October Afternoon

Thursday Sketch: A Gathering Place

Happy Thursday! It's Jill here, bringing you this week's sketch. This one has lots of room for photos and journaling. 

In fact, it's a great sketch to use if you're planning a page that pulls together lots of little photos related to a single topic. Here's your chance to gather together those candids of your cat (you know you have millions -- and you know I'm not exaggerating) or the slew of bathroom selfies that you're not brave enough to reprint as large photos, or, as in my case, tons of pictures of the weather. 

It's been a crazy last 30 days around here, what with brush fires, 100% humidity, drought conditions giving way to sudden but short-lived rainstorms, record-breaking temperatures, flash floods, vog, and three (count 'em -- three!) category four hurricanes surrounding the state of Hawai'i at the same time. The series of photos taken over the course of the past month documents this meteorological madness. 

The page includes a mix of October Afternoon favorites, including Daily Flash chipboard and papers from the Saturday Mornings and Summertime collections. 

I pulled together photos depicting the landscape and skies over the past month, and sized the photos to 1" x 1" before printing them. On the layout, I give the photos a little boost by backing them with 1.25" x 1.25 squares of patterned paper, and placed the gathering of photos over three weather-themed patterns. The sketch allows for lots of journaling space, but I created even more space by overlapping the photos with journaling strips. 

I'd love to see your take on this sketch! Be sure to link me up in the comments below, and/or add your page to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery! 

Thanks for stopping by today!

 -- Jill 

Topic Tuesday: Maps

Every October Afternoon collection contains gems, those patterns that jump right out at you and beg to be used right away and hoarded forever at the same time. Among my favorites are the map papers that appear from time to time in collections. I ransacked my October Afternoon stash and pulled out a bunch of map papers to create this layout: 

There are so many patterns to love on this page, including "True North," "Shipwreck Coast," and "Skull Rock" from the Treasure Map collection, "Midnight Clear" from the Silent Night collection, and "Social Studies" from the Daily Flash/Milk Money collection. 

I cut each pattern into strips of varying sizes, and added sticker accents along the seams to unify the design and create continuity. 

Map patterns can even be found on October Afternoon alphas, like these from the Treasure Map collection. 

Here's hoping for even more maps to show up in future October Afternoon collections!  In the meantime, I'll be dealing with the "to use or to hoard?" conundrum. 

Thanks for stopping by the blog today! 

Tuesday Inspiration: Summery Hues

Happy Tuesday! It's the height of summer, and like me, you may have accumulated your fair share of beach and pool photos by now. No beach or pool photos? You can still be inspired by this palette of summery hues. 

Source: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 

During a recent beach trip, I left the "good" camera at home and had to make do with the camera on my phone. The result? Some imperfect photos, with way too much sun -- but I still loved them. I took one of my favorites and played with some filter effects, and then printed a group of four. The photos found their way onto this layout that incorporates oceanic hues and patterns from the Summertime, Treasure Map, Saturday Mornings, and Daily Flash collections. 

The fact that there is so much light obscuring my face makes the photos imperfect, but through this imperfection, I found the perfect idea for the journaling. 

So much of the beachy feel of this page is due to the stamping. I started the page on a sheet of white 12 x 12 cardstock. First I stamped the Saturday Mornings "Clouds" stamp across the top of the page, and then I used the Daily Flash All Boy "Dude" wave stamp and various shades of blue across the bottom of the page. I then lightly spritzed over the stamping with aqua and mint green mist, to intensify the color. 

The middle of the page serves as a buffer between sky and sea. I cut small patterned squares from papers in the Treasure Map and Summertime collections, and embellished them with stickers and stitching. 

I had such fun using these colors and patterns to give my imperfect photos the perfect home. 

Feeling inspired, too?  Share your projects in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery. We'd love to see them! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

-- Jill 

Thursday Sketch with Sasha and Jill

Hello everyone!

How's your summer coming along? The girls and I have the whole month of June off school and work. A month sounded like forever when we discussed it in May, but now, we're already in the last week of our holiday! Time flies when you're having fun they say? So true!

Here's the sketch for this week :

I used that bold B side of Fresh Fruit PP as a background and cut apart my white cardstock before stitching them back together on top of it. I've done this before and will be doing this again for sure. I love how you can see bits and pieces of the background paper through the gaps. 

 

I finished my layout with some a variety of embellishments from Summertime, an old brad from Travel Girl collection, an arrow chipboard and of course, a sprinkling of colors all over my layout. 

Okay, let's move on to Jill's fabulous layout. I am seriously head over heels in love with this one. Jill rocked that sketch I must say!! I need to scraplift this!

  

Jill said "I don’t often use diagonal lines in my scrapbooking, because I have such trouble getting them to work for me. I never know where to place items in relation to the diagonal. You won’t be surprised to learn, then, that when I first set eyes on Sasha’s sketch, I was a little nervous. However, I trust Sasha’s design sense, and rightfully so, because this sketch makes using diagonal lines a breeze!  The way that Sasha’s sketch gathers the title, subtitle, and accent at the point where the lines meet prompted me to move the photo block even lower, creating a cluster at the point of intersection.  I took my color cues from the photos of my daughter receiving her diploma, using a mix of yellow, white, and black; the darkness of the photos is counterbalanced by the bright and lively patterns from the Summertime collection. To anchor the photos and journaling, I used a couple of journaling cards from the Saturday Mornings collection. Daily Flash chipboard letters and shapes add dimension to the page. Thanks, Sasha, for pushing me out of my comfort zone with this sketch. There is no way I could have created this page without your impeccable design sense guiding me! "

I hope you will give this sketch a spin! If you do, I'm @sashafarina on Instagram, feel free to tag me when/if you upload your layout. I usually post sneaks and my layouts with #octoberafternoon in the description. You can also share your creations with us via the October Afternoon Flickr Gallery.

Happy scrapping!

Workspace Wednesday

Hello everyone! Suz here to share with you an adorable little workspace organization project by the talented and resourceful  OA DT Member; Jill Sprott.

For those of you that may not know, Jill lives in the part of the world that is both beautiful, but also has salty air and a fair amount of humidity (Hawaii). And while Hawaii a enviable place to live because of its beauty and many other things, the weather can alter and vintage-fy some metal household and scrapbooking items--namely the OA Tin Pins. 

 

No worries though! Jill has the perfect solution for those beloved and hoarded Tin Pins! Here is what she created:

Isn't it fabulous?! What a great way to showcase all of your super fun Tin Pins that you have collected.

Happy Tuesday!

 

 

 

Topic Tuesday: Motherhood

With Mother's Day less than a week away, this is the perfect time to reflect on motherhood. Take a moment to think about your mother's legacy -- what did she teach you, and what, in turn, do you teach others? In what way has your mother shaped the person that you are today? 

After reflecting on these questions, I created the following layout: 

The side-by-side photos of my mother as a baby and as a grown woman brought to mind more questions about how mothers are made, and my journaling followed from that line of thought. Eventually, I ended up reflecting on myself as a mother, and on what I seek to impart to my daughter. The sense of legacy is at the center of it all.  

Design-wise, this page is a mix of various October Afternoon lines, including Eggnog (the B-side of "Sugar Plums") and Public Library ("Reference Section," "Dust Jacket," and "Due Date"). The manila and cream-colored cards layered on the page are the flip sides of October Afternoon Miscellany. Some of the cards have holiday or travel themes, but on the flip side, the cards can work with any topic! 

Now it's your turn: create a page about motherhood. Focus on the legacy of the mothers in your family, or perhaps on another related idea. I would love to see what you come up with, so please consider sharing your project in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, or share a link below! 

Thanks for visiting today! 

Thursday Sketch with Sasha and Jill

Hello everyone!

I hope your Thursday is beautiful wherever you are. I made a sketch for you today, together with a layout example. 

Let me walk you through my layout so you can see where I followed the sketch and where I decided to 'bend the rules' a little. I'm not saying my sketch is a rule, but more of a guideline, a nudge, a little help for you to start your layout.

Instead of 'slicing my layout' vertically as per the sketch, I 'sliced it' horizontally, because I feel that it will be more suitable for my photo. I used the ship part of the Whale Bone Reef patterned paper, to compensate my small photo and also because I love that ship! Where we live, many ships (not pirate ships. haha!) come and go and if we pay close attention, on quiet mornings, we can hear them too! :)

You can also place patterned papers on the little squares and rectangle in the sketch. I decided to imitate the squares with random machine stitching roughly in the same shapes. I housed my title in one of the stitched squares. If you haven't noticed, I'm totally crushing on the Daily Flash 'cursive' Alphas lately. This one is in Rhubarb. Such a beautiful pink. The ampersand is in Dandelions (my favorite yellow!).

On the cluster housing my photo, I used some stickers from Treasure Map 12x12 Shape Stickers and also some Doo-dads. 

I can't not stamp on my layout, I really like looking through my stamp and finding one or two that will work for my layout. For this one, the 'once upon a time' stamp from our Public Library collection fits perfectly because to be frank, now we don't really have the time to spend hours and hours at the beach anymore. Work and school take up chunks of our time and when weekend comes, we only wanna sleep and craft at home mostly! :D I do miss this a lot and will have to make the time and effort to drag the girls out again! :)

Jill played along too. Here's her take on the sketch

Jill said

" Although I am accustomed to creating 12 x 12 pages, from time to time, I am a sucker for an 8.5 x 11 page, and Sasha’s sketch brought about one of those times. The design speaks to my scrappy little heart — lots of small photos and lots of room for journaling. I had a bunch of detail photos from Easter morning, when my daughter and I dyed eggs, and they worked perfectly with this sketch. Because of the playful nature of the moment, I departed from the clean, refined design in favor of one that was more whimsical. Since the colors in the photos are already so intense, I softened the bright yellow patterned paper background (from the Daily Flash Snapshots collection) a bit by using a brayer to spread on some paint. I then layered small pieces of paper from the Treasure Map, Saturday Mornings, and Daily Flash collections behind the photos, opting for papers with just a hint of color. I then did some freestyle (read “crazy”) stitching from the first photo at the top to the title on the bottom (apparently not noticing in the process that I had turned one of the photos on its side — oh well, play through!). Thanks, Sasha, for sharing this sketch! "

We hope you'll have time to play with the sketch. I'm @sashafarina on Instagram. I usually post sneaks and my layouts with #octoberafternoon in the description. You can also share your creations with us via the October Afternoon Flickr Gallery.

  

Have fun and happy scrapping!

 

 

Sketch Thursday

Hello OA fans and friends! Melanie here today bringing you a fun sketch which focuses on incorporating multiple photos on your layout.  This sketch is created for an 8.5x11 format, but can certainly be adapted to a 12x12 layout.

 

My design is pretty true to the sketch, however I did change things up a bit with the pattern paper. I wanted to incorporate a bold pattern paper that would balance out the smaller pictures, in order to do this I used the Bonfire pattern paper from the Apple Cider collection, paired with a larger star die. This really creates a nice balance between the four pictures and the journaling card.

I wanted my layout to have a soft color palette, I was excited to finally be able to pull out the Girl Talk collection, which has to be one of my favorite line ever created!!!! The Memory Cards, Snap Caps and Flash Blurb were ideal to create small clusters of embellishments.  I could have left my 4 2x2 pictures in a 4x4 square print, but I thought it was more fun to split them in two and to layer them together. I found this created fun element to my layout. Additional supplies used on this layout; Daily Flash Stars and Hearts, Daily Flash Sign Board Alpha, Daily Flash roller stamp.

 

 

I’m so excited to have the wonderfully talented Jill Sprott joining me to play along with this sketch. I love Jill’s work and her interpretation of the sketch just blows me away. I love how she incorporated scraps of papers and created beautiful layers with something that could have easily been discarded. I love to see people making the most of their supplies and paper, this layout just makes me happy. Thanks Jill for playing along and the amazing inspiration.

Here’s what Jill had to say about her layout;

"What I love most about this sketch is that it welcomes multiple photos while still making room for journaling as part of the page design.  I’m happy to share that I worked entirely from scraps of paper here, with the exception of the cardstock background. Drawing from the colors in the photos as well as the theme of the page, I incorporated layers of patterned paper from the Saturday Mornings collection. Added to the mix is another “scrap” — a bit of ephemera — from a cup of coffee, a staple on our morning commute. Rather than focus the journaling solely on what is in the photos, I chose instead to concentrate on what the photos represent as a whole: time together with my daughter, something that is in short supply as she looks ahead to her high school graduation in a few months."

 

 

I hope you like the sketch and that you feel inspired to play along! If you do, share your take on OA's Facebook page or connect with @octoberafternoon on Instagram. We would love to see what you make!

Topic Tuesday: Feeling Lucky?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

This week's Topic Tuesday prompt, appropriately, focuses on luck:  What is your view of luck? How do you define it? Based on this definition, do you consider yourself lucky? 

Roree and I used these questions as a springboard for our projects, working in some St. Patty's green along the way and mixing old and new October Afternoon collections. In thinking about the prompt, Roree was inspired to create this lovely card: 

Roree explains: 

""I view luck as a circumstance of chance. Sometimes your luck can be good, sometimes it can be bad. Either way, it is something that you have no real control over. I do feel like I have been lucky in my life, especially in love. I have been with my husband for almost 25 years, married for almost 22 those, and I am still madly and deeply in love with him. (And I think he still feels the same way about me too!)

This feeling of luck inspired me to create a love-themed, St. Patrick's Day-inspired card just for him. I used patterned papers from the Farm Girl (for the lucky die cut) and Witch Hazel (for the stripes and clover) collections, along with Milk Money Pop Drops and letter stickers from Daily Flash. It's the perfect sentiment to let him know just how much I love him."

The recipient of this card is most definitely one lucky guy! 

My thoughts on the prompt led me to create a layout that features a photo collage documenting the evidence of how lucky I am. 

...Or am I not lucky, but blessed? The journaling works through this question. 

Among the layers of this page, I incorporated a variety of colors and patterns, all of which pick up the colors in the photo collage. The backdrop for the layout is the B-side of an uncut "Journal Cards" sheet from the Saturday Mornings collection. I included some Miscellany, Wild Cards, and accents from various October Afternoon collections, such as Daily Flash, Road Map, Report Card, 9 to 5, Cakewalk, and Schoolhouse. As a finishing touch, I added a few stamped sentiments, using the "Everyday" Daily Flash roller stamp. 

So how about it? Feeling lucky? We'd love to see your take on this week's Topic Tuesday prompt! Link us up in the comments below and/or share your projects in the OA Flickr gallery. 

Thanks for visiting today! 

-- Jill 

Topic Tuesday: A Heart-to-Heart

One of the ways we learn what love is (and isn't) is through the advice of those who know what love is (and isn't). In honor of this week's "Love is..." theme on the October Afternoon blog, fellow DT member Patricia and I have taken on the "mother lode" of journaling prompts, giving love advice to our daughters. That's right. It's time for a heart-to-heart, in the form of a scrapbooking layout. 

Prompt: Think back through your romantic history and reflect upon how you came to know what love is and is not.  If it helps, you could structure this as advice from a parent to a child, based on experience. You could reflect on what your parent(s) taught you about romantic love and what you hope to impart to your own children. 

Patricia's layout shares her love story while also teaching her daughter a little something about how to write her own. 

Patricia explains:

"I was very young, 22, when I met my future husband.  What I wanted to say to my daughter was don’t get married so young, wait, take your time.  But I was also a mature 22 year old and stood my ground on what I knew as a whole I needed rather than doing only what my heart wanted.  With having an only daughter, I know there will be plenty of opportunities to have heart-to-heart conversations about love, self-respect, and desires, so I picked this photo to depict these talks we will have.  My journaling only skims the surface, telling my daughter how my husband and I met, how we both knew we were ‘the’ one, and how he wasn’t truthful to me or another girl.  I had basically written him off."

"I used Saturday Mornings to tell my story.  The block from the front side of the Scones pattern paper is perfect for the journaling.  I layered it on top of the rich dark brown and honey weave from the Crepes pattern paper, then fussy cut the flowers from the reverse of that same pattern paper to dot above and on top of my journaling."

"I used the chipboard hearts instead of spelling out the word for my title from Daily Flash, pulling in more from Daily Flash and Public Library to help embellish my page.  I love how the long grey border sticker worked in perfectly for the theme of my layout from Saturday Mornings   I attached it vertically to either side to go with with the design of the layout and not take away from it.  Other products I used:  Apple Cider.  Thanks so much Jill for having me and giving me a creative push to create from the heart."

Isn't her layout incredible? It's apparent how much of her heart and soul she invested in the page. 

Like Patricia, I have a daughter, but mine is of an age at which romantic love is no longer in the hypothetical future. She's been "crossed in love," as wise father Mr. Bennet once put it, but she hasn't yet known the kind of heartbreak that I experienced at her age (thank goodness). My journaling offers another kind of heart-to-heart. 

Since I knew that I would have a lot to say, I chose to print my journaling on a series of October Afternoon label stickers. I started by recollecting the advice my mother gave me, and retraced my history of heartbreak and the way I learned what love is and isn't. 

I then shifted the focus of the journaling from my heart to my daughter's. 

I opted for a warm color palette on my layout, and pulled together papers in warm hues from the Saturday Mornings collection. The design is a mix of turbulence and order; I suppose it's like the way that good advice can bring clarity to one's emotions. To create the background, I painted a sheet of cardstock with large brushstrokes of acrylic paint, and then pressed the sheet onto another, which became the foundation for this layout. 

This week's prompt is definitely a worthwhile one to explore.  Both Patricia and I got so much out of creating these projects! 

We'd love to see what you come up with. Be sure to share your projects with us in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery. 

Thanks for visiting today!