October Afternoon

A December Dozen | Suz's December Story

Hello everyone! Suz here with you today. I hope you have been enjoying the holiday season and what remains of it. (Happy 2015 to those in the eastern hemisphere who are already celebrating!) 

We are finally home for the holidays after a month filled with Christmas details and travel. Yesterday, I managed to squeeze in some creative time to play with October Afternoon's fabulous December Story Kit! 

Since I knew my December was going to be even busier than usual this year with two trips on the books and also because I have been documenting december in a daily type of fashion for probably 8 years now (Days 1-31), I decided I wanted to simplify this year. I am cutting the days I document down to a dozen days in December. And instead of documenting 12 days in a row, I am freeing myself from those constraints and simply documenting twelve days. (Rule breaker LOL)

TWELVE DAYS.

That's it.

Plain and simple.

The other thing I am trying to do is to focus on the journaling.

To focus on telling the story.

The story might be from a Christmas past.

An annual tradition.

A favorite meal.

A favorite holiday memory.

A favorite ornament.

A favorite gift.

A favorite Christmas Carol.

You get the idea.

But again, I really want to emphasize the story.

To emphasize the words.

 

Ok, I think that's enough on the back story of my design. On to my DECEMBER STORY intro page!

I used the fun 2x2 square grid page protectors included in my kit and set to work cutting down to size pattern papers and adding a few embellishments. The fabulousy fun and festivegold polka dot washi was used to cover up the chipboard zero. I then embossed (with silver Zing) the rest of the yearly numerals. (2, 1, 4). A little bit of stitching and stamping with the adorable sentiment and holiday icon stamps included in the main kit and add-on and I called it done!

 

I played off of Mou's cute little holly embellishment here and made one of my own with a bit of a twist - I cut the leaves to look like actual holly leaves. Quick and easy with a few snips of a scissor!

 

 Here I have used the Add-on kit stamps to create a happy little "gold wreath" and placed it on some of that awesome plaid patterned paper and a doily included in the kit.

I simply adore the little icon images included in this year's kit and add-on!! Here I used gold, silver, and green. The photo really doesn't do the images justice as they shimmer in the daylight in real life. 

 

How are you coming along with your December Story? I would love to see your creations! Please share with us on our OA Facebook home page or on Instagram. Tag me @suzmannecke and @octoberafternoon so we are given a heads up on your designs. Please use the hashtag #decemberstory #oadecemberstory so we can find them easily!

Have a very merry and safe New Year's Eve and a happy and healthy 2015!!!!

Suz

Tuesday Inspiration: Stitched Bits

If you, like me, are still in the process of working on your holiday album with your December Story kit, then you've probably amassed a sizeable collection of paper scraps by now. This week's inspiration piece invites you to put those bits and pieces to use in a colorful, creative, unified way. 

Source: Daisy Yellow ICAD (Index Card a Day) #6

So taken was I with the stitched scraps that I couldn't resist trying this approach on a few of my album pages. I am absolutely enamored with the results, and will be revisiting this technique for sure in future projects! 

Even though there are a lot pieces involved, the process is a simple one. I started by hand-cutting squares and rectangles of varying sizes from patterned paper, vellum, glitter cardstock, washi tape, a few of the papers that I shared in last week's post, and holiday ephemera, including receipts, wrapping paper, and greeting cards. 

I then applied a thin line of craft glue across cardstock, and assembled the pieces, adding more glue and more pieces row by row. After allowing the glue to dry for a few minutes, I stitched over the cardstock in wavy, loopy lines, turning the cardstock frequently to change the direction of the lines. 

While I was in a repurposing mood, I also worked in a Christmas tree gift tag on one of the pages and stitched a wrapping paper envelope to another. A red ribbon from a box of chocolates also found its way into the mix. Little treasures are everywhere. 

I've so enjoyed working on my holiday album this month! The spirit of play and experimentation that this album fostered will no doubt carry over into my projects in the coming year. 

If you're up for trying the sttiched bits technique or you'd just like to share your album pages, we'd love to see what you've been working on lately. Be sure to share your projects in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery.

-- Jill 

Monday Challenge: Goodbye 2014

Where did 2014 go? It flew by. Can you believe today is the last Monday of 2014? Crazy. In just a few short days we'll be ringing in the New Year but before you grab your party hats and bubbly lets take a minute to reflect on what's happened this past year. We all have stories to tell from this year: the good, the bad, the ugly, the fun & excited. You could document 14 things that happened in 2014, a photo from each month, it's a challenge so take it and make it yours!

I decided that I would document some thoughts on the ups and downs I faced this year and create a small layout without photos to go in the back of my December Story. 

I free-styled the journaling on the typewriter so it may sound like rambles when others read it but they'll get a view into my 2014. I love how quick this small layout came together with the supplies from the December Story kit.

The fabulous Mou Saha joins me today with this absolutely gorgeous layout.

Here's what Mou had to say about today's challenge:

"Mandy's challenge was perfect for me as I usually do a wrap-up kinda layout every year. This year was filled with big life events for our family. To document that I used bits and pieces from Our December Story kit and Daily Flash. Combining chipboard numbers and cardstock stickers with handwriting to create the title was fun. I matted my photo and attached it to the page with washi tape to create a hinge to lift it to reveal my journaling."

Thanks you so much for joining me today!

We would love for you to play along! Upload your layout to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, post it on our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon and #oadecemberstory. 

Guest Designer: December Story

Hi again - everyone still recovering from this week's holiday festivities? I for one need to lay off the cookies! If you were celebrating the Christmas holiday, I hope you had a great one. We have a big gathering on the night before but on Christmas day we keep it very low key.(Like 'pajamas all day; low key.) I even got to work on my December Story book; one of the first days in this hectic month where I could sit and dive in. 

Here's what I've got so far (I plan to spend a lot of time over the break working on this project). I tweaked my cover a little bit by adding one of the doilies from the kit (I trimmed off a slice to make it easier to tuck under the green paper):

Here is my intro page. I absolutely love those 2" square sectioned page protectors - they remind me of mosaic tile. I like to layer so I worked within and on top of the page protectors - still keeping it relatively flat:

 

Here are the first few pages - since I've fallen a little behind I'm keeping it simple. Again I worked on top of the page protectors as well as within. I like the dimension that this adds. I also like to mix style from page to page. While the Type A in me loves the idea of a formula to streamline the process, the other part of me loves the mix of materials and style and the unpredictablity. This comes in particluarly handy when I start mixing in collected items, like receipts, tickets, lists, etc., which always throw off any formula I try to employ.

I also worked on a layout yesterday. I haven't done a traditional layout in ages but the Eggnog line was so perfect for my cookie pictures I couldn't resist. Again, my word for December is simple....

I like to use simple 8 1/2 x 11 layouts in my Project Life books - interspersed with the divided page protector pages. Sometimes they serve as a divider of sorts. This page will function as the lead in to the December section of my book - and for me, December is a month where I bake a lot of cookies...

I will be back next week more pages form my December Story book - if things go my way, a lot more pages! Enjoy the weekend and all those post-holiday sales!

Christmas Day Sketch with Sasha

On behalf of everyone at October Afternoon, I would like to wish each and everyone of you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! May you be surrounded by all the things that bring Christmas cheer.

**********

Here's the sketch for this week, if you have some quiet moments to spend some time with your October Afternoon stash in between the festivities, I say come play along! 

 

Here's my take on the sketch 

I kept pretty close to the sketch, cutting strips of Story Time pp from Public Library and arranging them towards the top portion of the layout. I adore that patterned paper, I guess I will always have a soft spot for papers with text on them. I'm a bookworm if you can't tell. :D

Then I took two banner shapes from this Sew Fun Banners pack, used one of them to draw attention to the number 15 (we've been married 15 years this year!) and another as some sort of a mat for my journaling strips. I also added a stamped tab underneath one of the paper strips before I machine stitched everything in place. 

And oh! I absolutely think that Just sayin' tin pin is perfect for my layout! Don't you think so? That's just how we roll. In fact, if you follow me on Instagram, you'd have known that I dropped Sam on his butt right after this picture was taken. LOL.

I added a chipboard heart and my last strip of journaling on the lower part of my layout because I really love how it looks. I consider that my own spin on the sketch even when I was the one who created the sketch in the first place. 

Once again, Merry Christmas everyone! If you play along, please share what you make with us in the OA Flickr Gallery.  You can also share with us on Instagram. Use the hashtag #octoberafternoon and tag me @sashafarina as I'd love to see your take on this sketch.

 

 

Listen up: Documenting your Holiday Playlist!

Hi everyone! Emily here. Happy Christmas Eve Day to all of our October Afternoon fans who celebrate Christmas!  Every Wednesday throughout the month of December, the design team will be sharing festive holiday-themed projects on the blog. Be on the lookout for layout, card, gift-wrap ideas and more, all using your favorite October Afternoon products.

Today I'm sharing a holiday layout with a slightly non-traditional holiday theme.  Instead of documenting the activities we have been doing this year, I decided to document the soundtrack that has been playing on repeat while we trim the tree, bake the cookies, and wrap the gifts.  Honestly, most of our days were filled with the sounds of my Pandora holiday station! However, if I had to pick my favorites this year (and pretty much every year) these would be the top nine.  I chose nine songs for a very practical reason...PicMonkey makes a really perfect collage with nine photos!

I used a combination of the Daily Flash Eggnog collection and the December Story kit, along with a few random extras thrown in for good measure!   I love the little music note stamps that come with the December Story kit and add-on!  My typewriter is currently out of ribbon, so I just used a typewriter font and printed the journaling on my computer. Unfortunately, I forgot that my printer and white cardstock don't always get along, and I smudged my journaling.

I loved Mou's little holly embellishment last week, and I decided to include it on this layout!  I had already used my red buttons from the December Story kit, so I used a Daily Flash badge as my holly berry!

What are some of your favorite holiday songs?  I am always looking for new ones!

We would love for you to play along! Upload your layout to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, post it on our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon and #oadecemberstory. Happy holidays and happy scrapping! 

Tuesday Inspiration: Hand-Cut Letters

Lately, I've been loving the idea of creating page elements by hand. Yesterday, I shared some ideas for hand-drawn patterns. Today, let's focus on hand-cut titles, using the venerable Rebecca Sower's hand-cut letters as inspiration: 

Source

Instead of depending on die-cut everything, why not pick uo a scissors and add some homemade whimsy and charm to your next project? Using the inspiration piece as a springboard, I cut out some letters from the papers in the December Story kit and worked them into one of the pages in my holiday album. 

No, they aren't perfectly precise, but they are cute, adding to the overall playful feel of the page, and I love them! 

I didn't trace the letters before cutting; I simply cut them freehand, and then rubbed ink around the edges as well as over a few of the letters. 

I stitched over the title letters as a finishing touch.  

All in all, this is an easy way to work a little bit of yourself into your pages. Plus, it's an awesome way to use up scraps! 

If you're up for trying it, please share what you create in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery. I can't wait to see what you come up with! 

-- Jill 

Monday Challenge: Create Your Own Pattern

It's Monday -- and not just any Monday. It's the last Monday before Christmas!  It's been a busy month, but a festive one, and I'm finally making progress in my holiday album, thanks in large part to October Afternoon's December Story kit. 

Working with a kit can help to streamline the process of compiling a holiday album, but it's also fun to personalize pages, which brings us to this week's challenge: create your own pattern!  And not just any pattern, but a hand-drawn one.  

With a sketchbook, an ink pen, and some watercolors, I created a series of simple patterns that I worked into my holiday album along with the items in the December Story kit.  I started with the title page: 

To create the pattern above, I drew a series of continuous spirals, and brushed watercolors over them. Don't even worry about precision. It's all about the charm!  If you aren't interested in waiting for paint to dry, use a heat gun/heat tool to speed up the process. 

I used the scraps on another page of the album, incorporating them into a grid of 2" x 2" squares (the page protectors make it so easy!). 

Even handwriting can produce a pretty pattern. Find a word or phrase to repeat, and write it over and over without lifting your hand from the page until the end of the line.  
I opted for the line, "Prepare ye the way," since the focal page on which I planned to use it was about Advent.

You can see a little peek of the plaid paper from the new Saturday Mornings collection here.  I used it to create an envelope for my journaling, which I wrapped wtih twine and tucked into a page pocket. 

If the idea of a hand-drawn pattern sounds daunting, start with a simple design, like the one that I added to the page below.

I spritzed a piece of cardstock with mint-colored mist, drew tiny circles (lopsided ones, at that), and then dabbed the tip of a paintbrush over them, alternating colors. 

I graduated from circles to Christmas trees eventually, and even attempted stripes. 

I didn't even bother with a ruler. Just go with the flow! 

I hope you'll try this, and that you'll find it a worthwhile challenge! Not only is it fun to experiment and to play, but it's also so very meaningful to incorporate patterns that you created with your own hands into your keepsakes. 

I'd love to see the patterns that you create!  Be sure to share them in the OA Flickr gallery. 

Have a very merry week! 

-- Jill 

Guest Designer: Holiday Cookie Packaging

Let's face it, during the holidays, finding time to scrapbook, or do any kind of paper craft for that matter, is challenging. I love the idea of working on daily book projects but like many, I fall behind this time of year. I try not to beat myself up about it and commit to diving right back in post-holiday, while the memories are still fresh. In the meantime, I collect all the little bits and pieces of the season in a box on my desk, jot down a date or note to remind me of their significance so I'm ready to go once the time presents itself. So, if you can't get time at your desk to scrapbook this holiday season, don't fret. You can still use your supplies, especially the holiday-themed ones, for cute packaging projects. I'm a huge baker so here's an example of how I put my October Afternoon Daily Flash/Eggnog products to work off the scrapbook page...

Starting with a pleated cellophane bag, I cut some 12 x 12 Daily Flash/Eggnog papers to make the bag backing and bottom - since gingerbread is the cookie equivilent of kraft cardstock, it looks perfect mixed with the colors in this line! 

Two simple folds of the two-sided carstock, leaving a small flap to face forward for the small tag embellishment, made a base for the cellophane bag - offering just enough protection for the cookies inside, and enough of a base for them to stand up for display. Two holes punched at the top and threaded with some baker's twine close it up. Here's a close up of the embellishment tag where the Flash Blurbs and Double Takes stickers came in very handy!:

 

And speaking of my December Stories project, I have definitely not forgotten it - that kit just makes me want to sit down and scrapbook all day long!! My book is in the works and I will share my progress with you next Friday, along with some tips on how to approach this project post-holiday (I have a feeling I won't be the only one playing catch up!). Here is the detail from my cover:

Thanks so much for stopping by today - hope you have a great weekend!

 

Thursday Sketch: How 'bout a two-pager?

Hi everyone, Mou and Emily here with today's sketch and it's a two-pager.

I followed my sketch pretty closely. Here's my take:

My layout is 6x8 two-pager, just the size to fit inside the Daily Flash albums. With a new baby, my life is too busy to record each day of our December, but I certainly don't want to miss or forget the beautiful moments this December is bringing to our family. I used the December Story Kit and Add-ons to create this layout. Even if you can't record each and every day of December, this kit has just the right elements to create any holiday themed projects you want.

Because I used background papers that are black and white with story book type and sheet music, I stayed with a black and white photo but added bits of red, green, blue, pink, and gold in the form of buttons, Tin Pin, leaves, ribbon, washi tape, and cut-up strips. I put my title on a small tag and wrote my journaling on the big tag, both from the kit, and inserted the big tag inside a glassine bag that held part of the kit contents. This gave me space to write my December story without cluttering up my layout. Plus, the glassine bag served as a base layer for my photo mat. Here's another close-up:

Now, let me share with you Emily's take. Emily picked part of the sketch to create her CUTE layout. Take a look:

This is what Emily says: When I got Mou’s sketch, I was immediately drawn to the second page.  I’m in awe of scrappers who are able to include an incredible amount of white space on their pages and still have the page look well designed and balanced.  I decided to take a step outside of my box and try to make a “minimal” layout using only the second page of the sketch as my guide.  I love monochromatic layouts, however, I went a little crazy with this one and made a black and white layout.  The photo was black and while and I just continued that color scheme (or lack thereof!) throughout my layout.  I used products from many different October Afternoon lines, including Daily Flash Milk Money and All Boy, Public Library, and even some rather old product like the Witch Hazel washi tape and the word flags from the Farmhouse Flower Sack!  In the end, my layout just looks like pretty much every other layout I’ve made minus color!  It’s really not minimal, and there’s not a ton of white space. It basically looks nothing like I had envisioned, but I guess there’s something to be said for consistency!

How fun is that!!!

Hope you find something in my sketch to inspire your creativity. And don't miss out on the beautiful December Story kit. Happy Holidays!