle in the middle of the page and then used the small stamps from Travel Girl "Traveler" clear stamp set to accentuate my doodle.  The little tiny sun was actually cut out of a larger image.  I then used the ink, again, as a watercolor with my water brush to do a little highlighting in the doodle. I used the SU Real Red, which is a match and More Mustard which is more of a coordinating color.

Alison created this card using the Plane Ticket cardstock and Ranger Distress Inks in Wild Honey, Tattered Rose, Festive Berries, Hero Arts Shadow inks Charcoal (mid-tone) and Soft Pool.  I really love the color combination. 

This is your last chance to win by sharing your favorite ink color matches. Share your Travel Girl ink color matches in the comment section below by July 26th for a chance to win the "Traveler" clear stamp set. 

You can still go back and enter matches for cardstock, and markers, for a chance to win an 8x8 or the 'See the World' stamp set.

We encourage you to share your projects using Travel Girl and stamping in our flickr gallery. Tag your photo TGcolormatch and you could win a Collection Kit!

Entry for these contests will remain open until Friday, July 26.
The winners will be announced Wednesday, July 31.

 

 

Thursday Sketch: At an Angle

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

I created this sketch playing around in Photoshop:

I started with a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2" format. I kept the main design pretty simple but added the elements at an angle, running from the bottom left corner of the layout to the top right corner.

Here is the card I created using the sketch:

I stayed pretty true to sketch and went with a flower theme. I created layered flowers using my Cricut Expression® 2 machine and Freshly Picked cartridge. I used Farm Girl for the papers and sentiment sticker, Woodland Park for the border stickers, Cakewalk for the baker's twine, and Boarding Pass and 5 & Dime for the buttons.

A fun "Just Because" card to brighten someone's day. :)

Laura played along with my sketch this week, and here is the amazing card she created and what she had to say about it:

"Sketches are one of my favourite things to use when I'm short on time. I find them to be such a great starting point for projects. I adored this sketch by Roree and instantly the idea came to me to cut holes in patterned paper for the front of my card and fill them with little bits. I knew that could get quite "busy" looking so I started with a simple striped pattern paper from the Midway 8x8 Paper pad, which I adhered with foam adhesive to sit higher than the card base.  I decided to keep everything monochromatic except the main sentiment which is a fun pop of blue."

What a great way to spotlight the embellishments, don't you think?

I just love how sketches inspire creativity. You can re-create something following the sketch exactly or just use an element or two to get you started—whatever works to get you creating.

I hope you enjoyed today's sketch and the samples Laura 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.  We can't wait to see how you interpret it.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Tuesday Tutorial: A Free-Hand Title

Summer is easily the most laid-back season of the year, so why not create a laid-back title for a summer layout? 

Step 1. With a pencil in hand, write the title of the page in your own handwriting, lightly moving across the page. 

Step 2. Keeping your hand moving freely and lightly, outline the title that you just wrote, this time using a pen. I usually start at the bottom, working my across left to right, and then I work my way across the top, right to left. I find that the less pressure I exert on the pen and the page, the smoother and more free-flowing the title looks. 

Step 3.  Erase the pencil lines so that only the outline of the title is visible. 

Step 4. Using an ink dauber (as I am using in the photo below), a big brush artist's pen, or a brush dipped in paint, mist, or spray ink, fill in the title. Just take it easy and go with the flow -- if you color outside the lines, no problem! It just reinforces the free-flowing, laid-back nature of the approach. Of course, if you'd rather be precise and fill in the title carefully, that's fine, too -- just do your thing! 

Step 5. Build the rest of the layout around the title, or trim around the title and layer it over other items on your layout. 

The laid-back approach need not be limited to the title. Consider adding other inked elements to the page, like the stamped images (from the Travel Girl "Traveler"  and Midway "Carnival" stamp sets) and free-hand sunburst that I added to my layout. 

This technique uses no fancy machinery or tough-to-procure materials, and it's a no-stress approach -- perfect for the scrapper who doesn't just want to scrap the summer season, but also wants to have time to enjoy it! 

If you decide to try this go-with-the-flow approach, I'd love to see where it takes you! Be sure to share your layouts in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, and leave a link here below as well, so that I won't miss it. Have fun! 

-- Jill 

Monday Challenge: From the Cover

Hi, OA fans! Alex here bringing you a fun challenge.

I love finding my inspiration in book/magazine covers. For today's challenge, I have picked three different covers for you. Let them inspire you! Their design, colors, theme... the choice is yours!

 

 

I was inspired by the grid design of the first cover and by the colors of the third. I also incorporated the big title to the left of the photo from the second cover. This is the result:

I have used the Travel Girl collection, one of my favorite OA lines ever! 

I cut the white grid with my Cameo and placed it on top of gorgeous Travel Girl papers.

The layout is about my daughter and how much love she bears inside her little body. I am sure that she would embrace the entire world if she only could.

I have used a piece of a border sticker to create a trail behind the plane.

For my title I have mixed Travel Girl and Daily Flash stickers.

Joining me today is Mou. Look at this gorgeous layout she has created inspired by these three covers!

Here is what Mou had to say about her layout:

"When I saw Alex's inspiration pieces, I loved them all... the clean grid of the first piece, the boldness of the second one, and the colors of the third. I wanted to make something that followed a grid, had bold graphics, and several colors. I cut out blocks from the 'Compose' 12 x 12 paper from the Daily Flash collection, snipped their corners, arranged them in a grid with photos and then came back to the basic arrangement of the book title in inspiration piece # 1 to include my handwritten title. Besides, I used a roller stamp to stamp the phrase 'I Heart This' near the right side of the layout just to break the linearity a bit like in the 2nd piece. I added some buttons from the Travel Girl Collection near the title and splattered some paint. Thanks for this fun creative challenge Alex!"

Thank you SO much, Mou! Your layout is breathtaking!

I hope you will join us and create something inspired by these covers. If you do, please share your work with us! Be sure to upload your work to OA's Flickr gallery. We would love to see it! 

Thanks for stopping by today!

 

50 Shades of Red an Adventure in Color Matching - Copic Markers

If you missed our first post on color matching Travel Girl with cardstock, you can find it here.

Before todays post Alison and I want to introduce ourselves. We realized last week that we had been talking about ourselves and you don't even know who we are, "How Rude".

Alison Slowes has been with October Afternoon for almost a year.  She is in Sourcing and Logistics which basically mean she has her hands in everything. She has been dabbling in the world of crafts since she was a kid, but really became passionate about it a few years ago.

I’m Ann Ertel and I have been with October Afternoon for about a year and a half.  I started out doing assembly in my home and about a year ago I began working here in the office as the Product Assembly Coordinator.  I love my job here because I get to do a little bit of everything from painting offices, laying the floor in the owner’s office, and assembling furniture, to organizing assembly and finally fun stuff like creating blog posts (my favorite part so far).  I’m also the person who manages our Facebook and Twitter pages.  I have a very short attention span so the variety makes it the perfect job for me.

 

 I’ve been scrapbooking and paper crafting for over 19 years.  If you follow us on Facebook you have seen some of my stuff.  I actually shared one of my original pages from about 15 years ago.  I’ve been married for 22 years to a wonderful guy who has incredible patience with my ability to collect scrapbooking supplies.  I have two amazing daughters Marissa is 19 and a sophomore at Stout College in Menomonie, Wisconsin and Allison is 16 a junior at Woodbury High School and an amazing ballet dancer.  They both work here whenever things get busy and we need bodies.  I also have 3 kitties and I volunteer at a small cat shelter so I’m sure as I continue to blog and do the Facebook page you will see plenty of pictures of my furry family.

 50 Shades of Red an Adventure in Color Matching – Copic Markers

Funny story,  Alison and I first met at a Copic Marker Certification training class.  We weren’t working here at OA.  We were working for the same company but at different stores.  We didn’t realize until recently that we attended the same class.  We are both Copic Crazy.  I’m jealous because she has more markers than I do, but she shares so it’s all good. 

If you haven’t used Copic Markers you are missing out, especially if you like to color.  I have always been someone who likes to color, but couldn’t get things to shade and blend the way I wanted until I found Copics a few years ago.  They are alcohol based markers instead of the usual water based markers, because of that they blend differently and you can create wonderful bright colors without your paper pilling up.  I won’t go into it too much here but you have to look into Copics if you haven’t already used them.

Copic Markers have recently taken the crafting world by storm. We decided to focus on Copic Markers instead of other markers because of their quality, their variety or colors and their availability. 

The Copic Markers were a little easier to color match than the cardstock because of the limited number of colors.  Copic Markers currently come in 358 colors in three different pen styles.  I prefer the Sketch style because of the larger barrel and the brush tip. 

While getting ready for this post we were waiting for color samples from Copic but they just weren’t coming fast enough.  So I had to head to my local Blick Arts store to do some investigating.  So picture me Saturday morning sitting on the floor at our local Blick Arts store in front of the Copic display, Travel Girl 8 x 8 pad and some white paper in my lap going through the markers to find my matches.  The staff of the Blick Art store in Roseville, Minnesota were very helpful and pretty much left me alone and let me do what I had to do. 

These are the colors we came up with but you may find different combinations that also coordinate. 

W5 – Warm Grey No. 5

 

W7 – Warm Grey No. 7

 

E81 -Ivory

 

Y13 - Lemon Yellow

 

Y23 – Yellowish Beige

 

Y26 – Mustard

 

YR14 - Caramel

 

YR24 – Pale Sepia

 

G00 – Jade Green

 

R24– Prawn

 

R19 – Lipstick Red

BG23 – Coral Sea

 

BG72 – Ice Ocean

 

G00 – Jade Green

 

YG17 – Grass Green

 

Now for the projects! Alison created this page using stamps from the "See the World" rubber stamp set from the Travel Girl collection.

 We all agree that the globes along the left side of the "Plane Ticket" paper are brilliant.  What a brilliant way to create a colorful border.  She also used her Copic Markers and airbrush system to color some of the banners along the top of the page. See the green ribbon peeking out from behind the bear Tin Pin? It started out white. Since Copics are alcohol based, they are permanent on most surfaces (like ribbon), allowing us to custom color all sorts of things.

I created this layout using our new Daily Flash 6 x 8 sleeve protectors.

This was so much fun to do because I could color little details in the 2 x 2 squares.  These are also a great way to use your smaller scraps of paper.   I love dimension, and just because I'm using page protectors doesn't mean that I can't use my pop dots.  Putting details outside of the protector adds interest and dimension.


As with the cardstock post from last week, you have a chance to win by sharing your favorite marker color matches. You don't have to limit your suggestions to Copics, we would love to hear about any coloring medium. Save your ink pad colors for next week when we will share some good matches for you stampers out there. Share your Travel Girl color matches in the comment section below by July 26th for a chance to win the 'See the World' stamp set. 

 We encourage you to share your projects using Travel Girl and some Copic coloring in our flickr gallery. Tag your photo TGcolormatch and you could win a Collection Kit!

Entry for these contests will remain open until Friday, July 26.
The winners will be announced Wednesday, July 31.

 

Thursday Sketch: Angles

Hi,OA fans! It's Mandy Koeppen here with this Thursday's Sketch. 

While looking around on Pinterest I found some great inspiration for my sketch this week. I pinned a few different pieces but noticed they all had a common shape and were taking me in the same direction... angles, triangles, and diagonals. I ended up basing this weeks sketch on this poster.

This sketch is a basic starting point that gives you the freedom to add bits & pieces wherever you choose. Even though this looks like a card or 8.5x11 sketch you could easily adjust it to use on a 12x12 page.

 
When I sat down with this sketch I decided to create an 8.5x11 page. I knew that I wanted to use a large photo at the top in that blank space so I eyeballed the angles and measurements in photoshop until I got what I wanted then printed the photo on an 8.5x11 paper. Even though I planned to have my layout look exactly like the sketch I went off course a bit but I really like how it turned out.

The Farm Girl line was perfect to use with this the photo of my daughter and Gpa picking tomatoes. I also used one of my favorite new alpha stickers from the Travel Girl line for the title. 

Danni Reid joined me for this week's sketch challenge, and she created this beautiful card. 

Here's what Danni had to say about working with this weeks sketch:

I was really intrigued by the amazing Pinterest-inspiration piece that Mandy sent me for the sketch this week.  I loved all the graphic lines and design and wanted to challenge myself with a card design using it.  I pulled out my fabulous Travel Girl line and love the fun results.  This card is going to be sent to my niece and I know she'll love it, it's a fun and hip design.  Thanks for such a fun challenge, I can't wait to see what everyone will create with it.

I can't wait to see where this sketch takes you! Be sure to share your projects in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery. 

Thanks for visiting today! 

Tuesday Tutorial: Simple Collage

Hi! OA fans, it's Mandy Koeppen sharing a simple tutorial on how I create photo collages in photoshop elements with you today.

Most of us only use a few photos at most on a layout because it can be a challenge to fit a bunch of photos on 1 page or getting them placed right can be tricky,this is where a printed collage comes in handy. Collages are a great way to use a lot of photos from one event or for all those photos that are part of our story but tend to get put to the side because they just aren't as important. You have a lot of different options when it comes to creating a collage in photoshop too... you can change the color, the sizes, and various placements of your photos.In this tutorial I am going to create a basic collage of a variety of photos from Summer 2012. 

Let's get started. 

I open up photoshop elements then drop all the photos I think I might use in the project bin. Once I have all the photos in the project bin I open a blank file. I chose 11x 8.5 inches for this collage. 

Then I start dragging my photos onto the blank file and resize them. For this collage the photos are all 1.5x1.5 inches.  I enable the Grid under the View tab so that photos are all lined up straight in rows. 

 Once I have all my photos placed where I want them my collage looks like this.

I flatten my file. Then make sure that everything looks right in the preview then print. 

When everything is printed I pull the October Afternoon products I think I'll use then I create. Here is the layout I created with the collage in this tutorial.

*** If you don't have photoshop or photo editing software on your computer no worries you can still create a photo collage by googling photo collage maker and a number of free easy to use sites will pop up for you. 

If you decide to give this technique a try, upload your projects to our OA Flickr Gallery. We would love to see you projects using collages. Thanks for visiting with us today!

Monday Challenge: Image Inspiration

Hey guys!  It's Laura Craigie here with today's Monday Challenge! :)

I was drawn to this image off Pinterest for its clean lines and gorgeous colors. 

Initially I wanted to copy the design as close as possible, but soon my creativity ran off in its own inspired direction.  I pulled the red/blue/yellow color combo from the inspiration image, as well as putting letters into the blocks, or in my case label stickers.  That's the great thing about having a starting off point like this image -- usually some portion of it will click with you and become your inspiration, even if it's not what you initially thought it would be.

The adorable bicycle card from the Travel Girl Miscellany was just the perfect piece for this page, which features a picture of my son with his first big bike, which coincidentally is red, too. :)

I thought I'd share this side shot, too, since it's not apparent in the full picture that I used foam adhesive to adhere some of the label stickers for added dimension.

Vivian played along with me today and made this seriously gorgeous page.

Here is what Vivian had to say: 

“I absolutely loved the inspiration piece Laura found! It gave me a good problem: too many ideas! I finally settled on using three main ideas from the inspiration piece: a large grid as a dominant element, a strip with journaling at the bottom, and bits bridging the gap between the grid and the journaling. My 8-year-old daughter attended photography camp a couple of weeks ago and I had used PicMonkey (www.picmonkey.com) to quickly create a grid collage of her best work to share with friends and family on Facebook.  I printed that grid out at 6” X 6”, printed a small black and white photo I took of my daughter next to one of her framed images at the end-of camp art show, and typed and printed my journaling on a 12” wide strip. From there I just picked various bits and pieces from the Daily Flash Snapshots line, which were absolutely perfect to include here. I asked my daughter to write on one of them so there’s a little bit of personalization in there from her as well. I think this layout is a record for me with 17 photos included!”

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  If you feel as inspired as we did by this ad, feel free to play along, and don't forget to share your projects in the October Afternoon Flickr Gallery! 

Have a happy Monday, and a great week!