Today is the day we’ve all been waiting for! Our first gallery with our new design team is here! They’ve done an outstanding job with our tags and have created projects that are sure to give you a ton of inspiration for your layouts and more! Make sure you check it out at our website, here.

We also have a little surprise in the gallery for you! We’ll be telling you more about it tomorrow, but see if you can find it today!

And, we wanted to let you know that our sweet Laura is on bed-rest because her baby tried to come a little early. Please keep her and the baby in your prayers. There won’t be a gallery from her this month, but her and the baby’s health is much more important to us 🙂

We hope you enjoy the gallery and take some of the inspiration with you into the weekend! Happy creating 🙂

Please note: if you do not see images from the new team members please clear your cache.

Tomorrow is the BIG day! Are you ready? Our new Design Team’s first Inspiration Gallery will be going live tomorrow! But, to hold you over until then, we have a little sneak peek above 🙂

Make sure you check back tomorrow, what these ladies have done is amazing!

Happy Monday, everyone!

We wanted to say thank you so, SO much for all your orders with our new launch! We are so excited that you love the new items and cannot wait to see what you create with them!

Most of the orders have been officially shipped now 🙂 check your inbox for your shipping confirmation. Thank you so much for your patience with our order processing time, too! It look us a little longer than expected to get all the orders out this time around, and we are so sorry for some of those delays! But, we are happy to report that we are almost back to our normal processing time of 1 – 3 days!

The winners of the Tim Holtz scissors where: Melissa Huie, Holly Sloat, and Abbey Richards! Congrats ladies! Your package has probably already arrived and we hope you enjoyed the surprise inside 🙂

You guys are all amazing and we appreciate your support more than words could ever express! You make this all possible and we are forever grateful for each and every one of you!

Love you all and happy creating!

There are many things I love about the Instax Camera, but my favorite has to be the small sized, white-frame pictures it produces. They just seem perfect for layouts and mini-albums (like our sold-out Savoring Summer mini album!)

Today I am going to share a few secrets on how to many your own “faux instax” with photos from ANY camera! It is really easy, and the results are just as wonderful (if not better, in my opinion) as if they came out of a real instax.

Mpix is a fabulous online source for high quality printing of your photos. It was suggested to me by my photographer friend, and I was shocked to see the difference between the quality of Mpix photos in comparison with drugstore prints. I have been ordering photos from Mpix ever since (regular sized, mini photos, AND frameable enlargements), and have been incredibly happy with the results.

I have always loved Mpix’s mini-wallet size prints– it measures 1.75″x 2.5″ and comes in a sheet of eight. Eight prints of the same photo may seem like alot- but i have found it to be perfect for those favorite photos I want to use in both mini albums, layouts, and other projects.

Recently I made an incredible discovery– the Mpix mini wallet is the EXACT same size as the photo portion of the instax!!! It is the perfect print to use in a “faux instax”.

So, once you have ordered your Mpix mini wallets, all you will need to do is trim a piece of white cardstock for the frame. The cardstock should measure 3.375″ x 2.125″.

Center your photo onto the cardstock leaving 5/8″ on the bottom and 1/4″ on top.

One final detail you can add, is to slightly trim the corners of the cardstock as shown below.

Now you have you have your own faux instax! (the two photos on the outside are from my actual instax camera). No one will be able to tell the difference!

Guess what, we have a special surprise for you today!! Mpix is generously offering Elle’s Studio fans 20% off prints! Enter the promo code ELLE11 at checkout to receive 20% off your print order. The code will expire 7/29/11. Happy shopping!

For today’s Take Out Tuesday, I chose to highlight two vertical 4×6 photos.  I’ve made it simple for you!  Simply grab a few photos from your “to scrapbook” pile, some ES tags and some patterned paper and you’re ready to go.

This layout features five different Elle’s Studio products.  I think that’s a new record for me.  I repeatedly tell Elle that her products are so easy to incorporate into my layouts as I create them.  They’re always the perfect finish touch to pull everything together.  This week I even created an embellishment from a tag by simply cutting a shape from it with a butterfly punch.  Just like that I had an embellishment that coordinated with my layout!

Elle’s Studio products used : Handmade Layers Large Journaling Tags, Chic Date Tags – Brights, Handmade Layers Circle Tags, Handmade Layers Journaling Circle Tags – Large and Vintage Baby Flashcards – Pink.

Other product used : Studio Calico’s Mind The Gap kit.

Click here to download this Take Out Tuesday PDF file, including a photo and step by step instructions of the project. Please click “Save” when prompted.

You must have Adobe Reader to open this file, if you do not have Adobe Reader, you can download it for free, here. If you are having problems downloading or opening, please make sure you have the latest updates for Adobe Reader.

If you create a project based on this Take Out Tuesday layout, we’d love to see it! Simply leave a comment below with a link to your project.

Today is the BIG day – we have over 40 new items in the shop! And, here’s a little peek at what you can find:

Tags for your summer memories! We have them in the 4 x 6 inch size and the larger, 3 inch circles!

Tags for everyday – in 4 x 6, 3 inch circles and tiny tags

We are also introducing our brand new tag set size called: Lil’ Snippets! These tags will coordinate with the papers you already have in your stash and will add the perfect finishing touch to your layouts, cards and more! Each sheet measures 3 x 6.5 inches and includes 3+ tags. They retail for 75 cents, so you can’t go wrong with these super affordable and extra cute tags!

To celebrate the launch of these tags, we are giving away three pairs of our favorite scissors by Tim Holtz! We will randomly draw three people that purchase a Lil’ Snippet today, and include them in your package when we ship your order!

Most of our Lil’ Snippets will work perfectly with your Project Life page protectors, too! Most have a top tag that measures 3 x 4, so all you have to do is snip them apart, journal on them and slip them in their spot! Here’s a little peek at some of them inside the protectors:

We designed 17 different Lil’ Snippets for this launch, so there is something for everyone!

We also did some new Pennants in turquoise, red, lime green and pink! There are 8 different pennants on each sheet.

And, our 2012 calendars are here, already! Now you can get a head start on all your Christmas calendar projects 🙂 We designed these new ones above, and are also carrying our original and standard calendar designs for 2012, too! Also, the first time ever, we loved our new Monthly Pennant design so much that we had to go back and design them for 2011, too!

And, we couldn’t resist making some Monthly Strips, too. They have a fun, vintage and hand sewn look to them that I just love!

By special request, we are now carrying our Mix & Match Vintage Numbers in turquoise, lime green and pink!

But that’s not all! There are still a ton of items to see, so make sure you hop on over to the shop and check them all out in our shop!

Thanks so much for stopping by and all of your support – we appreciate you all SO MUCH!!

I always love seeing “behind-the-scenes” of how things are made and thought I should share one with you today! Here is what our tags look after they are printed and before they are cut.

Only two more days until our big launch… and it’s a BIG one for sure! Make sure you check back on this Monday, July 11th, to see all the new goodies 🙂 We can hardly wait to show you!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

P.S. Just in case you missed our first sneak peek, you can check it out here!