October Afternoon Seaside

So Summer is (depressingly!) over, the days are cold and grim and the next celebrations to look forward to are definitely autumnal. How can we cheer ourselves up and remind ourselves of the wonderful Summer days we have just spent? By breaking out the October Afternoon Seaside collection of course!

I'm a massive fan of all things October Afternoon - I have yet to see a range I don't like, and the embellishments such as the shape and label stickers are just as good as the papers. So I was thrilled to receive one of the latest ranges from Papermaze to work with last month. The papers are all themed in a very British seaside way - lots of deckchairs, shellfish and lighthouse embellishments and the papers are all called things like Beach Chair and Yellow Bikini, just for the amusing associations I'm sure! It's makes a nice difference to what can be the normal exotic type of beach-themed papers we get from the States, where I'm sure they enjoy much better weather than we do!

I decided to use my papers to scrap this year's trip to the Isle of Wight - an annual event with Ed's family which they have been doing for as long as anyone can remember, and which I have been part of for the last six years as well.
I started with the gorgeous die-cut paper as a base, and kept the rest of the colours blue toned to match with our outfits in the photo. I went for a hint of red to lift the page and avoid it become too 'samey' as well.

I created a few embellishments for the page, like this one based around the safety ring sticker which came from a gorgeous set produced by October Afternoon for this range. The crab at the top of the page is also from this set. I punched a red heart from scrap paper and pierced it with a pin, and adhered it to the sticker using foam pads. The letter stickers are by Making Memories.

My title was created using the same Making Memories stickers, combined with a range of American Crafts Thickers foam and vinyl letters. The quote is from a sticker set by 7 Gypsies.