A Million Little Things

Sketch it Winner!

Hey ho Blog readers

I forgot to pick a sketch it winner... So sorry!  Traveling makes your memory a bit bleak !

Thank you so much to everyone that entered Sketch it this month.  We ended up with a few more entries than last month, we'd still like to see more to keep it going, but we will give it another try in August, be on the lookout!  I've had Paul draw our winner out of a bucket and congrats to

Sam Van Brakel, she submitted this beautiful summery layout:

Sam has one herself a $25 voucher to the store, just in time for the new goodies coming soon :).

I'm currently working on the new bo bunny and mme :)

Thanks everyone, make sure to take a peek at all the entries in the sketch it folder on the side bar, there are some fabulous entries!  I love the way so many of you made the sketch your own!  If you have a sketch you would like us to try for sketch it send us an email at challenge@amillionlittlethings.com.  Stay tuned for next months challenge!

product feature: Bella Blvd.

Oh my goodness!  In the scrapbooking world there are SO many  great products to use in your creations.  In fact,  it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.  And there's a whole new crop of goodies coming out this week at CHA!  So why don't you try this: make it simple!  Sometimes I'll just grab products from the same line and with those "limited" supplies, see what I can create. 

For today's product feature, I pulled out a few new products in my stash:  the super fun Bella Blvd. Sweet Celebrations line.  I created a layout and a birthday card and still have a lot of the supplies left to use.

Here are the products I started with:

• Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration Cardstock Stickers: Carla Strawberry
• Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration Cardstock Stickers: Label Additions
• Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration Patterned Paper: Stardust
• Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration Patterned Paper: Lollipop Stix
• Bella Blvd Sweet Celebration Patterned Paper: Make a Wish

 

Have a fabulous Friday!!

xo.
Rebekah

Store Trouble

Edited.. The store is now fixed, so you should be able to shop as normal.  I'm going to keep the post below in tact, so that those customers who happened to add anything to wishlists, carts, or created new accounts in those 2 days know why they are not there.  Thanks for your patience.

Jill

hello everyone

I just wanted to give you a heads up on the troubles going on with the store at the moment.  I'm sure many of you have noticed the "under construction warning" or some other odd things going on today. I apologize for this down time, and we are aware of what is going on.

 While we were away we had some updates installed that were suppose to make the store inventory easier for us to manage, enter, update etc, and needless to say this didn't go very well.  It was brought to my attention this morning that many of the listings were mysteriously moved in categories, switched with other items, and many many photos were wrong.  The programmers are in the process of reinstalling the backup for me to get it back to what it should be.  I am not sure how long this is going to take however, it was suppose to be completed relatively quickly.   Neither Paul or I have anything to do with the programming side, so we are at their mercy for the time being.

 This will effect you all in 2 ways.  First you will not be able to shop until they are able to fix it, but hopefully that will be soon.  Secondly, since I have to go back to the backup from late on the 28th, anything you added to your cart, wishlist, etc from the 29th or 30th will not be in there.  There were only a small number of customers that placed orders, those will not be in the system, but I have printed them before the backup was installed and will reenter them manually.   I apologize profusely, but going back to the backup is my only option.  There is no feasible way for me to crawl through my entire data base and try to fix all the images etc.  There is not enough man hours remotely available for us to attempt that especially since I have new CHA product already and am anxiously awaiting the fixing so i can enter it.    So be on the lookout for the new MME and Bo Bunny this weekend.

Once again I am very sorry for the inconvenience and trouble.  Not the best "problem" to return home to that is for sure!  I thank you for your patience.  I'm off to bed early since I was up at 3 am eastern time to leave for my flight home.  I'm beat!

XO

Jill

Live from Orlando!!

Hi Everyone

Checking in.  How's everyone?

Well it's nearly midnight Tuesday in Orlando, I'm blogging. My clock internally can't seem to adjust to eastern time, which makes nights very difficult and alarm clocks more annoying!  I'd thought I'd check in and give you all an update on our activities and also ask for your input as customers.

We arrived here Saturday afternoon, I sort of feel as if I have been here forever.  Most likely because my exit from Utah was proceeded by sending my kids to California to stay with Paul's family and then coming home to pack ourselves on Friday.  That has been incredibly difficult, I've never left my children for more than 4 days at once, and the fact I had to send them away first and second for so many days has been torture.  I've had a hard slap of reality on what is most important to me in my life that is for sure.  The flight from SLC was longer than I like,but alas we arrived to 2 straight days of blissful rain and thunder storms.  Heaven, I love rain.  We visited Sea World in one of those rain downpours which was actually alot of fun. Things are not nearly as fun when your family is not together in a family place however.  We were forbidden from going anywhere near Disney which we have respectfully kept to :).

Today was the first day of the show, we had several preview parties yesterday.  There is an incredibly odd vibe going on here at this show.  It is really very, very small.  I'm sure the location and the ecomomy has effected the amount of companies that have come to show.  However I want you to all know that from my perspective that many of the companies that are here have brought their A game, and there is  really not as much stuff to choose from, but that is not necessarily a bad thing as there is good product here to buy and bring home to the store.   We have ordered most of our items already,but want to make sure to check inwith those that read this blog and also shop AMLT to get your input and what you have seen and feel are musts for your stashes and budgets.  I'm sure the internet is hopping with pictures of everything you have seen. Kristina has been trying to keep our sneak peek folder full of fun things over the last few weeks as well. I didn't bring a camera this time, so I apologize I have no photos for you.   Here are some things I have loved:

Bella Blvds new collections (especially the robot andcamping ones!)

My Little Shoeboxes New collections (even better in person!)

Of course Sassafras's new collections (especially new felties and the monster line!)

Lily Bee's new papers and rubons

Crate's Season Collection

Jenni Bowlin's new round mini alphas

Fancy's New Lines (especially the boyline and the sprout line)

Awesome new styles and Prima flowers, a new canvas collection, and some other amazing things.

And...  my mind is going blank therefore I will end.  I know there was alot more to love:)   So now it's your turn. Tomorrow is my last day here.  So if you shop with us check in so be can make sure to try to bring in what you love as well.

Enjoy... 1.5 days until kiddo hugs!

XOX

Jill

One Minute Monday - Cardstock Swatch

Hi there everyone!
Kristina here today to share with you a quick tip for using up those cardstock scraps that you have.
I LOVE cardstock! I have lots of it, but it's always hard to remember what their names are if I want to go and order more of a certain color, etc. so what I started to do was to buy 12x12 cardstock sheets, cut them all down to 8.5x11 (which is the size I scrap) and then use some of piece that is leftover to create my own cardstock swatch. You could easily do the same thing with just cardstock scraps that you have, etc.
This cardstock swatch is of all of the colors that American Crafts offers in their cardstock.

I just cut same sized strips, punched a hole in the top of each and then typed up a simple word document with each one's name and adhered it to the back. It honestly wasn't that time consuming. The cutting and hole punching goes pretty quickly and I just did it here and there when I had a few mintues to spare, etc. I put them all in order by color when I was done and then put them on a d-ring to keep them all together. That was it and it has been SO handy when I need to reorder and it even hangs on my happy board and gives me color inspiration when I needing some!

Another thing you could do is just cut little pieces of your cardstock out and glue them all on a piece of cardboard and handwrite the names underneath each one to make the process of creating one even faster!
I hope this inspires you to put those cardstock scraps to good use and make yourself a swatch! :-D

Photo Friday: add a little pizzazz!

HAPPY PHOTO FRIDAY!! :)  Maybe I should call it Photoshop Friday this week!  Open up your Photoshop program and start playing with brushes.  It can be a bit intimidating at first but really it can be used just like stamping...minus the mess of working with ink!  Open your photo in Photoshop and click on the brush tool in your toolbox.  At the top of the screen, your brush toolbar will appear and you can select the brush you'd like to use as your stamp.  You can set a custom color to your brush by setting your foreground color to the color you'd like to use.  Just click on the foreground color box and the color picker will pop up.  Now click somewhere on your photo...whichever color you'd like to pick up...and whaalaa, your brush will be that color.  You can also change the opacity of your brush.  So many options!  Oh and here's a little shortcut for you.  Wanting to change the size of your brush?  Rather than going to the toolbar to resize, you can use your "[" and "]" keys on your keyboard to make your brush smaller or larger!

Here are a few examples of how I used brushes on my photos.  In the first one, I simply stamped a flower shape in the corners of my photo.  I changed the size of the brush and the opacity to mix it up a little.  In the second photo, I used a brush to create a bit of a frame or border for my photo.

You can find lots of free brushes on the internet for your personal use.  Just google "free photoshop brushes" and you'll find a long list.  Then go here for a quick tutorial on how to load your brushes into Photoshop.

Sketch it reminder

Hello Everyone

Well I'm here again to give you a little reminder about the Sketch it challenge that is SUPPOSE to be due tomorrow.  We are extending the deadline again, because we only have 10 entries.  The new deadline will be Tuesday July 28.  If you are interested in winning this months PRIZE -- a $25 store voucher, good on anything you wish please email us your layout to   challenge@amillionlittlethings.com.    To view the sketch, please click on this post link.

We really hope a few of you that asked for some reader participation columns consider entering so we can keep this going.   The past 2 months don't make it seem too likely though :0(.  Remember this isn't a contest, we will put everyone that enters in a drawing and pick a winner.  We love to see what you can come up with for the sketch, feel free to make it your own.    You are welcome to send us as many layouts as you wish, but only 1 entry per person will be entered in the hat for the drawing.

Enter today... CHA new goodies are coming out, $25 could be quite useful!  Right now your chances of winning are great!!

Thanks to the girls that have particpated!!

Jill

Colour Challenge for today

I don't know about you, but I am inspired by all the different colour combinations that are around us. One of my absolute favourite being a blue/green combo. So when this challenge came up, I was quick to jump on it!

Isn't that fantastic? Here are some inspired projects based on the colour combination...

Elizabeth:

 

Absolutely loved these KI Memories sheers when they came in my box of goodies last week, add some American Crafts thickers, and Making Memories chipboard and we are good to go!

 I had fun with this one, awesome SEI products, mixed with some Maya Road butterfly rubons (love these!), and some American Crafts sentiment rubons to finish it off.

  

Here I used some Basic Grey patterned paper, along with some American Crafts thickers. (oh and don't worry, our son no longer has the big scab on this forehead, it has healed up nicely :P)

Amanda:

Here is Amanda's cutie patootie who is going to school already!!! I can hardly believe their summer is over already, YIKES!

Hope we have inspired you to give this colour combo a try, have a super day!

Martha Stewart Punches --NEW

Hi again
I feel like I did this already today, LOL

Just listed in the store... the new series of Martha Stewart Fall Release Punches, lots of new border punches, corner punches and a few shape punches.  I wanted to show you something cool this series does!

They can be used alone, but are also designed to work together so that you can punch around your entire page!  This one is my favorite:

To get this look you would need to purchase both the corner and border punch.  Then punch your 4 corners and use the edger to get a continuous look.  You can also get them in these styles as well:

This is just another option to the punches, they are sold separately and still work perfectly alone on all  your projects.  If you do purchase these and are interested in a complete "how to sheet" email me and I can forward the document on to you.  There are also several styles of punches not shown here, so take a look!

Have a super night!
Jill

More new items

Hi Everyone

Wow, I'm not quite used to this whole new before the show even starts stuff!  I guess it is the new thing as I think I will have most companies ordered before I leave it seems.  Yesterday I listed a few new items:

Stickers for 3 new Cosmo Lines

1st installment of my Prima Order, this mostly included a few styles of the new flowers.  I have many more of the flowers still coming, the pearls paper and such that will be coming at a later date.  It's always a surprise with Prima!

There were also some more stragglers from the Prima Spring Release that came as well, they are here, if you are looking for gallery roses, etc.

Please make a note that we will be attending CHA Summer next week and therefore we will not be in the store to ship orders.  We leave Saturday July 25 and return next Thursday.  Our last shipment day for the week will be friday morning, July 24.  To have your order shipped BEFORE we return it must be placed by Thursday Morning July 23.  Orders placed after this time will start  shipping the following Friday when we return.  Thank you for your patience in our absence.

Have a great tuesday!

Jill