Challenge | Use Your Tags As A Border

It’s the first Wednesday of October and we’re excited to be bringing back our challenge series!  On the first and third Wednesdays of each month, we’ll be issuing you a challenge and then asking you to create a project.  
Here’s how it works: Every other week we will give you a layout example and a short description of what to do/use for the particular challenge. Complete the challenge and upload it to our member gallery to be entered  and then post a link to the specific challenge post as a comment for your chance to WIN! The winner will receive a $10 Elle’s Studio Gift Certificate to use in our shop (winners will be announced during next Challenge post). 

Today’s Challenge was inspired by a layout created by Lisa Dickinson for our CHA booth using the Elle’s Studio Penelope Collection which is now available on our site!

CHALLENGE | Use your Elle’s Studio tags as a border.

New ES Contributing Team member Melissa Mann utilized our Cameron collection to create this layout with this week’s challenge in mind.  This challenge is the perfect way to utilize the odds and ends of various tag embellishments that you might have left out on your desk or that you simply have hanging out in your stash.
Are you ready to play along?  Entries are due by October 15, 2013 and the winner will be announced on October 16, 2013.  Here’s how to enter:
  • Complete a project based off our challenge
  • Upload your project to our member gallery
  • Tag all Elle’s Studio items used when uploading to our member gallery
  • Write in the description that this is for the October 2nd Challenge (very important so we see it’s an entry)
  • Come back here and post a link to your project in this post.
We can’t wait to see what you create!
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Elle’s Studio Design Team Call for January – June 2014!

It’s that time again! We’re looking for some amazing scrapbookers that love to scrapbook and work with our products, to be on our design team for the first half of 2014 (January – June).

Design Team Member Responsibilities:
– Creating 2 layouts + 1 additional item (card, tag, project, mini album, etc.) and uploading them to our site each month for our inspiration gallery.
– Meeting project and photo deadlines each month.
– Participating in blog tutorials, sketches, blog hops, etc. as scheduled.
– Maintaining communication with the rest of the design team and Elle’s Studio
– Posting your Elle’s Studio projects online on your personal blog and two scrapbook galleries online each month, including a link to the Elle’s Studio website (if allowed).

You will receive:
– All your layouts, cards, tags and projects posted on our site and blog
– Tons of Elle’s Studio products to work with!
– A link on our blog to yours
– Ability to request items for projects you have in mind

To apply:
We have set up a special email account for collecting applications only. Please send the following to us in one email, to ellesstudio@gmail.com Applications are due by October 20th:
– Two images of two different layouts, cards or project(s) that best represent you and your style. Images must be no larger than 600 x 600 px. Bonus points if they include ES tags!
– A short 300 word bio about you
– Link to your blog
– Link to any gallery you are currently posting to

We will be contacting potential design team members by November 10th and announcing the design team members, here at our blog, soon after that!

Please note: Overseas and international designers are welcomed to apply, too – we’d love to have people from all over the world design for us!

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Project Life

This week’s Project Life covers the week of Sept 2- September 8th.

Confession: when I allow myself to get behind in Project Life, I suddenly feel uninspired when I am playing catch up.   I am not strict on “keeping up” by any means, but I think I am more inspired when the memories are fresh in my mind.   Or at least more recent than four weeks ago 🙂

As I sat down to create this spread, I began to put it together in my traditional method.   I was moving the photos around, not feeling very inspired.   I knew I wanted to include the enlargement from the Mumford & Sons concert, but I wasn’t sure about everything else.   Should I include an insert?  Should I add ALL the photos from the week?

That was when I decided to have a little fun and play with the photos and layouts.   Three photos and one full journaling spot is what this spread ended up to be— and that is okay!  I focused on the main stories that week– the concert, my husband and brother going to Florida, and time spent with my parents.  I enlarged these photos and memories and played with embellishments and lettering.

And you know what, I love the change.

For my journaling for the concert, I simply added the playlist from that night.  All of these photos were taken with my iPhone and printed at www.mpix.com.   To take a bokeh photo of the concert lights I tapped the dark portion of the image on the screen so that the lights would go out of focus and quickly snapped the pic. It took a few tries (because your phone will automatically try to focus on the lights) but I love the magical feel it offers.

We want to feature your Project Life album!  During the last week of each month we will be featuring a couple Project Life spreads that caught our eye in the Member Gallery.  We will be posting Project Life spreads on our blog tomorrow!   If your spread is featured we will be sending you a $5 gift card to use in our store.   Good Luck!
Project Life was created by Becky Higgins as a way to simplify how you document life and preserve memories. Photo pockets used in my Project Life album are created by Becky and can be found here.  You can read of all the Elle’s Studio Project Life posts here.

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Our new collections are available now!

The BIG day has arrived and all three of our brand new collections are now in-stock in our shop! We are excited to be bringing you our first all-girl collection called Penelope, our Christmas themed collection we named Noel, and our 2014 calendars extra early so you can get started on those mini-album Christmas presents!

We are also excited to let you know that we have stocked 4 more layout kits! We have kits from Becky Novacek and Janna Werner (that were pulled right from their October galleries), and Megan Klauer and Elle Price.

Our layout kits are perfect for someone just learning to scrapbook or for someone who just wants to get something done quickly! Minimal cutting is involved because almost everything comes cut to size and easy to follow instructions are included! Just gather your photos and adhesive and you’re set to have a layout done in no time!
It’s a BIG and fun day and we hope you enjoy all the new items! 
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Project Spotlight – September 29th

Congrats to this week’s Project Spotlight winner, Gina! Check your email for your $10 Elle’s Studio gift certificate to use in our shop! This is a perfect example of how versatile our Cameron line is! We love this awesome layout of Gina’s daughter! Head on over to her gallery to check it out and you can even add it to your favorites by logging into your account and clicking on the “I (heart) this!” button. 

You never know when your project will be chosen to be spotlighted! Each week we pick a new project out of our member gallery to spotlight. For your chance to be spotlighted and to win a $10 Elle’s Studio gift certificate, just upload your project to our member gallery and tag the Elle’s Studio item(s) used!
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Announcing our new Contributing Team!

I’m thrilled to announce that we have started a second team to continually inspire you! Our new Contributing Team will be made up of past Design Team members and guests, and will be something we continually add members to over the months and years.

Our first additions to the Contrubiting Team are:

Daniela Dobson, Meghann Andrew, Angie Gutshall, Kay Rogers, Jennifer Chapin, and Melissa Mann

We are excited to feature these members and have them working with our products again and will be expanding the team very soon! Look on their blogs for inspiration every month with our exclusive and limited edition monthly kits, special features on our blog, and more!

Also, we wanted to mention that our next Design Team call is right around the corner 🙂 We’ll be announcing it here on the blog next week!

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September #EllesStudio on Instagram

We’ve had this blog series on our to-do list for a while now so we’re excited that today we’re making it happen!  We love when you share the projects you’re working on, the products you’ve purchased and basically anything Elle’s Studio related on Instagram.  It’s flattering!

Here are a few of our favorite ES Instagrams from the month of September :

We’d love to feature YOUR Instagram shot featuring Elle’s Studio next month!  Be sure to use #EllesStudio  so that we can easily find it!
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sketch thursday

Today’s sketch was inspired by Suz’s He tied the knot layout from this month’s DT gallery.



Annette is joining us again today with another beautiful layout:
“I was inspired by Suz’s cute layout that celebrating a simple but fun moment. It reminded me of making chocolate muffins with my daughter when my husband was out of town, and how she wanted to play Happy Birthday with it. So we did on a Wednesday night. And it was just a fun moment to cherish. I was inspired to use the single photo placement (with the grid paper background)with the main bulk of elements on the right side of the page, along with a cute banner at the top left. I adapted it to an 8.5×11 page and so I used spray mist for my circles (hard to see with the photo.) Also added the gold thread stapled in a “knot” for a little accent and to incorporate her theme a little. Added strips and a tab from the Penelope collection to finish it off. Love how it turned out!” Annette


For a chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the Shop create a project inspired by today’s sketch, upload it to our Member Gallery and post a link here. A random winner will be selected and announced with next week’s sketch.


Last week’s randomly selected winner is…Kristina

Congratulations!! Please email michelle@shopellesstudio.com the following info:
Name/Address:
Contest: Sketch 09.19
Prize: $10 Elle’s Studio gift certificate
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Project Life Member Gallery Spotlight

I am always so inspired by the Project Life spreads found in our Member Gallery!  We just love looking at your work!   Here are a few that caught my eye this month!

I love the layouts that krystyn13 posted in our Member Gallery!  I love how she used the Summer Bucket List (and typed on it) from our Saltwater Collection.   In the second layout, the beach photos with the woodgrain “Beautiful Day” tag is perfect together!
I love that Mariclaudi really focused on the photos in this spread!  The orange card stands out as a great compliment to the many photos. 

There is so much good stuff in damitaprilurcool ‘s layout– I love all the photos, colors, and tags she was able to incorporate.   Including a list of the books currently reading is such a great idea!

Congrats ladies!  Please contact michelle@shopellesstudio.com with the following information:

Name/Address:
Contest: Project Life Member Gallery Spotlight
Prize: $5 GC

We would love to feature YOU on our blog!  Just upload your Project Life Spread in our Member Gallery and you may be featured! 


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fun with cards


Hi guys. Fun with cards is back! This is the perfect time of year to send a handmade, handwritten note to a special one. I recently received a card from a friend and I have to tell you, it really meant a lot to me. I keep going back to read it over and over and it makes me smile every time.

Today’s cards are all about mixing colors, patterns and shapes:

all my heart: I love this paper from the Penelope collection and decided to use it as a background. I cut around the hexagons, removed some and layered others on top of the same color. To make those stand out a bit I inked the edges with a soft grey ink. The paper clip tag worked perfectly as a sentiment.


many thanks: On this card, I mixed Penelope with September’s monthly kit. I added two paper strips to a white background, punched fall leaves in different colors and finished it up with a banner. Very simple.

hello friends: Here I mixed August kit with September’s. I love how well all the kits coordinate! I layered the striped card with the frame, then added a few sequins to make it a bit more festive 🙂

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