October Afternoon

Saturday Shares | December Story Version

Hello everyone and happy Saturday! Today Patricia and I are back sharing some designs created with our December Story kits which are now sold out! (Thank you for your continued support of October Afternoon!) With the holiday season, over we figure some/many of you may be finishing up your December Story albums or perhaps just barely started. Wherever you are at, it's ok because today's share is sure to give you some ideas to jump start your creativity and get some December documenting done! :) 

 

Patricia has been productive and has quite a few pages to share. As you will see, she has created with the December Story kit outside of the traditional OA 6x8 sized album! One of many ways to get the most from your December Story kit/s!

Here is what Patricia had to say about her designs:

"I didn't get to use October Afternoon's December Story kits for my Document December, but I wanted to use it for my Project Life to finish up 2014.

Here's what I did. We started decorating in November...so there's a couple of pages in November where I wanted the the Christmas Story kit to work with. I felt kind of "off" at first...and the reason why is I finished up November and December differently than the rest of my Project Life. Instead of weekly, I tried monthly.

This is Black Friday and then going into the first of Dec...where I felt like I started to get into the groove of this whole month way of documenting. I used on of October Afternoons smaller pocket pages there on the right to start off December.

 

Turning that small pocket page there...and then going into to document December using October Afternoon's 3x3 pocket page...another huge difference as far as Project Life goes for me. Once I got that first page going, I loved the different look.

 

The kit comes with 3x3 cards...but I also trimmed down the papers to fit. This is such a change from my traditional Project Life. But I really liked this fresh take on it for me.

 

There's still some of the same photos I used in my Document December project, but I was able to include even more. I kept it all with a Christmas feel. The kit worked well with the winter feel of the month.

I printed all the photos I wanted for the whole month of December using the Epson PictureMate. I have templates in Lightroom and printed them all to fit into the 3x3 pockets. So was able to work similar to how I would normally with Project Life. Placed the photos, and then added papers and cards to fill in, then added journaling, stamping, and embellishing.

Loved the stamps and labels that came with the kit...I enjoyed working with my first October Afternoon December Story kit...have always wanted to, and so excited I was able to!! (days of the week stamp, December, and gingerbread man)

 

The left side is a full 12x12 page of the 3x3 pockets. The right is half of the 12x12 page. I just cut it along the outside of the second row.

Christmas is pretty well documented in my Document December album, so I didn't include a lot of journaling on this last half 12x12 pocket page. I was able to include some vellum and more embellishing in each pocket...and more photos that didn't get included in my main Document December album.

The back of the half page...between Christmas and New Year's:

Love that 'to be continued in 2015' card...it was 3x4, so trimmed down to 3x3. Perfect way to end my 2014 Project Life album."

Aren't her pages so inspiring!? Love them!

And in staying true to my "keep it simple" mantra this season, I created a simple page using a few of the journal cards, tags and stickers from the kit. I also added a bit of the packaging from the yummy cookies we indulged in from the hotel we stayed at. I added just a touch of stitching and vintage type and the page was done in a matter of minutes. Keeping it simple has been key to feeling motivated and inspired to finish my album. With only twelve days to document in December, it has been and is totally doable!

We would love to see your pages/creations that you have made with your Dec Story kits! Be sure to share with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Please use the hashtag #oadecemberstory and #oasaturdayshares if you have other OA creations you want to share with us. Tag us @octoberafternoon (Instagram) @oct_afternoon (Twitter) so we can see them!

Happy Saturday!

 

 

It's time for Saturday Mornings!

Hello, there!  Jennie McGarvey back with you for one last guest designer post.  As sad as it is for me to say goodbye to blogging here at October Afternoon, I'm extremely pleased to have had the opportunity to share a few projects with you over the month of January.  I'm even more excited that I got to create with the Saturday Mornings collection as it's truly been fun to work with.  

This first page I'm going to share with you was one I had in my head for a while, actually.  Then, Saturday Mornings came along and I knew it was a perfect fit.  The pastels in the collection are lovely but they aren't cloying and they don't shout PASTEL.  This would work well for a page about my youngest son and his beloved baby blanket.

As you can see, when you break it down, this page is actually quite simple.  I let the die cut words and pattern paper do the work.  However, it doesn't really have a simple feel at all!

After creating this page I had the baby theme on the brain -- so I set out to create a fun little baby card using the left overs on my desk.  It was fun to play and create something great at the same time!

Isn't Saturday Mornings the perfect answer to a baby card?  It's even more awesome because it's great for a lot of other things, too!  The Memory Card Mix was perfect for layering on this card and I loved adding the little pop of a different pattern.  

Now, I couldn't let this collection go without creating a page about BREAKFAST.  I mean, the collection does center around breakfast in a major way!  It just so happens that my middle son loves breakfast -- I mean like, attacks it voraciously.  So, it's easy to see how this could all go together perfectly.  

How cute are the images in this collection?  The little bear?  The cyclone?  Positively adorable and really easy to use! 

Who knew a fried egg could be so cute?  

That's it for me!  I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I can create with October Afternoon Saturday Mornings.  I know I loved working with it and am so happy with the projects I created.  (If you would like to see all of my projects you can do so here, here, here and here.) If you would like to have more inspiration from October Afternoon make sure to follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

 

 

ETA: Thank you Jennie for sharing your time and your talent here with October Afternoon this month! We enjoyed and appreciated having you with us! 

Thursday Sketch: To the right

Hey OA friends!  Its Laura Craigie here today with a sketch I made for you guys :)

I will be the first to admit that I do not have the best "sketch" making abilities.  But that said I do love working with them, so here I am anyways, and I hope you can look past my poor sketch and play along with me.

Here it is:

And here is the layout I made to share with you guys.  I used lots of goodies from the All Boy Daily Flash line.  I started with the gorgeous wood grain paper because I liked that it mimicked the wood fence in the photographs.  To keep with the wood grain theme I also used the Old Oak chipboard letters for part of my title, which I paired with the red alpha stickers from my December Story Kit.

I love creating little clusters of embellishments; it's such a fun focal point on a page.

I was still in the mood to be crafty so I pulled out my new Saturday Mornings goodies and made a cute card by flipping the sketch on it's side.  It's not a perfect replica of the sketch, but it gave me a great jumping point to get my crafty juices flowing.

I love that little spaceman sticker; he's just the cutest!  I added a pop drop to his belt buckle, and a swipe of glitter pen over his helmet bubble, and rocket flames.  It looks way better in person.

Well that's it for today, I hope you guys feel inspired to use my sketch and if you do please share your creations in the October Afternoon Flickr Gallery!  I'd love to see them :)

Thanks so much for stopping by!

-Laura :)

Work It Wednesday

Hey Everyone! Mandy with this weeks work it Wednesday post. This week I thought we could work with the awesome October Afternoon Flash Chip.

I LOVE the Flash Chip! I am always grabbing flash chip when creating whether its the alphas or shapes. As you can see I used both on this layout. 

I like to layer the chip pieces and cluster them together with other embellishments. This layout is about me being his momma and having to be strong so layering the large stars with small stars represents our mom & son relationship. Mav is my star so it all works well to tell the story. In the detail shot below you can see the layering and dimension it adds to the layout.

I hope you leave today inspired to grab your flash chips next time you create. If you do, be sure to share your project with us. You can share it with us both on Facebook, Flickr or Instagram. 

Thanks for joining me today! MK

Tuesday Inspiration: Hands

Hi everyone, Mou here today with Jill and some inspiration images!

(Via Pinterest)

(Also via Pinterest)

When I saw these images, I thought they could be interpreted in SO many ways! I love the Lord of the Rings series and I'm sure there are many others who do as well, so it could be about a favorite movie. As a child, I read Gulliver's Travels so many times and loved it. This could be about a favorite book. Then again, if we look at the images, there are the hands... that could become the theme of a project. 

Now, let me share with you our interpretaions of the inspiration. First up, here's Jill's layout

Here's what Jill says:

"I won’t lie: upon first glance at this week’s two inspiration images, I was stumped, unsure about how the graphic, almost sinister design would translate to one of my layouts. Then it hit me: I could use the inspiration as a springboard not just for the layout, but for the photo. I snapped an image of my hand on a white background and converted it to black and white, similar to the “Gulliver’s Travels” image. The ring on my hand became the focus of the page and its journaling. The “One Ring” title very likely sprung from the “one ring to rule them all” line from “The Lord of the Rings.”  In keeping with the inspiration, I worked with a relatively monochromatic design, only allowing tiny variations in color, gathering papers and accents from the October Afternoon Public Library and Daily Flash lines, along with some vintage elements, like a page out of an old French primer. The handprint in the images reminded me of a little die-cut handprint shape that I had on hand, so I added that to the page as well.  I must give a huge shout-out to Mou for challenging me with two inspiration pieces that resulted in a heartfelt page. Thanks for the push! "

 

Thank YOU Jill for the stunning layout and explaining your interpretation!

 

And now, here's mine:

 

 

 

I traced my daughter's hand and mine and cut them out as an important part of my layout design. I used papers from the Saturday Mornings collection: Bacon , Omelette, and Crepe. Most of my embellishments came from the Public Library Designer Brads. I did not stay in the monochromatic zone at all and turned something seemingly sinister into a soft and gentle baby layout.

 

And these are just two interpretations. See what elements you find in these inspiration pieces that could become the start of your next project!

Monday Challenge: GO BIG!

Happy Monday October Afternoon fans.   Patricia here with you today to share a new Monday challenge.  GO BIG!  Think BIG photo, BIG title, BIG event, BIG embellishing...you name it.

I went with a combination of a BIG 6 and then used chipboard and alpha stickers from Daily Flash all around it.  I cut the 6 from the Silhouette, trimmed about a fourth of an inch around.  Then backed with pattern papers from Saturday Mornings.

I added a few stickers and brads from Public Library (the adorable girl is from Apple Cider), some puffy stickers from Milk Money, and was brave like fellow designer member Shanna and cut up Public Library alphabet stamp to stamp 'six.'  The "I Was Here" stamp is the Travel roller stamp from Daily Flash, and worked well with my theme.

I edited my photos in Photoshop Elements to shape into a hexagon using the Cookie Cutter tool...again it went with my theme.  I picked just three photos that make up who my daughter is at age 6 and turned to black and white.  Before I knew where everything would be placed, I put the entire 12x12 in my typewriter to type the journaling.

Now I am so excited to share what my talented friend Sasha Farina came up with for this GO BIG! challenge.

Sasha went with a BIG photo...and it is breathtaking.

I was so excited when Patricia said the challenge is to 'Go Big'! I knew then what I wanted to do, well, because I have been wanting to do this for so long!

I've been missing the beach lately. It has been a while since we went for a beach vacation. I went though my collection of beach photos and printed it full page, yes that photo is 8.5 x 11. 

As big as it gets, eh? :)

I layered a 'speech' tag from Milk Money Flash Blubs pack on a somewhat empty spot on the photo. I went with the Old Oak chipboard alphabets this time because I think it's just so fitting for this page about nature.

I then typed out the quote on my super old typewriter and cut them apart into strips. Minimal embellishing with a couple of brads from Public Library collection and leaves stickers from Daily Flash Apple Cider and we're done.

 

This layout now sits in a frame, near my scrap area. Oh how I miss that beach. 

 

Thank you Patricia for this awesome challenge and for reminding me that I need to plan for a beach trip soon! :)

 

I hope you will play along and 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 both @sashafarina and @patricia_roebuck as we would both love to see your beautiful creations. 

Cutting Saturday Mornings Up!

Hello, everyone!  Jennie McGarvey back with you again and I'm so excited for yet another opportunity to share with you all pages I created with the Saturday Mornings collection!  

After I had created my first couple of projects with Saturday Mornings, I was left with some cool scraps that I knew still had the opportunity to be something great.  Rather than throw them out or even put them away, I got to work straight away creating this first page.

Pink isn't a color I use predominately in my scrapbooking, as my pages are, more often than not, masculine in nature. However, the pinks in this collection were too pretty to pass up, so I knew a dog layout was in order!

 

 

 

Even better?  (What's better than pretty colors and using up scraps on a page?) I was able to combine brads from older collections (Midway and Cakewalk) to give the page some dimension.  Not only that, these great brads reignited my love affair with brads!

After thinking on it a bit, I wasn't ready to put Saturday Mornings away just yet.  I thought on it a little further and was thinking about how the lovely shade of light blue in the Orange Juice would be perfect for a SNOW page!  

Aren't those pretty as delicate snowflakes?  I thought so too.  I wanted to keep the focus on the photo + die cuts, so I went nice and simple on the title as to not distract from the more important part of the page.  

Like I mentioned above, I'm kind of into brads and that spilled over here on this page.  Still working with the same Cakewalk and Midway brads as they were pretty irresistable AND matched this layout well.

Thank you for checking out my pages.  What elements from the Saturday Mornings collection are you loving? Have you worked with it yet?  Please share, I know we'd all love to see!  I'll be back next Friday for one last share with the Saturday Mornings collection -- I hope you'll stop by, too!

 

Thursday Sketch with Sasha and Patricia

Happy Thursday morning everyone!

Are you ready for a new sketch to play with? I sure hope you do! I have Patricia playing along with me this week. Let's get to it, shall we?

 

I followed the sketch quite closely but I switched the positions of most of my elements. The strips on the bottom right went to upper left and my photo + journaling labels were moved to the right hand side of the layout.

 

I really, really love that flower bouquet sticker from our Public Library collection, and converted my photo to black and white so they don't compete with each other even when they're being placed side by side. 

I also printed my journaling onto two pieces of labels, stamped a yellow ampersand and some grey arrows straight onto the white cardstock and finished my layout with a couple of stars, pop drops and 'empty stitches' using my sewing machine. 

Patricia made a pretty card this time. That rooster! I'm in love! :)

Patricia said :

"I love how Sasha leaves her sketches to your imagination.  Her horizontal lines with the heart at the bottom really caught my eye and gave me the spark to create this card.  I turned the sketch on it’s side, then started trimming papers from the brand new Saturday Mornings collection to mimic the lines from her sketch.  Once those were in place, I added a straight line of machine stitching using a dark golden brown thread.  Then I cut another piece of coordinating pattern paper from the collection to form a triangle in the corner, and added a zigzag stitching.  I loved the colors I was pulling from the collection and decided to pull in some of the stickers to compliment my base design.  I pop dotted the clouds, flowers, and rooster to give some dimension.  Between being inspired by Sasha’s sketch and the new Saturday Mornings collection, this card came together within 30 minutes.  Thank you Sasha for the inspiration!"

I hope you'll play along and 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 beautiful layout. 

Work those Labels

Hi all! Alex here today bringing you this week's "Work it Wednesday". I thought that we could focus on labels this time.

I love October Afternoon labels! Love! Yet, I don't use them much. There is no logic there, I know. So, I wanted to find a way to make them feel more like me. When I was looking at the cute borders and labels stickers from the Saturday Mornings collection, it hit me that it looked a lot like a piece of patterned paper. I decided to use it as a whole, instead of using the labels one and one. Here is how the layout turned out.

I used it as a border between two different patterned papers: Coffee and Bacon (don't you love the names??). 

Around my photos, I added some Saturday Mornings word stickers as well as arrow stickers from the All Boy collection and heart shaped pop drops from Eggnog and Milk Money. The colors of the "fun" Travel Girl tin pin go perfectly well together with the Saturday Mornings! 

Of course, I had to use this cute little guy ♥ You can find him among the Saturday Mornings shape stickers. The pink heart is one of the lovely Daily Flash chipboards. 

And now, my dear friends, get ready to be amazed!

I sent my "Work those labels" challenge idea to oh-so-talented Emily and a couple of days later I saw this photo on my Instagram feed:

I almost fainted! I just knew that she'd take this challenge to a whole different level! I'll be honest with you... When I saw her amazing layout, I was almost ashamed to share mine! :-) So, here it is people: Emily's rainbow of labels!

I know, right?? Brilliant!

And here is what she had to say about it:

"When Alex told me that today's theme was "Work Those Labels" I knew this was the perfect challenge for me!! I have been obsessed with October Afternoon's label stickers for as long as they have been making them! I probably have at least fifty sheets of them that I hoard. ;)  I knew I wanted to make a layout with lots of labels. First, I considered a monochromatic layout with all blue labels or all yellow labels, but I was afraid that doing that would use up all of a certain color...which in reality is actually totally unrealistic because I have SO many labels!  I decided instead to create a rainbow of labels. I love rainbow layouts almost as much as I love label stickers! I used labels from a ton of different collections and lines and added a few chipboard elements and buttons.  I decided not to use a title because, quite frankly, I didn't want to cover up the rainbow!  I wrote little bits of journaling on a few of the labels.  Some layouts are made to tell a story and some are made to just be visual and fun - this is definitely one of those layouts!"

One more detail-picture because I simply can't get enough. I am definitely going to use all my labels more often!

I hope we have inspired you to pull out those pretty OA labels and work with them! If you do, be sure to share your project with us. You can share it with us both on Facebook, Flickr or Instagram. 

Have a lovely day!

Alex & Emily

Designer Challenge | Magazine Inspiration

Hello again everyone! Suz back again today along with the lovely and talented Mel to share two design takes from the same inspiration piece.

While perusing Pinterest, I came across this inspirational, graphic design from a magazine.

 

Source

I immediate saw all sorts of possibilities with it, from the two page design, the oversized, bold text, and the areas for journaling or embellishments.

Mel shares how she utilized this inspiration piece and tweaked it to fit her own design style. I am constantly amazed and inspired by how my fellow OA designers the inspiration pieces to fit their own styles and create something completing inspiring and different from the others!

Here is what she had to say about her creation and the inspiration piece:

"I am so very excited to be playing along to Suz’s challenge today! The inspiration piece really sparked a lot of ideas. I debated using a very large picture to mimic the focus on the right side, I also (very briefly) thought of doing a two pager but I’ll be honest, I let go that idea pretty quickly (2 pagers just aren’t my thing). In the end I was inspired by the design structure of the piece, that being; the focus to the right, the arrow, and of course the title, which the font is an exact replica of the Daily Flash Nightfall alpha stickers. The Daily Flash - Flash Chip arrows were the ideal items to use as a focal point. I used the negative part of the chipboard sheet as a guide for placing the arrows, and then I added stitching to each arrow. I also used the December Story kit for embellishments.

 

 

This was such a fun and quick layout to put together, I had been hoarding those arrows for very long time and I’m thrilled to have been able to use them in such a predominant way. Thanks Suz for the inspiration!!!"

(*ETA-You are welcome Mel! Thanks for playing along with this challenge! -Suz)

********

My take on the design was more of a direct translation. I loved the big, bold oversized text and decided to keep that element of the design as well as the two page element.

I choice this inspiration piece as an opportunity to complete yet another day in my December Story album too.

 

 

I decided to keep the one page photo as well, and this photo of our Elf on the Shelf scene my boys playfully set up fit the bill. Since my title words contained my letters than the original title, I used two smaller arrows running across the page and added a few to the right hand page for the trajectory of the Lego dude's weapon. (Yeah, this is definitely a page that epitomizes life with imaginative boys. It also depicts that in this stage of my life, with two teenagers in the house, the fact that actual photos of them are few and far between, so taking images of things that represent their interests, their personalities, their antics has become the "go to" photographic captures.

 

I used elements from the December Story Kit  (Chipboard elf, Little Labels, and patterned paper) as well as Daily Flash - Eggnog. Daily Flash Flash Chip -To the Point, Daily Flash Eggnog - Pop Drops, Daily Flash - Flash Blurbs - Eggnog, Daily Flash Snap Caps - Eggnog.

I really loved this inspirational piece!! I already have at least two more designs in the making from it! I hope you find it inspiring in some way and share your takes on this OA Designer Challenge by posting on Instagram, tagging us @octoberafternoon, @suzmannecke, @melblackburn05 and use the hashtag #oadesignerchallenge! We'd love to see your takes too!