Mini Album with Special Guest Heather Leopard

Here we are in a new month, with a brand new guest designer to inspire you! If you follow the scrapbooking industry, you will know this lovely lady’s work, and we are so excited that she is here with us on the Elle’s Studio blog! Let’s welcome Heather Leopard, and check out the beautiful mini album she made with this month’s kit!

Hello everyone!  It’s Heather Leopard and I am so honored to be here with you this month. I have loved working with Elle’s Studio products for years and years, so to be here sharing with you on her blog for the first time is so exciting! I’m a traditional scrapbooker, but I thought I’d change it up a bit today and create a fun mini album.

EllesStudioSpecialGuest-HeatherLeopard-01Supplies: May exclusive kit, Little Moments bits and pieces, Little Moments cutouts, Little Moments journaling tags, True Story acrylic, Good Stuff puffy stickers, letter and number stickers- black, letter and number stickers- light pink

This mini album was really easy to create and can be duplicated relatively quickly depending on how much “personality” you choose to add to each section.  Let’s take a look at my creative process:

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The mini album happened by accident really.  As I was looking through the tags in the May exclusive kit, I laid them out and starting picking and choosing which ones I might want to use on my layout.  I found several that I loved, as well as some journaling tags from the Little Moments collection.  As I looked down at them scattered about, I realized they’d be perfect for an accordion mini!

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Once I had all of my cards selected, I trimmed two sheets of white cardstock to 4″ x 12″. Next, I made one single long strip, sized at 4″ x 18″, by adhering and trimming down the second strip to the first, which served as the base to my mini.

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After creating my base, I decorated each tag and/or photo by adding some stitching. The key is to do this before you add it to your base so you’re not stitching through the other side.  I guess it’s okay to stitch through side one, but definitely not side two.  Once they were all stitched up, I adhered them to the base with strong adhesive. Beginning with side one, I added a 3” x 4” tag or photo and made my fold, which you can do using a bone folder or a scoring board, at the edge of the tag. I then added the next tag or photo and folded again, and repeated that process until I reached the end of side one.  Then I added any additional embellishments to the tags or photos.

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On side two, I repeated the same steps as on side one. On this side, I even used the 4” x 6” “sunshine” tag, but I just scored it in the middle along my fold. You can see here that I added stitching to one of my photos as well as the tags. This is important: when you get to the last tag or photo, make sure to adhere two pieces of ribbon or twine between the tag and the base layer, making sure that one piece is long enough to wrap around the entire album so that it can tie with the second piece in a bow to keep the album closed.

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I hope you enjoyed this mini album and see just how easy it is to create!  Follow me on Instagram for sneaks of the projects I’ll be sharing when I come back later this month.  Thanks again for having me!

EllesStudioSpecialGuest-HeatherLeopardHi! I’m Heather Leopard and I am thrilled to be guest designing for Elle’s Studio!  I was born and raised in the Lone Star State and live in Cypress, Texas with my family – hubby, 2 daughters, 1 bonus son, and 2 rescue dogs. I lead marketing initiatives for a major computer company but my real passion is playing with paper, glue and scissors.  I started scrapbooking in middle school WAY back and scrapped here and there through college. I got REALLY into it when I got married in 2002 and then I became OBSESSED with it when I had my babies, who aren’t really babies anymore. I love to scrap the little details and daily adventures of my family and I aim to capture the essence of whatever it is they are doing. My signature style includes lots of pattern mixing, matching, and layering in fun and unique ways. I also design for Shimelle.com and Gossamer Blue.

You can find more of Heather’s work at her blog, The Spotted Leopard, on her Instagram feed or at Periscope! Thanks so much for sharing your lovely mini, Heather!

Our May Kit + Extras are here!

EllesStudio-May2016KitOur May exclusive kit has arrived and is full of tags, exclusively designed by us, to help you share your stories in your scrapbooking layouts, Project Life albums, cards, planners, and more! When designing our kits, we love to think of tags that can be used as prompts to help make it easier for you to get your story started and documented, and this kit is full of that and more! Our May kit features beautiful bright colors, along with some great neutrals, and we love how the colors came together. This kit and the coordinating extras also feature illustrations by Rachel and lettering from Jen Schow!

May’s kit, shown above and below, is packed full of fun journaling, die cuts, and embellishment tags. Our kits now come with even more tags – each kit includes at least 16 3 x 4 inch tags in it, along with 4 x 6 inch tags, labels, and die cuts. Our May kit includes a ton of tags and die cuts that give you even more options for capturing and documenting your stories.

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Just a reminder that our kits are limited and once they sell out we will not be restocking. Look for a new kit each month on the 10th at 8:00 am PST, and as a special bonus to celebrate launch day, kits will be on sale for $9.99 for today only, regular price after that will be $11.99. These kits can ship first class: shipping for USA residents will start around $2 and goes up from there, depending on the weight of what is in your cart. For overseas, it will run about $8+ depending on your location.

Coordinating with our kit this month, we have a new stamp, alphabet stamp, acrylics (Sunshine, The Good Life, and sunglasses), and wood veneer ice cream cones:

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We also have some coordinating printables and cut files – once you download these files, you can use/print them over and over again!

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And, we have one more special surprise for you – FREE SHIPPING!

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Get FREE SHIPPING on all USA orders $50+ with coupon code SPRINGUSA and International orders of $75+ with coupon code SPRINGINT – This free shipping offer expires on May 11th at midnight and is valid for worldwide addresses. Offer is NOT valid on previous orders or wholesale orders. *Please note: if you are paying with PayPal, you will first visit PayPal to enter your information in, and then when you are returned to our site you will be able to enter the free shipping code. If you have any trouble, please contact us at info@shopellesstudio.com

Since today is the 10th, that means we also have some brand new inspiration for you in our Design Team Gallery from our Design Team!

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If you are looking for inspiration on how to use our new products on your layouts, Project Life pages, planner, cards, and MORE you’ll want to check out our Design Team Gallery to see what they’ve created. Don’t forget, you can bookmark your favorites, leave comments, and see close ups of our design team’s projects, too! Our team will also be contributing to our blog all month long, along with two special guests who have created some great projects that we will be sharing with you here on our blog!

Thank you so much for joining us for our launch day and for your support – we can’t wait to see what you create with these new products!

National Scrapbook Day Giveaway!

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Happy National Scrapbook Day, everyone! What could be better than a day OR weekend dedicated to the hobby we love?! We are celebrating this special holiday with a HUGE giveaway here on our blog!

We have FOUR of these boxes, packed full of Elle’s Studio products, to giveaway!

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TO ENTER TO WIN
one of these awesome boxes, just leave a comment below, here on our blog (one comment per person, please). We’ll draw four winners on Monday, May 9th, 2016!

Did you spy a May kit in the box of goodies?! In case you missed our sneak peek of what’s to come on Tuesday, May 10th, we want to share it with you again:

EllesStudio-SneakPeek01-May2016Our next launch brings another perfect kit + coordinating extras to help you capture your memories and share your stories! And, don’t forget, you’ll be able to pick up this kit for our launch day special pricing of only $9.99 and get FREE SHIPPING on your entire order with the following coupon codes:

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We are giving you the code now so you’ll be ready! Get FREE SHIPPING on all USA orders $50+ with coupon code SPRINGUSA and International orders of $75+ with coupon code SPRINGINT – This free shipping offer expires on May 11th at midnight and is valid for worldwide addresses. Offer is NOT valid on previous orders or wholesale orders. *Please note: if you are paying with PayPal, you will first visit PayPal to enter your information in, and then when you are returned to our site you will be able to enter the free shipping code. If you have any trouble, please contact us at info@shopellesstudio.com

Make sure you set your alarm and mark your calendar for Tuesday, May 10th at 8:00 am PST! If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, make sure you do to receive a reminder of when everything is available for sale!

We hope everyone has a wonderful weekend, and Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

A sneak peek at what is coming on May 10th!

EllesStudio-SneakPeek01-May2016Happy May, everyone! May 10th is almost here and our next launch brings another perfect kit + coordinating extras to help you capture your memories and share your stories! Our May kit is full of beautiful bright colors, along with some great neutral tags, and we love how the colors came together. This kit and the coordinating extras also feature illustrations by Rachel and lettering from Jen Schow!

Our coordinating extras this month include two stamps (one being a 4 x 6 inch alphabet stamp!), acrylics, wood veneers, printables, and cut files!

Get ready to pick up this kit for our launch day special pricing of only $9.99 on Tuesday, May 10th, at 8:00 am PST. After the 10th, our kits go back to their regular price of $11.99. These kits can ship first class, so depending on your location, shipping starts out at around $2 for USA, and $6+ for international. But, we have a special surprise for you:

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We are giving you the code now so you’ll be ready! Get FREE SHIPPING on all USA orders $50+ with coupon code SPRINGUSA and International orders of $75+ with coupon code SPRINGINT – This free shipping offer expires on May 11th at midnight and is valid for worldwide addresses. Offer is NOT valid on previous orders or wholesale orders. *Please note: if you are paying with PayPal, you will first visit PayPal to enter your information in, and then when you are returned to our site you will be able to enter the free shipping code. If you have any trouble, please contact us at info@shopellesstudio.com

Make sure you set your alarm and mark your calendar for Tuesday, May 10th at 8:00 am PST! If you haven’t signed up for our newsletter, make sure you do to receive a reminder of when everything is available for sale!  We hope to see you there!

Travel Mini Album with Jamie Leija

Hiya, it’s Jamie! Today, I’m sharing my latest travel mini book!

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My boyfriend and I took a trip to Charleston last fall, to celebrate his 35th birthday. It was a quick trip and unfortunately I got food poisoning right at the beginning. So I was basically out of commission for a day and a half. Not to worry, I survived! But it meant that we didn’t do as much as we wanted to and I didn’t take very many photos.

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That’s one reason I thought I’d make a mini book of the trip. Mini books can be as long or as short as you want them to be! They can be detailed or simple, full of ephemera or just your photos. This book only has 14 photos and I managed to get in 6 pieces of ephemera as well. Even those it’s on the shorter side, it still encompasses everything I wanted to highlight about the trip.

I took more photos of the mini book than are actually in the mini book! Because I wanted to share as much of the details as I could with you. I put together a short slide show that flips through the entire album.

I love stamping on photos and thought the “Here we go >>” was perfect for the first photo. It’s from the Travelogue stamp set.

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I used Travelogue goodies (journaling tags, labels, and stamp) for this mini, which is 4×4 sized. The Adventure wood veneer was the prefect title page. I love that it was smaller than my photo size and that you can see through it. I cut down a page protector and since I don’t have a Fuse tool, simply used some washi tape to secure it closed.

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The colors from the journaling Tags and labels are just so fun and vibrant! I love the bright pops they bring to this mini. I cut the 4×6 map of the world one down to 4×4, stamped on it and added the date and location. I want about 50 more of this card!

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As I mentioned earlier, I don’t have a Fuse tool to alter my page protectors. But I knew I wanted to use the 3×4 journaling tags for my journaling. I ended up using an attacher die cut and some vellum to add them to the book, quick and easy!

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This was so simple to make and only took a few hours to put together. Love projects that come together so quickly! ES-TravelMini16 ES-TravelMini29 ES-TravelMini17ES-TravelMini18
ES-TravelMini19 ES-TravelMini30ES-TravelMini20ES-TravelMini21Supplies used: Travelogue Journaling tags, Travelogue Labels, Travelogue Stamp, Adventure Wood Veneer, and The Story Of stamp.

Thanks for joining us today – We would love to see how you are using our Travel products on your projects! Make sure you share your projects with us in our Member Gallery or on Instagram with the hashtag #ellesstudio!

Project Life with Special Guest Tracy

Tracy is back with us today sharing a colorful, photo-focused pocket page spread that she accented with tags from the April exclusive kit! We just love her clean, simple style of photography, and how well her photos work with ES exclusives! Let’s see how she did it!

Hey everyone! Tracy here again! I hope you enjoyed checking out my last project using the Elle’s Studio Little Moments collection! Today I’m excited to be showing you a spread out of my 2016 pocket page album.

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This year I’m using a 6” x 12” sized format and so far I’m loving it! For this spread I used tags from the April exclusive kit! I love how colorful this kit is and even though my photos were from the end of February/start of March, the bright colours still worked! Just like my traditional layout from earlier this month, my pocket page album is pretty full of pictures of me and my dog, Sophie. What I love about using this format to document is that I can include all of the big and little moments of everyday life.

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My spreads always come together the same way: photos first, then embellishments and journal/filler tags. As you can see, I insert all of the photos into the pockets and spread all of my supplies out on my desk. It’s messy, yes, but this way I can see what pieces will work best with the photos I have.

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I took the bottom right picture and used that to anchor all of the colors of the spread. Because I’m doing a smaller format this year, I usually keep filler/journal cards to a minimum and then use embellishments right on top of the pictures. By giving them a bit of dimension, I feel that this really helps to make the pictures pop! I really loved the wood veneer labels and layered one on top of a die cut from the April kit.

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I really hope you guys enjoyed taking a peek into my album! And I want to thank Elle’s Studio for inviting me to be a guest designer this month! Hope you all have a great day!

EllesStudio-GuestTracyMy name is Tracy! I live in Vancouver, BC with my adorable little pup, Sophie. During the day I work as an administrative assistant, but by night, I’m a crafter. I’ve been scrapbooking for the last four years and I really enjoy it. When I’m not crafting, I’m probably drinking coffee and listening to music (or binge watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix). My two favourite places in the world are New York City and Disneyland. I started the Single Girl’s Scrapbook to show that even if you aren’t married or don’t have kids, you can document your life. All moments are special ones!

You can find more of Tracy’s work at her Instagram, and blog.

Sunny Days Collection Pack winners

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We LOVED reading all your comments and seeing what your favorite parts are of our new collection are! We have randomly drawn two winners to announce from our giveaway – they are:

Suzanne Spokus

Jennifer Wymore

Congrats, ladies! Please email us at info@shopellesstudio.com to claim your prize! Thank you all so much for taking the time to enter our giveaway!

This new collection will start shipping to stores at the end of May and is available for wholesale pre-order now, so make sure you call your local scrapbook store or email your favorite online store and request this collection! This collection should also be available in our shop in June.

In your Planner with Candi Billman

Candi here today and I am SUPER excited to share some mini scrapbook pages that I created to tuck inside my personal size planner! I recently went to a Planner Meet Up in Chicago and met so many fabulous ladies!  I thought what a great way to remember that fun day by creating a few mini scrapbook pages for my planner.  Now whenever I open up my planner, I will be reminded of that wonderful day!!!

To start off I grabbed two doubled sided sheets from the Little Moments 12 x 12 Paper Collection.  I took those two sheets and trimmed them both down to size to fit my personal size planner.  To punch holes in each sheet, I grabbed an insert that was already in my planner and used that as a template and punched holes with a single hole punch.

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For each “layout” I added an instax photo from the event, plus lots of goodies from the April Kit.  At the Planner Meet Up there was a sheet that had the times of the different events going on throughout the day and I added that right onto the page by folding the sheet up in thirds.

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I can’t get over how cute these mini scrapbook pages turned out!  Now I want to add more inside my planner from different occasions!!!

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Now it’s your turn to share – grab some tags from your latest ES monthly kit and get crafty inside you planner…I wanna see!!!  If you do share on IG make sure to use hashtag #ellesstudio 🙂

Little Moments with Nancy Damiano

Hello everyone – Nancy here! This month celebrates the return of the sun! The transition into Spring is my favorite time of the year, extra sunshine is always a good thing. To reflect that, I started this layout with the whimsical sun April kit cut file. It set the base of the layout.

EllesStudio-NancyDamiano-LittleMoments01Products Used:  Travelogue Journaling Tags, Little Moments Acrylic, Days of the Week Acrylics, Little Moments 12 x 12 paper, Little Moments 6 x 6 paperLittle Moments Bits and Pieces, and April Cut File

Backing the sun cut outs with the All My Heart patterned paper from the Little Moments collection added a punch of hot pink color in a beautiful ombre.

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Cards from the Travelogue Journaling Tags clustered in the center of the design frame out the photo. The Little Moments and Days of the Week acrylics give the page it’s title and some movement. A heart die cut sewn on in the center of a journaling card for texture.

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Adding the story in one of the sun cut out shapes makes it a focal point – and that’s a great thing! It’s easy to journal on a section of patterned paper, center and cut out (hiding the cut out part behind the white die cut).

Combing the Little Moments collection + the Travelogue Limited Edition Collection are a perfect way to tell all of your stories – whether they are about traveling near (like this page) or far!