A Million Little Things

CELEBRATE: freedom...with buttons

Ok, I don't know about you but I know that any time Jill posts a sale or gets a new shipment including those cool packs of buttons, I am tempted to grab them up. And yep, I often do! (With her prices, how can you not?!) I don't really use buttons in my scrapbooks much but I love to use them for other projects and they add so much color to your life, right?!

Well here's a simple project where you can use these awesome buttons from AMLT!

I had these great little frames from Ikea but you can always spray paint a frame you have around the house and you can make your flag to whatever size your frame is! Yay for simple!

So I just measured a piece of cardstock the size of the frame opening and then cut out some blue & red cardstock to build a base for my flag.  Hallelujah for GLUE DOTS because that's what I used for popping those buttons onto the flag. Easy peasy!  

I finished off the frame with a few border stickers along with some glitter letter stickers from Making Memories.

What do you think?!  Seriously if you have 30 minutes, even while you're watching the evening news, you can create this project for your holiday weekend. Your friends and family with love it and you can use it all year long!

So get to creating, people!  And don't forget to post your projects on our AMLT Facebook page. We'd love to see what you've been up to!

Happy 4th!

 

CELEBRATE: freedom

HOWDY and Happy Monday!  Are you gearing up for some fun holiday celebrations this next week?!  Our neighbors up north are getting ready to celebrate Canada Day while we are prepping for some super fun July 4th celebrations around here.  

This week I hope to bring you a bit of inspiration on decorating your home and preparing for some holiday fun with some simple party decoration ideas.  I love using my scrappy supplies to come up with creative and unique decor, party favors, etc.  These ideas will be coming at ya just in time for you to make some yourself for your own shindig!  The kids would even love to help out with these simple projects. 

First up, this week, a little art.  First I googled "United States outline" and downloaded a quick piece of clip art to give me an outline of our nation to trace onto patterned paper.  Didn't I tell ya it was simple?!  So I printed out my outline, put it with my striped pattern paper (American Crafts) and cut it out with my scissors.  Next I grabbed some KI Memories fun circle paper and cut out a section of it, adhered it to my outline and trimmed the edges.  

Next, I found some American Crafts letter stickers in my stash and added my little "let freedom ring" phrase onto the flag, popping in a little piece of Heidi Swapp tape under the "ring".  Then I attached the finished outline to a 8.5" x 11" piece of white cardstock and then mounted it all onto a piece of cardboard trimmed to the same size.  I outlined the shape with my fine-tip American Crafts Slick Writer and then with a little handwriting, I added in the lyrics to "America the Beautiful" all around the outline. Whaaaalaaaa!

Didn't I tell ya it was simple?!  And seriously, the entire project took me less than 30 minutes.  This would even be a fun project to do with the kids on July 4th.  Let them be a little creative with your scrappy supplies. :)

Celebrate freedom!

Can I Quote You? Friday

Good morning!  I hope you've enjoyed the projects I've posted this week, and have perhaps been inspired to create a "quotable" page yourself! 

My last page uses a quote that I really love - "It is important to make someone happy; start with yourself."  I used Lily Bee's "Happily Lost" collection, and a variety of white alphabet stickers for the title.  I hand journaled different things that make me happy on the paper strips behind the photo.

That's it for me this week.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Can I Quote You? Thursday

Good morning!  We've got a rainy Thursday in store here in New England, and I couldn't be happier!  It gives me a good excuse to stay in and do what I love to do best - scrapbook! 

The project I'm going to share with you today is a little quote book that I put together using an old Teresa Collins box book from my stash, and Echo Park's "For the Record" collection. 

Teri Martin, an artist known for her fantastic calligraphy, sends an email a day.  You can subscribe to her quotation email list here at her site.

Gretchen Rubin, author of the popular book "The Happiness Project" also has a daily email with a quote.  You can subscribe to that list on her website.

Melody Ross, artist and founder of Chatterbox, has been devoting her considerable energy to a venture called Brave Girls.  They have a very active community and Melody sends an inspirational message every morning which she calls a "Daily Truth".  You can find out more about Brave Girls and subscribe to her daily newsletter on her site.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Can I Quote You? Wednesday

Good morning!  It's our first day of summer vacation, and it felt so good to sleep in a little this morning.  Even my oldest daughter, who is a notorious early bird slept until 8am!

Today we're going to talk about song lyrics.  I absolutely love using song lyrics in my journaling and for my page titles.  When my girls were little, often a snippet of a Wiggles tune, or something from Barney would find its way onto one of my pages.  Now that they are older, my lyrics and titles have grown right along with them and often reflect their growing love for popular music.

This page uses a line from one of Brigid's favorite songs: Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson.  I used My Little Shoebox's "Home Tweet Home" collection and my current favorite conceit, Scrabble tiles!

There are hundreds of lyric sites on the web, allowing you to find the words to whatever song you choose! 

Have a happy day!

Can I Quote You - Tuesday

Good morning!  Today my thoughts are about gratitude.  We've come to the end of another school year, and for the past week or two, "thank you" gifts for my children's teachers have been planned, created and given.  I am so grateful that both my girls had such wonderful teachers this year!

I want to share a set of thank you cards that I made for Aileen's teacher.  I found a quote that I love, and printed it on kraft paper and punched it out to embellish the face of my cards.  I used Crate Paper's "Emma's Shoppe" collection for my stitched hearts, and think they turned out darling! 

There are so many great quotes expressing gratitude.   Here are a few more of my favorites:

All that we behold is full of blessings.  ~William Wordsworth

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.  ~Thornton Wilder

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel.  ~Author Unknown

Have a great day!

Can I Quote You? Monday

Hi there!  Happy Summer!  This week I'll be sharing fun ways to use quotes in your papercrafting projects.  From song titles and lyrics, positive affirmations, snippets of poetry, or inspiring quotes from your favorite authors, there are limitless ways to work these words into your creative work.

There are many online sources for quotes:

http://www.quotationspage.com/ has been around for a really long time, and has an extensive library of quotes.  You can search by keyword or author, in case you can't quite remember the wording of the quote.

I picked up an old edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations at a library sale about 20 years ago, and it is still one of my favorite books to leaf through for inspiration.  (So great for titles too!)

You can find some great inspiring affirmations at the Pinterest site.  If you haven't discovered Pinterest yet, you're in for a treat!  I absolutely love browsing through the thousands and thousands of images that are pinned daily.  If you join, make sure you follow me - Linda Auclair - as I can tell I'm going to have many happy hours ahead of me on the site this summer!

The first project I have to share today uses one of those positive affirmations I found on the site.  I picked up a bunch of rectangular shadowboxes and have been turning them into little decor pieces with a happiness theme.  This one uses Echo Park's "For the Record" collection, which is one of my very favorites from them!

Join me tomorrow for another quote project!  Have a great day!

Friday bli-bling

It was my daughter's last year of middle school. Our school makes a fuss over the 9th graders  :)

One of the extra special events is the day they get their class rings. I wanted to add some sparkle to the layout about their day.
 
 
I punched out some sparkly paper and even added a glitz to my title. Hey, even my brads sparkle ;)

Anyone want to guess what the background is made of?

Apart from scrapbooking another dear hobby is dollhouse miniatures. This is pretty trash left over from making miniature hydrangeas. It was too pretty to throw away...

STOP right there...

Sometimes when you take a trip it's the little differences that tickle your funny bone...

 
Don't you just love him? Red pedestrian lights in Paris meant business! I swear he's giving me the "don't you even dare THINK about jaywalking" look  :)

For this page I used a part of a tourist map (where I marked our hotel) and packaging from a little shop.

Silly confession time ;)

I love weddings. Who doesn't?

I also love watching royal weddings on tv ;)  After the wedding in England this spring I had to put together a page of ones I've enjoyed watching.

Charles and Diana. Of course. As a kid, wide-eyed with wonder.

And then the new generation, William and Kate. Very British...

But I have to say that the royal wedding in Sweden last year takes the cake. Victoria and Daniel's wedding was such a relaxed affair for a royal do. Lots of genuine feelings, laughter and tears. Lovely.