Hey MLS fans! The wait is finally over. Today we are so pleased to announce our 2011 Design Team. First we would like to thank each and every applicant that applied for our Design Team call. We know that many of you worked very hard on your submissions and took a leap of faith to even apply.  It was very very hard narrow down the applications to the number of spots we have on our team this year but we want to make sure to extend an invitation to each one of you that we were not able to choose to re-apply for our next call. Now without further ado...

Announcing the...

Erin Yamabe Design Team Coordinator

Pattie Beltran Design Team Coordinator

Shemaine Smith Social Media/Marketing

Kristine Berc

Shelly Berg

Norine Borys

Susan Dupre (returning design team member)

Rocio Duran (returning design team member)

Beckie Dryer (returning design team member)

Linda Kretz

Pearl Liu

Zoe Nemburt

Rosangela "Ro" Philippsen

Melinda Spinks

Mandy Starner

Ilene Tell

Becky Williams

Nicole Wragge (returning design team member)

Keely Yowler

Let's congratulate these wonderful ladies! We are looking forward to a fabulous year of creativity and inspiration!

If you happened to have picked up the Spring issue of Scrapbooking and Beyond magazine you might have seen the article featuring MLS's very own founder & creative director, Helen Chu.

Here's a look inside at the article

Helen talks about how she grew up making clothes for her dolls from fabrics in her parents garment factory.

We learn about how Helen discovered her first scrapbook shop in Berkeley.

And how Helen took a chance on her dream to bring My Little Shoebox to all of us. We love how this article really brings us closer to Helen so we can learn more about this talented lady! Thanks so much to Scrapbooking and Beyond for featuring miss Helen and My Little Shoebox's products.

Scrapbooking and Beyond also has a fabulous MLS giveaway and you can enter to win but you've got to hurry! All entries must be received by April 1st. Head over here to find out how you can enter.

A special thanks to Tanisha Long for sending us these pics to share on the blog today!

It's with very heavy hearts that we write this post today...saying goodbye is never easy. Over the past year we have gotten to know one another, been inspired by eachother's work, supported one another when there was a need and forged friendships.

Here's a special message from Helen and the Design Team Coordinators:

And second we'd like to send out a prayers for Pamela who we have missed dearly this past month and hope that she will be back scrapping with her amazing talent soon!

Please enjoy your journey today as you visit each one of our very talented design team members blogs. Please them a little blog love.

  Here's the order just in case there are any blogger issues

• Carol Figueiredo
• Aphra Bolyer
• Beckie Dreyer
• Cynthia Stevens
• Deanna Misner
• Debbie Sherman
• Erin Payne
• Erin Yamabe
• Gudrun Loennecken
• Heather Brown
• June Goh
• Kathleen Glossop
• Melanie Stanczyk
• Nicole Wragge
• Pattie Beltran
• Rocio Duran
• Shemaine Smith
• Susan Dupre
• Taj White
• Tracey Locher

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!

Hello MLS fans! We're back with more layouts created by our design team with March's sketch by our very own Aphra! Here's another look at her sketch

Now let's see what our girls created

Created by Beckie

Created by Erin P.

Created by Shemaine

Created by Gudrun

Created by Deanna

Created by Rocio

We've seen some fabulous takes being uploaded to our Facebook page and we're thrilled that you are creating with us! There's still time to join the fun if you just found this post today! Click over here to find out all the details on how you can create with us too!

Now for an announcement! We are pleased to introduce April's Guest Designer today!!

Nichol Magouirk!

Nichol will be joining us every Thursday here on our blog in April to inspire you with her amazing talent! I can hardly wait to share with you what she created with our new collections!!

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.

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 journling 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!

Hello MLS fans. We hope you had a great weekend and got some scrapping in. Thanks for all your comments on Friday's post. We agree that we also get most of our scrapbooking done on the weekends and evenings too.

Today we're featuring some altered projects that our team has created with our new collections. Let's get started with designer Melanie Stanczyk

Melanie created this awesome home decor project with a 7 Gypsies frame and our Home Tweet Home.

Next up we have a altered chalkboard for the kitchen from Shemaine Smith with our Farmer's Market collection. The top of the chalkboard is decorated with our punch out journaling tags layered with pop dots.

Next is this beautiful jewelry box created by Erin Yamabe with our Sew Cute collection

and check out the coordinating jewelry

Next we have this beautiful mini album created by Kathie Davis

These were great projects ladies! Thanks for sharing your talents with us today!

Before we go we'd like to mention that we have a sketch challenge going on. To find out how you can play along and get a chance to win some MLS goodies click here!

Hello MLS fans! We hope you had a great week and are ready for the weekend. Do you feel you get more crafting done during the week or on the weekends. Tell us below when you comment today.

Today we are featuring some of our Home Tweet Home products with some gorgeous layouts created by our very own Tajanee White.

We love Taj's scrapbooking style and the way she always thinks outside of the box when using our cardstock stickers and journaling punches to create layered 3 dimensional projects. Let's take a look at what she came up with using our Home Tweet Home collection

This first layout features lots of layering and fussy cutting. Love the design.

This layout utilizes the cardstock stickers as 3 dimensional elements enhanced with pop dots. We also love the use of twine. It's such a trendy product right now.

Again the cardstock stickers are utilized to create a 3 dimensional look to this page and the journaling placement is perfect.

And finally this card created with a cork background is amazing. A big thanks to Taj for creating such beautiful projects this month.

We hope you all have a great weekend and get some time to craft.

Hello MLS fans! Happy St. Patrick's Day! Did you remember to wear green? It's not too late to run and change if you forgot. I am notorious for forgetting to wear green today and I'm even part Irish. Whatever you're doing celebrate, make sure you sport your green!

Now onto today's post...The team has been creating with our March sketch to bring you some inspiration but so many of you have already gotten busy and sketched it up! We're loving what's being posted on our Facebook page. Keep them coming!

Here's a look at the March sketch and what some of the girls have created

From Erin Yamabe

from Pattie

from Susan

from June

from Nicole

Thank you to our designers for creating your visions of the sketch for us! Join us next Thursday as we show you the rest of the Design Teams takes on March's sketch and if you'd like to give it a try hop over to the main post HERE to read all the details so you can play along. We are giving a prize of MLS goodies away too!

Hello MLS fans! Some of you have already started uploading your sketches to our FB page! We love seeing your work so keep them coming. For information on our March sketch challenge click here.

Today we've got some fantastic cards from our design team created with City by the Bay.

from Beckie

 I love the colors of the images and the way she used the City by the Bay individual stamps to create this city scene.

from Debbie

 Debbie created a nice city on a card too by cutting out the houses from the patterned paper!

This address book Debbie created is fun

 and finally this 3D house created by Susan. Love that button door knob.

Tomorrow our design team will be sharing their takes on March's sketch challenge!

Today design team members Tracy and Cindy are sharing their creations with our Sew Cute collection. I must admit it is a favorite collection of mine and many of the design team girls as well. You can create so many different themes with it and the colors...oh my!

From Tracy

Beach Baby

Anna

Here's some beautiful layouts from Cindy

All Dressed Up

Sew Happy

And some cute cards too!

With Love

That's a wrap for today's inspiration! We challenge you to make it a crafty day and create something handmade!

Yes that's right! We're glad to bring you another My Little Shoebox Sketch challenge right here on our blog! We love getting you all to dig into your stash of MLS goodies and create with us!

Here's the Sketch Aphra created just for My Little Shoebox this month

Now here's all the deets:

 Here's how you can play along:

• Create a layout based on this sketch using My Little Shoebox products
• Post your layout to your blog or favorite gallery and link back to this post
• or upload your layout to our My Little Shoebox gallery titled March sketch at our Facebook page
• or Leave us a comment below with the link to your layout

You have until midnight Pacific time on April 10th to post your link to this post or upload to the Facebook gallery and title your project March Sketch.

 What will you win??

How about a fabulous prize package of My Little Shoebox goodies and your layout featured along with your blog link right here on our blog!!

Our design team will be showing their takes on the sketch challenge this Thursday and Thursday the 24th right here on our blog.

We can't wait to see what you create!

Hello MLS fans! It's Friday and the waiting begins for those that applied for our Design Team as our call came to a close at midnight last night but you don't have to wait to long. We'll be announcing our new team March 31st right here on our blog and we can't wait to welcome our new team! Of course the other side of this coin is that we say goodbye to our current team soon...sniff sniff

And so, I am happy to announce that on Monday March 28th we'll be having a...

Join us as we look back with the girls at their favorite My Little Shoebox project with a hop from each member's blog. It's going to be fun and yes there will be a prize at the end of the Hop!

Now onto today's inspiration from our very own Gudrun

Just for You

You're the best!

Muffins

Thank you for being you

All of these projects are simply stunning and not to mention the photographs Beautiful work with our Garden Party collection Gudrun! Thank you for sharing your talents with us.

Enjoy your weekend everyone! Go get crafty!

Hello MLS fans! Today has arrived, the last day to submit your applications for our  Design Team call. You have until midnight pacific time to finish up those last little fixes and Go For It! If you've already gotten your submission in we thank you and wish all of our applicants good luck!

Deanna and Hilde are creating with Oasis for you today. I love that these ladies have such different paper crafting styles so that you can see the range of this beautiful collection.

Let's start with Hilde

Bly

Love those layers of distressed paper! Simply stunning!

Love

And a few cards

Hi!

Super cute cards huh! We love Hilde's unique style!

Now some creations from Deanna and we start with this fabulous layout with the oh so trendy banner!

First morning bliss

Baby blue

Love the weaving of the paper strips that Deanna did here.

Still think he's dreamy

This is a great masculine layout!

Smile

And we finish off with a super cute card. I love this image cut out and displayed for this simple sentiment.

Check your local stores for Oasis! We'd love to see what you're creating with this collection!

Hello MLS fans! We're bringing you some fresh picked designs from our Design Team with our Farmer's Market collection today. First we have some layouts from Pamela.

A new friend

Go ahead and cut up that cardstock! The banner that Pamela cut out of the Cherries Jubilee paper works great on this layout. Sometimes you may not have the right embellies in your stash so don't be afraid to create your own!

Happy

Is this fabulous quilt like hand stitched creation amazing or what? I asked Pamela how she has the patience to stitch so much on her layout and she shared that she does it while watching TV. Pretty smart if you ask me.

It's that time

Love these gardening pics and the way Pamela used the vegetable cardstock stickers in the right corner with her journaling above.

What a pair

Now we have some cards from Pattie

Happy Birthday

Stamping on ribbon is an easy technique for beginning stampers. For best results use Staz-On ink.

We make a perfect pair

You're invited

and finally from Pattie a layout

Sweetpeas

Those are Pattie's kids and they are so sweet. She also used some stitching here on this layout and created her own flower with paper and accented the leaves with Glossy Accents.

And to finish off today's post, here are some fun creations from Heather Brown.

So yummy

Special Girl

Happy Birthday

Love the way Heather used the flower stamp to create her own pattern in diferent colors of ink.

Welcome lil one

Thanks for stopping by the MLS blog! We hope you'll be inspired to create something fun today.

Hello MLS fans! Get out those MLS acrylic stamps cause June is hosting today's Tuesday Tutorial with a lesson on making your own patterned paper! Take it away June...

Making your own pattern paper

By: June Goh

Here's a simple way to make some pattern paper for your layout or card. All you need are some pattern papers and stamps from My Little Shoebox and you are all set.

You will need to pick a lightly patterned paper and the B-sides of the MLS papers are perfect for this purpose. Next pick the stamp image that best suits your requirements.

Stamp randomly all over the paper with your preferred ink. If you like your images a little glittery, sprinkle your stamped images with some glitter embossing powder and set the images with a heat gun. Once your images are dry, you can cut your new pattern paper and start creating.

 Here is another pattern that I did with some green pattern paper, green ink pad and the cute trees from the Simple Life stamp set.

Finish off with some MLS die cuts and stickers and you have a cute card for a loved one in no time.

Here's another card I did with the heart stamps that goes perfectly with the die cuts from Cute as a Button line.

Thanks for stopping by for my Tuesday Tutorial. I hope you will have a go at creating some of your own personal patterned paper with all the MLS goodies you have on hand.

Remember MLS fans, we feaure and additional tutorial each month in our Newsletter. Sign up in the top right of our blog.

Hello MLS fans! We hope you enjoyed your weekend and found some time for crafting too. We wanted to remind you that our Design Team call ends March 10th!

We encourage all who've been wanting to try out to GO FOR IT!

Hurry up and finish those submissions friends. We can't wait to be inspired by your work. For all the details click here.

Today we are showing you some Home Tweet Home inspiration from Design Team members Rocio and Shemaine.

First a look at some layouts from Rocio

I love this touching tribute to Rocio's mom. It's important to scrap our feelings so we always remember those we love.

From Shemaine

An 8X8 quick and easy layout

A little card inspiration...

Shemaine suggests "use coordinating journaling tags to stamp the clear stamp sentiments on so you can create a cute card in under 10 mins"

Rocio suggests "accent our cardstock stickers with Stickles or and glue pen and glitter" to make your cards shine!

If you own a Cricut, you can create shaped cards effortlessly like this one with the newer cartridges.

Make time to create something today!

Hey MLS fans it's Friday and today we are featuring some fab projects that have been shared on our Facebook page. We love seeing the projects you create with My Little Shoebox products so keep posting your creations to our Facebook fan page here. We'll try to throw a few Fan Fridays each month here on our blog to showcase YOU, our fabulous My Little Shoebox fans!

So craft it up with your MLS stash cause you just never know when you'll be spotted for Fan Friday!

                 Yvonne Yam

                        Eva Dobalis

                    Kates Dizon

               Stacy Rodriguez

Thanks ladies for sharing your My Little Shoebox creations with us! To all our fans out there keep them coming!! We can't wait to spot your work next!

Hello MLS fans! Last week on our Facebook page we gave away an entire collection of our Sew Cute collection. Each week we'll have a new giveaway so make sure you stop by to find out when you could win some MLS goodies!

Today we're featuring some more of our CHA work displayed in our booth with Pattie. She created some beautiful layouts and cards. Let's take a look

Love the lace and bling. That's Shelly, one of our design team members.

Love that she used the heart button from the clear stamp set and embossed with glitter.

Love this cute pic of Pattie and DT member Heather.

Now for some beautiful cards.

Our journaling tags are easy to use in your card designs

We hope you are inspired to create something cute with our Sew Cute collection. Check your local scrapbook stores for all of our new collections!

Hello MLS fans. Today we have some beautiful projects from Nicole Wragge with our City by the Bay collection. First up are some adorable layouts she created for our booth at CHA.

Nicole used a whole sheet of our mini alphas on this layout as an embellishment.

 Love this sweet layout of her daughter.

Nicole added some adorable trim to this layout that really softens it.

And with this layout, a little bling goes along way with this one! 

Here's a few cards Nicole created. Love that sun!

I like how the title is stacked and then cut out on cardstock.

And finally here's a peek at Nicole's altered project. A fun heart shaped mini album.

City by the Bay is a fun collection that can be adapted to so many different themes. We hope you'll share your creations with our collection on our Facebook page here.

Hello MLS fans. Today we are showing you more of out design team member's work from our booth at CHA. Today we are showing off some Oasis projects from our very own Debbie and Erin Y.

First some layouts from Debbie

Love the Prima flowers and bling.

Debbie cut out the cherry blossoms and added them in layers on this layout. Very creative.

This monochromatic layout really shines with the mix of Prima flowers and cut outs.

Next we have some cards from Erin

The lily pad stamps on craft paper are beautiful.

The pop of black on this card is nice.

and she did so on this card as well.

Our design team has been busy creating with all of our new collections and we can't wait to show you what they have made. Remember to visit us every day as we continue to bring you more inspiration from our Design Team.