October Afternoon

OA Sketch Day

Happy Thursday everyone! Suz here along with the fun and fabulous Mandy K to share with you this week's sketch challenge and our takes on it.

First up, the sketch:

And here is Mandy's fantastic take on the design and what she had to say about it:

 "The sketch Suz created for this weeks challenge is awesome! I had lots of ideas swirling in my head but I decided to keep it simple and create a fun date card to send to a friend since a "Pancake Date" with my girl Lisa is at the top of my list to make sure gets done this year. I love the cut stickers and fun paper from the Saturday Mornings collection it make it simple a quick to create this little card.

Thanks for asking me to join along with this fabulous sketch Suz!" 

 

*ETA--Isn't that card adorable! Love the way Mandy used the pop drops to add motion and dimension to her card!  Thanks for playing along with the sketch Mandy!

For this sketch, I created with the Saturday Mornings Collection and kept pretty true to the sketch, opting to use one of the four squares to house my photo and the others to use some stickers and patterned papers from the Saturday Morning collection to complete the look.

I kept the title in the approximate location as depicted in the sketch, but chose to journal on one of the Saturday Mornings Word Stickers instead. For the lower triangle image, I placed the fork and spoon Shape Stickers in a "v" pattern. Then I added some stitching and a bit of Lemon Drop SprINKlers, dropping a few slashes across the page to mimic batter droplets. ;)

This sketch would translate well to a card design too.

We hope this post leaves you inspired to crack into your stash of OA goodies or even your new haul of Saturday Mornings and to start creating with them! Please share your creations on OA's Facebook wall or on Instagram. On Instagram, please tag us @octoberafternoon and use the hashtags #octoberafternoon #oasketchday so we can see what you've been creating with OA products!

Have a great day! 

Inspiration: Pinterest

Like most of you, I find Pinterest to be so inspiring, and helps nudge my creativity.  

This piece inspired me in a few ways...the repetition of the word love (slight differences in text), tone on tone, simplicity, and the way the ends are raised on each word.

I was tempted to do a literal interpretation, but decided to go with repetition and simplicity...maybe even a little of that tone on tone.  This is what I did.

I used the new Saturday Mornings collection and used the Silhouette to cut circles at size 1.097.  Then stapled with the Tiny Attacher.  Once I had them placed where I wanted, I added in some random/messy stamping with the Everyday roller stamp, then adhered my circles.

This week's theme is Love List, and on the top of that list are lazy weekend mornings.  I used stickers from the Saturday Mornings collection and cut them to work into the design.  (TIP:  You don't always have to use a sticker as is).  I stamped, embossed and fussy cut the ampersand, and added in some chipboard as well from Daily Flash.

I kept with the simplicity of the inspiration, but I did add a border strip from Saturday Mornings collection and added my typed journaling on a scrap piece of Kraft cardstock and stitched in place.  I like the framed look it gives the layout.

Hope you will find your own interpretation of this inspiration piece and share on Instagram.  Tag me at Patricia_Roebuck so I can see and use hashtags #octoberafternoon #oainspiration.  Thanks for joining me today!

Topic Tuesday: Constant Cravings

This week's blog theme is "The Love List," which can be interpreted in many different ways. Listing is one of the easiest (and, depending on the list, most amusing) approaches to journaling on layouts. Today's Topic Tuesday prompt challenges you to create a culinary "love list," based on the kind of love that demands to be indulged from time to time. We all have cravings. What are yours?

Let's get started! Make a list of your food loves, and put those food-centered Instagram and Facebook photos to use (you know you have a bunch). Here's my take on this week's prompt:

I won't lie. My full list could have filled at least two more layouts. Still, I was able to fit quite a few of my food loves on this page, thanks to the listing approach, which doesn't require complete sentences. Between each item on the list, I added bullets and the occasional culinary-themed accent from the Apple Cider and Saturday Mornings collections. 

Those two collections, in fact, include a variety of food-related accents and patterns, as do collections from years past. I worked in a few "vintage" October Afternoon bits, like the punched circle above from the Road Map collection and the hand-cut ice cream cone below from one of the Fly a Kite Wild Cards. 

If you're feeling ready to take on this week's prompt, I must share a word of caution first: creating a page like this builds up one heck of an appetite! 

Be sure to share your projects in the October Afternoon Flickr gallery. I can't wait to taste -- er, see -- your love list! 

Thanks for visiting today! 

-- Jill 

Mix It Up Monday | 12 Squares

We're changing things up a little on the October Afternoon blog this month and the whole team is excited about it. We're going to have themes for each week and our theme for this week is. . . 

 

 

The Love List

 

 

I have a very simple recipe challenge for you this week ↓

 

 

12 squares

 

 

Please feel free to interpret it however you want. You can create a layout with 12 little squares on it, you can make 12 little square shaped mini cards or even tags. Keeping 'mixing it up' in mind, I decided to create a I *heart* list mini layout with the Daily Flash 6x8 page protector with 2x2 squares.

How fun is that?! I used bits and pieces from Public Library, Daily Flash (Apple Cider) and even Saturday Mornings. The white cardstock pieces I cut into 2x2 are perfect background for each of the 'mini layout' about the things I currently love. 

If you, like me, think that the pillow puffs lose their dimensional look when slipped into a page protector, try doing what I did here. I adhered the pillow puffs outside of the page protector and loving how they look. 

I plan to stick this into my normal album with the rest of my 8.5x11 layouts. Simple solution! I also plan on doing more of 6x8 when I feel like changing things up to keep this playing with paper business fresh and fun I must say. 

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 #oamixitupday and tag @sashafarina and as I would love to see your beautiful creations. 

 

 

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.