A Million Little Things

Meet our New Guest Designer & NEW BARGAIN KITS!

Hello Everyone! Today I'm excited to introduce another guest designer here at AMLT!  Please join with me in welcoming LORI GENTILE!!

First let's "meet" Lori:

I asked Lori a few questions

Tell us a litle about yourself

Hi, my name is Lori Gentile. I have a full time job staying at home with my two energetic boys, Dylan and Brody. I am married to a delightful man, named Jeremy, who supports my need to be creative. 

I dabble in lots of creative things; mixed media, scrapbooking, stamping, beading, and knitting.  I’ve been scrapbooking for 10 years. If anything, I get more excited about it every year. I love that I am recording our family history and that my family loves remembering it. 

 I am an avid reader of fantasy books, my favorite movie is “The Princess Bride”, my exercise of choice is pilates, and my “will die without” vice is coffee. If you want to learn more about me, you can visit my blog; http://lorigentile.typepad.com. 

I'm so honored to have had this opportunity to design for A Million Little Things. I am a huge fan of the store, design team and blog. Thank you for having me.

What or who do you find inspires you the most in your scrapbooking? Or where to you go for your inspiration?

I turn to magazines for inspiration. I love home decor and mixed media art magazines. I can always find something in a magazine to inspire a layout or project. 

What are your product staples that you can't live without?

I need to have ink, paint, pens, scissors, wet glue and my sewing machine (or needle and thread) to scrapbook. 

What is your favorite scrapping subject?

My kids and my husband. I got in this hobby to scrap about my everyday life that hasn't changed. 

Tell us what is on your wishlist right now?

I'm really excited about the new Crate Paper and Fancy Pants Mixed Media books. I can't wait to get my hands on those. 

Lori's Assignment was to make her magic with some new kits that I will be selling in the store!  I sent Lori these 2 kits called "Bargain Kits" they are a mix of fun mix and match supplies that will be sold just as they are labeled at a real bargain!!  The kits will contain some older items, some brand new items all made to work together and help you create magic in your albums and stretch your budget even further!   In fact the collective price of the kit items will be 40%-50% off retail if not more!!  The kits will be limited and when they are sold out they won't be recreated.  The two kits Lori used in her guest spot are available in the store now, and 2 more kits will be available April 17th with our next guest designer's spotlight. 

The first kit is called Time Capsule, it features new Sassafrass Vintage Yummy Stickers, New Sassafras Letter Stickers, new Cosmo Girl Friday Paper and a mix of coordinating but not too matchy matchy papers, ribbons, clips, gel frames, tags and more.  Please note that the photo shows 2 sheets of craft cardstock, and the kit only contains 1.  I apologize for the error in the photo:

Lori has created 4 AWESOME samples with this kit:

The second Kit is called Playdate and features Creative Cafe items, puffy letters from MM, Sheers from KI,  Butterfly Cardstock shaped buttons and much more!

And Lori's amazing page ideas:

Both kits are available here, and sell for $12.99 each.  Both kits individual items sell in our store currently for well over $20, and remember our prices are already lower than retail! 

Thank you Lori!  It was a pleasure having you!  If you would like to check out Lori's blog go here

Birthday Kit Winners..

HI Everyone,
This is one of 2 posts I am about to compose, the first being winners for the birthday kits:

Winners of the Adornit Birthday Bash Kits:
Congrats to

moon69
joparker (joni)

and the Scenic Route Surprise Kits
Congrats to

Jo (happy birthday to DD!)
ShawninAZ

Stay tuned for our newest guest designer in a few minutes!  Winners please email me at info@amillionlittlethings.com to claim your prizes. 

Thanks!
Jill

One Minute Monday - Number your albums

 

Hi everyone! Happy Monday to you! I've got your One Minute Monday tip for today! It's a super easy tip, too! I just LOVE the American Crafts D-ring canvas albums and I have lots of them in various colors as you can see in the photograph. :) One thing I love to do is use American Crafts Thickers to number my albums (these are albums just of my daughter) so that I know what order to keep them in and can find which album I need really quickly. I know that if I grab the first album then that is all of the layouts of my pregnancy, her birth and lots of her first year layouts. Right now I'm on album 6 for her and she's only 3. LOL. Anyway, you could even take Thickers and spell out your child's name or whatever you'd like to on the spine of the album. I have two other albums (not shown) that have "All about me" and "Maggie Mae" (my dog) on them as well. The Thickers stick really nicely on the spine and it makes them even prettier to look at and even more functional, too! I hope that if you are trying to find a way to organize your layouts that you'll give this idea a try! It's a super easy thing to do! Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful day! :)

We interupt this blog for shameless enabling..

Calling all momma's of little girls....

So today I'm off topic because I want to give a shameless plug to our friend Kim who has launched a new etsy store selling bitty bows and clippies  for little girls.   Kim used to be on our DT here at AMLT before her little girl was born and she found herself with less time to meet dt committments, but we still miss her!    Her work is beautiful with great attention to detail.    Now I have no experience with bows, except for on packages but these are so darling, so I think if you have a little girl that wears bows you should go check her out here .

To encourage you ladies with little princess daughters or granddaughters to go take a look I'm going to buy 2 bows from Kim to give away 2 lucky winners here on our blog.  So go take a look, find your 2 favorites,  (in case your first choice isn't available) and come back here and leave me a comment with either the links or the names of the bows.  I'll leave the comments open until Thursday and pick 2 winners then and pass your info onto Kim.  Good luck! 

If I were buying I would be tempted by these ones for sure!
     

I love etsy, I wish there would have been an etsy when I did wood crafts for boutiques!!  If you have an etsy store you'd like me to checkout leave me your link :).  I love crafty finds!!!

A Little Gabber Blabber and such..

Hi Everyone!

I feel like it's been forever since I've blogged on here.  It's been a crazy couple of weeks on the family front and this week has been full of birthday extravaganzas.  My youngest son Tate is 7 today, and his bestest friend and  cousin is 6.  My grandmother's birthday was also today, but she had passed when both of them were born so I wonder if she had a say in it!  With 365 days a year 3 members of the same family shouldn't have the same birthday should they?  It is definitely a good story however.  I love my kids birthdays as they are really my days too, the day to think about the day their beautiful little faces came into this world and the accomplishment of bringing them here.  Nothing is a greater feat in my opinion.  All sappiness aside, it is hard to believe how time fast goes.   This is why you are scrapbookers because time goes far too quickly to remember!

Today will be our relatively calm celebration day believe it or not, as the wild parties were earlier this week.  Has anyone ever tried giving a birthday party for 24 6 and 7 year olds?  Wow, that I promise you was a guaranteed headache.  Good thing I hired a magic clown for entertainment as I had a hard time controlling them in between activities!

Speaking of birthdays, I mentioned this being birthday week earlier because my birthday is next weekend, and this year we will be going away on a short trip to celebrate mine as it is Spring Break here and the kids have no school.   Because of this the store will be closed for a few days for shipping.  

Please note that we will be out of the store from April 4th through April 8 and orders will not ship these days.  April 4 and 5th are a weekend, so no worry there, but Monday- Wednesday orders will not ship, we will begin shipping again on Thursday in the order of receipt.  Orders must be placed before Thursday April 2 at 8:00 am mountain time to be shipped before we leave, otherwise they will be shipped the following week.  I appreciate your patience and understanding with our absence.

Today I have a couple of giveaways in honor of birthday celebrations!   I've had these album kits for awhile and now is a good excuse to share them with you!  I have 2 of these to give away:

And 2 of these :

So if you feel you could use either of these leave a comment to win, if you have a preference let me know.  I'll pick 4 winners on Tuesday.

And last but not least, there are a few new products in the store, it's been a very slow month for new stuff coming in very much unlike my typical March's around here.   Monday I will have the remainder of Fancy Pants items, Tuesday I will have Websters Pages.  Next month the rest of Basic Grey, Sassafrass and Crate will come along with hopefully October Afternoon.

New items:

More Martha Punches and Restocks
I was unable to order the chicks and bunnies punches and any of the heart punches from them.  They are no longer available sadly.  Apparently they sold out within a few hours of CHA and they didn't have enough to meet demand and will not reorder.

We R Memory Keepers Tiffany's

Have a great Saturday!

Jill

Old meets New

Katie and I (Elizabeth) had the opportunity to work with some surprise products that Jill sent our way. Some of it was older product and some brand new. It was fun to mesh the two types of product together for a seamless look.

Katie:

 

Elizabeth:

   

I wanted to include lots of pictures from our 12 1/2 anniversary night, so I made a simple grid style page for the opposing side.

 

And a few cards for good measure ;) 

 

The red and light blue papers are from Pink Paislee's Captivating line, as well as the letter stickers and brads, and the green and cream papers are from Basic Grey Boxer line, and the frame is by My Mind's Eye and the lined paper is by Dream Street.

Go over to the store and check out what older products you could pair with the gorgeous new stuff!

{one minute Monday} adding a border in photoshop

 Hey guys!  Rebekah here bringing you your {one minute Monday} for the week. 

Here's a simple & quick wayto add a border around your photo!  You can make your border white or a color of your choice.  And you can even add a title, journaling or a cool little element to your photo.  Here's how:

1. In Photoshop, open the photo you'd like to edit.

2. If you'd like to add a color border, you'll need to make sure your foreground or background tool is that color.

3. Go to Image and scroll down to Canvas Size.  You can then enter the size of border you'd like to add around your photo.  Also, check the Canvas Extension Color near the bottom of the box.  This is where you will choose the color of your border.  Click OK.

4. Waaalaa!  There's your new border. 

You can also add more than one...make one large and one small.  You can also use your Type tool and type in a title or a journaling note in the border of your photo.  Or try adding a little clipart or a cool wingding to your border.

Here are a few examples:

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Now open some photos in Photoshop & start playing! :)

New Products

Hi Everyone

A few new products with some links:

Hambly Overlays and Rubons

K and Company Wild Raspberry

Cloud 9 Alyssa's Garden

Scrapbook Trends April/Handmade April/May

Making Memories Just Chillin

Have a great week!

{sewing on layouts & cards}

Greetings all;  Amanda here this morning!  The weather is a little brisk and windy in Tennessee; hope all is beautiful in your neck of the woods.

I am going to bring you a few options with sewing on your scrappy projects.  I must admit I am not good on the sewing machine and although I have a very basic one, it confuses me to no end!  My needle even broke on the last layout I was doing :0)  In my first example, I used a straight stitch on my sewing machine.  Super simple; I just made a border around the page and purposely  kept those lines curvy.  If you look closely, you will also see I stitched a few lines under the picture to add a little texture to my patterned papers.  I think these both add so much depth to a page and don't cost much money if you already have the machine.  Also, on this one, I tied embroidery thread in the center of my buttons.

On the next example, I did a zig zag stitch along the paper strips to tie those borders together.   Some other options with sewing on layouts are hand stitching.  The title line was free-hand drawn; I then took a paper piercer to poke through the paper and with embroidery floss stitched the border.  I think it is considered a "back-stitch!"  Some companies make plastic stencils in different shapes that you can hold over your paper to punch through different designs.  They are great if you are frightened to free-hand draw.

Another option is using stitched looking rub-ons.    This takes all of the work out and they look great on layouts.  There also are rubber stamps out that offer a great stitched look. The border stitch on this card is actually a rubber stamp by Hero Arts.  I would bet that you looking at this at a glance wouldn't make you think twice that it is real thread or a stamp!

Sewing or the look of sewing on layouts is a super simple and relatively inexpensive way to add depth and texture.  You can sew journaling blocks, designs or simply tie patterned papers together.  If you don't already sew pick you up a needle and some thread (you probably have a travel sized sewing kit for those buttons that have fallen off!) next time you are at your craft store.  You are sure to enjoy your creations from it!

Basic Grey March Page of the Month

Hello Everyone

Here today with a little inspiration from Basic Grey.  This month's page of the month theme was "A Day in My Life" for all the girls that are participating in this cool program!  The page was created by the talented Kelly Goree:

 

I would like to thank Amanda, who also created these additonal samples with this kit so quickly for me, and very last minute:

 

 

 

 

Amanda added only a few basics to her projects (cardstock, floss, journaling stamp, etc.)

All of the kits are now committed for, so there will not be extras going in the store unfortunately,  but there are plenty of Marrakech supplies left in the store :).

Have a great Tuesday!

Jill