October Afternoon

Designer Challenge: Little Photos

Hi there! Emily here with a fun designer challenge for you. I recently had the privilege of visiting Camp Wandawega with two friends. This "summer camp for adults" has been in the news and social media a lot lately, and I am lucky that I only live a little over an hour away. Between the three of us, my friends and I took hundreds of photos of this perfectly curated camp. I am hoping to create mini album of our camp adventures, but in the (rather likely) event that I don't get around to it, I wanted to be sure to at least document our time in a layout!  In order to include as many photos as possible, I decided to use lots of small photos on my layout. 

My printer makes it easy for me to print small photos by offering me the option of printing 1, 4, or 8 photos on a page. I decided to make three 4x6 sheets of four, giving me 12 total photos. Once I had my photos printed and cut, I arranged (and rearranged...and rearranged) them on my page until I was happy with their placement. I decided to orientate my photos in a grid in the top righthand corner of the page, with the title underneath and some colorful strips of paper as a boarder on the left.  

I used foam adhesive to raise a few of the photos off the page, and I decided at the last minute to swap out one of the photos for a Daily Flash woodgrain chipboard heart and the perfect (and true) "Instagrammed" sticker. I like how it breaks up the grid a bit and makes it a bit more visually stimulating. 

I used a piece of patterned paper from last year's December Story kit to cut my title. I love the plaid - it is reminiscent of the blankets they leave everywhere to snuggle up in and perfect for a camp layout!!  

Along the left side, I included a bunch of different colors and patterns. I knew that I wanted to include some yellow in the layout so that it didn't have too much of a holiday vibe. The little cluster at the bottom is appropriately "vintage" - the Daily Flash Girl Talk badge features an antique phone dial, and the Sidewalks "Little Flyer" flag is truly vintage October Afternoon - it has a copyright date on the back of 2011!!

I contemplated adding journaling to this layout, but honestly, the photos tell so much of the story, that I didn't feel like it was necessary. It's a rather busy layout, and I didn't know that adding MORE to it would be the best idea!!  Here's the final product:

Tell me, when is the last time you went to summer camp?  How did you document it? I'd love to see your take on my little photo challenge or see any camp-inspired projects you may have! Upload your work to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, post it on our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon. Happy Wednesday, and happy scrapping!

Tuesday Inspiration: Frame Gallery

Hi everyone! Alex here bringing you this week's inspiration piece. I was browsing Pintereset for frame gallery inspiration, when I came across this image. I fell for the frames arranged as a heart and decided to use it for this week's layout.

I started by cutting a lot of 1.5'' x 0.75'' rectangles out of different Summertime patterns. Then I build up a heart with white cardstock strips and started to play around and arrange patterns until I was happy with how it looked. Finally, I adhered the patterned rectangles to white strips and put it all down on a lovely B-side of the Backyard Lights paper. 

Once the heart and my photos were in place, it was time to pull out all the Daily Flash goodies and start decorating.

I have used bits and pieces from DF Snapshot and DF Girl Talk. 

I also added a chipboard arrow and some Eggnog pop drop hearts. 

I hope you like this inspiration piece and that you feel like scrapping after reading this :-)

Have fun!

//Alex

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 

Monday Challenge: Record Your Summer in Pocket Pages Part 3

Hello there October Afternoon fans, Mou here today with your Monday challenge!

Summer is wrapping up here. Schools start this week. This has been a summer of big events for our family. We have moved from Florida to New Jersey. And yes, for the first time, I am sensing that summer is really coming to an end as the evenings are getting rather chilly. New Jersey is not the land of everlasting summer... but I'm looking forward to welcoming autumn because that has always been my favorite!

At the beginning of this summer, I challenged myself and invited you all to join me to record this summer in pocket pages. You can read my original post here. I have used the October Afternoon Daily Flash system to record our summer. In order to not miss a single beat, I have taken photos all summer with my phone and posted them on my Instagram account with #oursummerof2015. As I progressed with my project, I realized yet one more time, how helpful the Daily Flash system is..

Here are two more spreads from my album.

As I continue working on this album, I find myself reaching for more October Afternoon Collections than just Summertime and loving it because they all blend together seamlessly!

So, how is your summer memory keeping coming along? Please share in your comments.

Sketch Day: Back to School with Lunch Box Cards

October Afternoon has some of the cutest back to school graphics and products.  We have been back to school since the 7th, but with my mind still on summer, I decided to combine both the Summertime collection with some school themed products to make these lunch box cards.  I loved how well the worked together.

Each card is based off of this sketch.  The actual placements of stamps or embellishments on the cards vary from the sketch, but are inspired by the sketch.  With this inspiration, the cards came together quickly.  I was also able to interpret the sketch in three different ways making each card unique but similar.

I used the the Summertime stamps to make a school of fish for this card.  To get the multi colors on the main fish, I used three small Prima chalk inks to ink the stamp at one time.  The chalk ink worked really well, giving a nice dark, crisp color.  The 'one-of-a-kind' was stamped with the Daily Flash Inspiration roller stamp.  I fussy cut the stamped Out to Sea stamp to stitch in place at the bottom.

The next card, I pulled in some watercolors to color in the Milk Money cat stamp.   Then using the same stamp set, I stamped "make the grade" on one of the labels.  I also layered a Daily Flash Milk Money sticker on top of the chipboard speech bubble.

I mixed in a little Public Library with the "read" badge to go along with the cute little girl from the Milk Money stamp set.  To make her stand out more, I stamped her onto a round label and left her as is without coloring her in.  Reading and learning opens the doors for discoveries, so I added the Summertime stickers at the top.

The base of each card uses a different pattern paper from the Summertime collection, with the same pattern paper layered on top.  I stitched around the top pattern paper, leaving the top open for a pocket.  I cut pieces from the Milk Money Spelling pattern paper, stapled a tab to each one, and tucked into the pocket.  This gives me space to clip a note to the inside card or write directly on the card.

The different interpretations of the sketch would work for any card or pocket page cards.  Feeling really inspired, turn it into a layout.

I would love to see what you create.  Hope to see your project uploaded to either the October Afternoon Flickr gallery,  our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon.

 

Tuesday Inspiration: The Stamps

Welcome to Tuesday Inspiration.  One way I find inspiration is from the products themselves.  One product I wanted to really play and get creative with were the Summertime Stamps.

My first idea was to stamp repeating images in a row, then as I played with them, I loved the stamps being stamped randomly at the top of my layout, which then inspired me to use some paint.  I spread my paint with an old credit card, then added another layer of paint with a heart brayer.  I used a grey ink for most of the stamps as part of the background, and then used black ink for the images or phrases I wanted emphasized.

 

Since my layout had the stamped strawberries, the Summertime Memory Card with the strawberry was perfect for adding my typed journaling about saying goodbye to Summer.  I carried the theme and the colors down the layout.

To bring more color and texture to the top of the layout, I fussy cut the lights from the Backyard pattern paper and adhered with pop dots, then added some chipboard arrows for repetition of the arrows at the bottom.

To finish off the layout, I added more embellishments to go with the carefree look.  

Hope you will take a look at your products and let them inspire your next project.  Share your project with us by uploading to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, post it on our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon.

Monday Challenge: Create a Scene

Hey everyone! Roree here with a Monday challenge for you.

As I was browsing about Pinterest one day, I came across this pin:

Image via Pinterest

I immediately fell in love with the little cityscape at the top of the image. I thought it would be fun to create my own little scene on a card (and I did!). Here is what I came up with:

For the base of my scene, I used a journaling card from the Summertime Memory Cards pack. I used cloud stickers from the Saturday Mornings Shape Stickers sheet and hand cut a house and tree from Summertime Puffy Clouds, Heat Wave, and Green Grass patterened papers and Treasure Map Moby Dick Isle patterned paper.

I completed the scene with a few cross stitches and a Summertime Double Take heart sticker and Treasure Map Designer Brad.

I added the scene to a Treasure Map Moby Dick Isle patterned paper card base and used Daily Flash Clover "Storybook" Flash Alphas and a Daily Flash Snapshots Double Take tab sticker to create a title.

I finished the card with some machine stitching and a bit of baker's twine from the Sasparilla Wrap Pack.

If you would like to take on today's challenge and create a scene on your next project, please share your creation by linking it on Instagram with the hashtag #octoberafternoon, along with tagging @octoberafternoon, so we can see! You can also share your projects on our OA Facebook wall or the OA Flickr gallery.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Thursday Sketch

Hey, everyone! Roree here with you all today.

Using inspiration from a graphic print I found on Pinterest, I played around a bit in Photoshop and came up with this week's Thursday sketch:

October Afternoon has quite a few different striped papers in their collections to choose from that will work great with this sketch. I chose two from the Summertime and Cakewalk collections to create this card:

I used the Blues Skies b-side from Summertime for the gray stripes and the Paper Straws b-side from Cakewalk for the pink stripes. To add a little texture and visual interest, I machine stitched with straight or zigzag stitches every few lines.

My main reason for choosing these papers/colors is that I have been dying to use that adorable little car sticker from the Summertime Double Take sticker sheet. But because the window area of the car was open, I needed to add something behind it or the patterned paper would have been way too distracting and the car wouldn't have stood out.

So, I used a journaling card from the Daily Flash Snapshots collection behind the window and just trimmed off the excess. Because it looked a little bare, I added a sweet sentiment from the Daily Flash Summer Catch-Phrase Stamp. I then finished the card with a pink heart sticker from the Double Take sticker sheet and a gray Daily Flash Apple Cider Pop Drop.

If today's sketch inspires your next project, please share your creation by linking it on Instagram with the hashtag #octoberafternoon, along with tagging @octoberafternoon, so we can see! You can also share your projects on our OA Facebook wall or the OA Flickr gallery.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Tuesday Inspiration: Polaroid Collage

Hi there! Happy Tuesday! Emily here with today's inspiration piece! I knew I wanted to use a photo collage of some sort on my layout this week, so I did a Pinterest search for collage inspiration.  I found a few really unique polaroid collages similar to these:

(Both of these images have broken source links!I My apologies to the original photographers!)

I really love the look of breaking a single photo up into a few different photos and layering them on top of one another. I had a perfect picture in mind - of the bottom half of my kids at the pool last week. I have a similar one with their heads, but I kind of love this one of just their bodies and feet!!  The only problem, however, is that I wasn't exactly sure how to crop the photos to make them all fit together just right. I ended up using my cropping tool in my photo editor to create four squares in each corner of the picture. Each square looks pretty similar...here are the four sections:

I printed all four out and tried to layer them, however it wasn't working as well as I'd hoped. I decided to make all of the photos a bit off kilter from one another, which is why my little guy on the right kind of has two heads! I probably could have just left off the bottom row of photos, as they only show the concrete, but I like having four photos versus only two. I know there is probably some way to make my collage look as cool as the two inspiration pieces, but I'm not technically savvy enough to figure out, so this will have to do!

I used foam adhesive to create different levels on my layout. The bottom two photos are flat against the background, the third is raised up by a single layer of foam adhesive, and  the very top actually has two layers of foam adhesive. I really wanted there to be a lot of dimension, so I also raised up my die cut title.

Finally I found as many blue and aqua elements I could to include! The adorable little fish from the Summertime Pillow Puffs was perfect for this layout - especially after my title ended up a little off center!  The fish just swam on to the end like he was meant to be there! There are also tons of beautiful blue papers and embellishments in the Treasure Map line that made their way onto this layout!

I would love to see how you are inspired by these cool photo collages! Upload your project to the October Afternoon Flickr gallery, post it on our Facebook page, or connect with us on Instagram via #octoberafternoon. Happy Tuesday, and happy scrapping!

Tuesday color inspiration

Hi everyone! Alex here bringing you this week's inspiration piece. I found this image on Pinterest and I loved the colors!

The colors inspired me to pull out my Summertime collection and play with it. This is what I came up with.

I've been away on a roadtrip with my family for almost a month and haven't touched a single paper during all that time! I was feeling really rusty making this layout...

I used a piece of the lovely Puffy Clouds paper as my background. I adhered a sun-sticker on top of the sun from the paper to add some 3d-texture.

Love the small cut-outs from the Blue Skies paper!

I hope you feel inspired to pull out the Summertime and play with it! Have fun!

//Alex