My Little Shoebox

Shhh we're in the Secret Garden

There is nothing better than the sun coming out to shine after a few days of rain.  We rush outside and have some fun.  One of these days I took my camera with me and snapped some pictures of my family down in the woods.  I decided to make a little mini album with the pictures and as the lighting was very mellow the Secret Garden collection was crying out to be used.  

I adore all the butterflies which adorn these papers.  The can be added to your paper with some glue or with a few foam pads you can give the feeling that they are fluttering around the pages.

Products used :

Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Dorothy

Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Sweetie

 Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Bonbons

 Secret Garden – 12"Paper – La petite

 Secret Garden – 3D Roll-Up Flower and Accents

 Secret Garden – Cardstock Sticker – Secret Garden

 Muse Cardstock Alphabet Sticker – Strawberry Frosting

 Mini Alphabet Sticker – Chocolate Cake

Handbag Mini Album

Bakers Twine

Here are a couple of cards I made with the Secret Garden collection.  The first one is made using a pre cut crown which is made by Papermania.  I simply covered it before rolling up some of the 3D flowers and adding them to the base of the crown.  The small cut out butterflies are perfect for embellishments.

Products used :

Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Dorothy

 Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Bonbons

 Secret Garden – 3D Roll-Up Flower and Accents

 Secret Garden – Cardstock Sticker – Secret Garden

 Muse Cardstock Alphabet Sticker – Strawberry Frosting

 Mini Alphabet Sticker – Chocolate Cake

Adhesives

A tip for this card below is when you have rolled up your flowers add some seed beads to the centre.  The give a great texture .... just make sure you add glue :)

Products used :

Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Dorothy

 Secret Garden – 12"Paper – Bonbons

 Secret Garden – 3D Roll-Up Flower and Accents

 Secret Garden – Cardstock Sticker – Secret Garden

Seed Beads

Adhesive Stones

Thanks for stopping by, have a wonderful day

Beckie :)

Mini-Journal with Up In the Trees

All I can say is that I LOVE the Up in the Trees Collection!!

I just couldn't waste any of these precious scraps of paper so I decided to put all of them into a little (4x6) mini book/journal.  Here is the cover.

Look at all these super cute inside pages just waiting to be filled, 40 pages to be exact:)

Here are a couple of my favorite...

I haven't decided if I want to use it as a little summer journal or a little art journal, I can't make up my mind.  How would you use it?

Jenifer

Up in the Trees Layouts and Cards

 

Hi Jenifer here with you today to share some layouts using the Up in the Trees collection.  I absolutely love this collection and just couldn't stop using it.

For my first Layout I did some hand stitching using the wood grain on the paper as my guide.  I then used some green scraps of ribbon and paper to make it look like leaves in a tree.  I couldn't help using the name of the collection for my title, it was just too perfect ;)

Supplies:  Up in the Trees, ribbon May Arts, floss DMC, adhesive Therm O Web

For my second layout I cut out random spots in the honeycomb patterned paper and then put some fun sparks of color through out.  I also had a fun time using various letter stickers in my title.

Supplies:  Up in the Trees collection, ribbon May Arts, adhesive Therm O Web

For my first card I did some quick layering.  The rolled flowers make creating so easy I can't help but to use them on almost every project.

Supplies:  Up in the Trees Collection, ribbon May Arts, adhesive Therm O Web

For my second card I used a piece of canvas to help anchor my elements and give my card a little bit more texture.

Supplies:  Up in the Trees Collection, ribbon May Arts, adhesive Therm O Web

I hope you have enjoyed my post today, make sure you come back daily for your inspiration :)

Jenifer

Friendship Jar-Aiko

Hi,

Jenifer here with you today with my first My Little Shoebox post.  I am so excited to share this super cute "Friendship Jar" that I made using the Aiko collection.  The little girls in the Aiko collection were just perfect and I wanted to showcase them in a unique way.  I found a cute little jar and using the cardstock stickers started adding layers until I was satisfied with my placement.  I then started working on the outside using twine and Zots to keep everything in place.



Supplies used: 

Aiko - 11821 Cardstock sticker

          Bakers Twine (May Arts)

Zots (Therm O Web)

Jar, toothpicks (Other)

I hope you have enjoyed my project today.  Make sure you come back daily for all the inspiration that we have planned for you.  If you decide to make one of your own friendship jars, leave me a link I would love to see it.

Jenifer

Let's Mix it up!

Hello MLS fans! It's already Wednesday and we're in the mood to mix it up a bit today! One of the best things about all of the My Little Shoebox collections is that they can easily be mixed and matched to create any theme you are looking to scrapbook!

Every year our Design Team members figure this out right away and start mixing and matching different collections whether it's creating cards, altered projects or layouts. This year's team has already created some fabulous inspiration with our Winter 2011 collections just to show you how easy it really is! 

"Wonderful" by Kristine Berc

Designer's tip: It is really fun and simple to mix and match the MLS collections.  Would you believe there are products from 5 different collections on this layout?  Sew Cute, Garden Party, Oasis, Farmer's Market, and Heartfelt are all represented here.  I added some white cardstock and a brown gross grain bow from my stash.  I enjoyed using several different border punches and butterfly punches on my layout.

"Summer Days" by Ro Philippsen

Designer's Tip: It was easy to mix and match patterns from Home Tweet Home and City By the Bay for my Summer Days layout. I like to choose a color scheme and draw my inspiration from there. Then I can easily add embellishments to enhance my layout and other mediums like mists.

"Daddy's Arms" by Melinda Spinks

Designer's Tip: I love how everything matches regardless of what range you use which creates such a versatility within the product and means that you can keep going back time and time again to use up every last piece of paper.

"Pink Popsicles" by Becky Williams

Designer's Tip:"Pink Popsicles" was created using a mix of City By the Bay, Cute as a Button, Home Tweet Home and Farmer's Market. One thing that I really like about My Little Shoebox products is that you can mix different collections, old and new, and they match perfectly.

"Summer Days" by Keeley Yowler

Designer's Tip: Dig into your scraps to easily mix and match patterns to create with like I did here with Garden Party and Heartfelt. You can easily create a layout with only a few elements, border punches and finish with mists!

Well ladies you have certainly shown us some fabulous inspiration today! We've got lots more "mixing and matching" inspiration to share so check back with us next Wednesday and we'll showcase some card ideas!

Have a great day!

Oasis inspiration from Norine

Today we are sharing some projects from Norine Borys with our Oasis collection.

This is the face of trouble

Norine shows you some fun ways to use our journaling die cuts

Smile

We love the use of mist on this card. It really adds a soft touch. To recreate this technique you simply mist the cardstock with your favorite coordinating color of mist and either air dry it or use a heat tool and then embellish.

I miss U the most

What a unique way to use our mini alphas!

Our thanks to Norine for today's inspiration!

We always love seeing your layouts and projects with our collections. If you've created something with our Oasis collection please load your project up to our Facebook page here.

Farmers Market card inspiration with Erin

Good Morning MLS fans! We are so excited to start a new month of My Little Shoebox inspiration here on our blog.

This month we'll be using products that Glue Arts swapped with us on all of our assignments and featuring some special ones each Thursday all month long!

Today we've got some card inspiration  with our Farmer's Market collection from Erin Yamabe

Thank You

 

Happy Day

 "My favorite stamp from this collection is the sunflower!  I have embossed and stamped it all over."

Welcome Little One

"Another trick to getting more out of your scallop paper is to cut around the edges, preserving just the decorative border, and leaving the inside of the paper free for flower folding and/or stamping.  cut different sizes of the decorative border to add interest and layers without dimension."

We love how Erin created the grass on this card by using a border punch and layering it several times. What an amazing way to add dimension to this circle card.

These projects are beautiful! Thanks to Erin for sharing her work with us today.

Feeling inspired to create with our Farmer's Market collection? Check out our latest contest here.

 

Scrapbooking layouts with Sew Cute

Hello MLS fans! Our Sew Cute collection really is soooo cute! People tell us that they love the color scheme of this collection and all the elements we have for them to create with from our stamps, patterned paper, cardstock stickers and more. When you have a nice variety of elements to create with, scrapbooking your memories can be quick and easy.

Today we have some beautiful layouts to share with you created by our team members Pamela and Nicole.

From Pamela

Pamela used our Sew Cute stamps on her layout above.

From Nicole

 

 

These layouts are just darling ladies! Thank you for sharing your work with us.

We hope you have a fantastic weekend! Please join us Monday for a special farewell Blog Hop with our 2010-11 Design Team. Our girls will each be showcasing their favorite projects or March assignments on their personal blogs for you to see. We have enjoyed each and every single one of them being a part of the MLS team and their amazing talent!

Getting those photos out of your shoe boxes...

Hello MLS fans! Today we are sharing some tips for getting your photos organized and out of your shoe boxes! Now many of you probably no longer keep photos in shoe boxes but a few years back...Oh say about 20...most of us did in fact store our photos that way.

Helen Chu, My Little Shoebox's founder and creative director had a vision in mind of helping people get those photos and memorabilia out of the shoe boxes and into scrapbooks when she started MLS in the Spring of 2005. Here's a little bit about Helen's vision when she creates her collections:

My goal is to encourage people to take their precious photographs out of their "little shoe boxes" and turn their personal memories into creations that will endure for generations. The idea behind "My Little Shoebox" is to make scrapbooking simple, quick, uniquely personalized, and most importantly, beautiful.

Scrapbooking your photos with My Little Shoebox products can be all those things when your photos are organized. Here are a few tips for organizing your photos.

• Your first goal is to gather all of your photos into one place and then figure out how you want to organized them. It can be by year, holiday, family event or whatever makes sense to you. After all you are going be the one telling their stories when you create your layouts.
• Next go thru each of the groups you have separated and pick out the ones that are over exposed, blurry or you just don't like. Keep the photos that will tell the story of your events or memories the best.
• Then you can arrange those photos in photo boxes and use tabs to separate them in a way that works best for you.
• If you save them on your computer then same tips can be done but just use folders separate and group them into for later use.

Now you are ready to start creating layouts that tell the stories of your memories. Our design team has created some fabulous layouts that do just that. Let's have a look at what they have created with their shoebox memorabilia

Created by Aphra

 

Created by Katheen

Created by Heather

So now that our design team has shown you their stories we hope we've helped you with our photo organization tips today so you can create your stories with My Little Shoebox products easier.

To learn more about My Little Shoebox product please visit our website here.

Tutorial Tuesday with Erin

It's Design Team Tuesday and today Erin has prepared a fabulous tutorial for all of you. Erin wants to show you how to use our journaling punchouts along with gesso to create a mixed media project with our Farmer's Market collection. 

"Family" Layout

By: Erin Yamabe

Here's what you'll be using

The foundation of your layout is the b side of Fresh from the Field. Trim 3/4" off two sides of Sweet Pea.  Corner round all edges.  Adhere to Fresh from the Field, brown side up.

 Cut at 7.5 by 3.75 " strip from the Tutti Fruiti paper, b side.  This will be the piece your photos attach to

Punch out the following diecuts from sheet: green border strip, green flower, pink scallop rectangle, two circle flowers, yellow/green rectangle, and red/pink flower.

 

Except for the green border strip, those diecuts will be the background of your layout.  Arrange in a 1/2 circle, using the green/yellow flower up top center, and continue to your right.  The bottom diecut will be your red/pink flower.  Place the Tutti Fruiti strip of paper as a guide, to the left center, making sure those diecut pieces peak through.

 

Adhere the diecut pieces down to brown paper.  [Except green border strip]

 

Mix some gesso with a small amount of the Tattered Angels Firefly. 

Liberally apply that mixture over diecuts and center of layout, leaving about 1" of the brown paper showing.  Wipe away any excess of the gesso. 

Flick some of the Firefly yellow onto your gesso.  Allow to dry.

 

Stamp the daisy flower with versamark around edges of layout, overlapping onto the orange paper.

 

Stamp the daisy flower with versamark onto the green border strip.  Spray with Marshmellow glimmer mist. 

 

Adhere with foam dots the green border strip along the bottom of diecuts, with about 1/2 of the red/pink flower showing from the bottom.

 

Adhere 3 photos onto the blue paper, distress and ink edges with creamy brown.  Adhere to left center, just above green border strip.  Tuck under 1/2 of small flower diecut. 

 From the Cherries Jubliee paper, you will cut out the borders from the 3rd strip down.  Cut in 1/2, and adhere to top of page, using middle photo as center. 

 

Cut 2 flower circle stickers from sticker sheet in half, place around edges of layout.

Add title and journal.

Staple a piece of the white ribbon underneath ride side of green border strip.

 

Now you have a fun mixed media themed project! We love using Glue Arts products and thank them for supplying Erin with the Glue Glider adhesive gun. Be sure and stop by th Glue Arts Blog for the next two weeks as they will be creating with My Little Shoebox products and featuring work from some of our designers too! They'll even be prizes to be won too!

Thanks for stopping by the MLS blog today!