We are celebrating National Scrapbooking Day all weekend long and we have some fun giveaways and extra special sales planned just for you!
There is FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $45 (use coupon code NSDB2010 at checkout) all weekend long at our shop! This includes international orders, too!

We’ve also put all our Limited Quantity Items on sale at 25% – 75% off! Don’t miss out on this amazing deal – all these items will never be printed again, so get them while supplies last! New, Limited Items where just added, too! Including some valentine’s items and calendars!
And, just in time for Mother’s and Father’s Day, we put these two digital kits on sale for 50% off, this weekend only! These two kits are great for making cards, or even a mini album for your special parents 🙂

BUT! To make this party even more special, we’ve decided to give the Mother’s Day Digital Download FREE to the first 15 orders placed, starting now! The link to the free download will be emailed to you after your purchased has been made.

Lots going on 🙂 and still MORE to come! We’ll be having some fun giveaways Saturday and Sunday, so make sure you check back!

Happy Scrapbooking Day!
xo, Elle

Today we have a fun banner tutorial for you! It’s pretty easy to make, and flexible, too, so you can use up some items from your stash! I chose the word “Welcome” because I’m giving it to my mom for Mother’s Day, but you could chose “sunshine” or “summer”, or something completely different 🙂 Totally up to you!

Let’s get started!
You’ll need:
Elle’s Studio Mini Papers
Elle’s Studio Sweet Summer Circles
Maya Road Mixed Scallop Triangle Banner Album
Old book papers
Exacto Knife
Sissors
Glitter
Paint (if your glitter is see through)
Adhesives: Helmar Tape Runner, ZapDots, 450
Chipboard letters
Embellishments
Ribbon or Seam Binding
1. Start by cutting your Elle’s mini papers into 1 inch strips and your book papers into 1.5 inch strips.
2. If your glitter is see through like mine, you’ll want to paint the chipboard so the color of the paint will show through the glitter. It was a hard choice between pink or aqua, but I went with pink 🙂
Just paint the scalloped part, the other parts won’t show.
3. While those are drying, we’ll get our circles ready. Start by fringing your book papers. I tried to make my cuts at every 1/4 inch. (BTW: Those Tim Holtz scissors are amazing!! I wish I would have bought them along time ago!!)
3. Then, I took my Helmar tape runner and ran it along the bottom, unfringed edge. This tape runner is my FAVORITE! This worked so much better than glue, which I have used in the past. No waiting for it to dry and these Helmar tape runners really, REALLY stick!
4. Oops! Forgot to ink the edges of the circle tags! No worries, the glue from the tape runner won’t dry 🙂
The inking around the edges really helps the circles stand out since they where almost the same cream color as the book pages. I got a little wild with that green one up there 🙂
5. Okay, we are ready to start putting the book pages on the circles! You’ll want to work the fringed book pages around the back of the circle tags, starting about 2/3 the way into the center.
Keep adding fringed book pages until you get the fullness you’re looking for. This took about 3.5 book strips for me, but it was a shorter book, so for you it will vary.
Here’s the view from the front (above), back view is below:
6. I cut small circles and glued them with the Helmar 450 glue, on the back, so that later, the ZapDots will have something to stick to.
7. Once you’re circles are done you can move on to making the quilts on your banner! We’ll start with the non-scalloped edged triangles. Glue the Elle’s Mini Paper 1 inch strips onto the chipboard and make sure you are going over and off the edge of the triangle.
Try to vary where the seems hit, this will help give it that extra quilted look. I started with using glue, then I switched to the tape runner. The tape runner worked perfectly and saved me lots of drying time!!
Ta da!
8. Flip it over and trim the edges off with your Exacto knife.
When you flip it back over, it will look like this!
9. Okay, this is where it gets a little trickier… And, you can see I went back to the glue, but later I switched again to the tape runner 🙂 I am so used to grabbing for the glue!!

When working with the scalloped edges you have to be very careful to not get any glue on the scalloped edges. You’ll want to glue, or run the tape up to the edge of the scallop, but not into the scallop!
This is what it will look like when you glue your strips on, they should lift off those scalloped edges 🙂
Keep going with those paper strips!
10. Once it is completely covered in paper you are ready to cut off the extra edges. This gets a little tricky, too, but I’ll try to explain it as best as possible…

First, flip it over so you can see the back. This lets you see where each scallop is. At the very top scallop (on both sides), cut a slit with your Exacto knife, and at the very bottom cut both sides of that point with your Exacto knife.

Flip it back over, and make sure you can see your two slits at the top and the cut point at the bottom.
11. Now, grab one of those triangle banner pieces without a scalloped edge (I had an extra because my word was only 7 letters). Put the non-scalloped piece on top of the covered scalloped piece and line it up with your slits.
12. Run your Exacto knife along the non-scalloped edge piece, cutting off the paper pieces that are on the scalloped piece.
This is what it will look like!
Here’s a close up 🙂
13. Now you’re ready to glitter! I did one side at a time so the glue wouldn’t dry before I could get the glitter on. You’ll want to just glue the scalloped, painted edge. Try to not get any glue on the paper part. I used a paint brush to brush the glue on.
Love that glitter!
14. After the glitter dries you are ready to start assembling!
15. Use your fingers to crinkle the edges of the fringe book pages around the circle. Here’s a after/before shot 🙂
16. For the ribbon, I used four different shades of pink seam binding to string through my banner. When working with mulitple pieces of ribbons or yarn, you’ll want to loop the ends over and tape them together so you can push them through the holes easily.

Make sure you go back and cut slits where the ribbon is going to go through if you haven’t already!
17. Once your banner is strung, you can start adding those circles!
I used two ZapDots per circle, on the back.
18. Stick the circles to the banner pieces, add your letters to the circles and then add any extra embelllishments to them! We had a sheet of the Girl Friday Ready-Set-Chip from Cosmo Cricket and the butterflies and little “You are here” arrow worked out perfectly!
Ta da! It’s finished 🙂 I can’t wait to give this to my mom for Mother’s Day and see where she hangs it!

Please feel free to ask any questions, if you have them! I’ll do my best to respond to them in the comments section!

Happy creating!!
xo, Elle

With all the excitement of our new product launch last week, we totally forgot to mention and point out that are circle tags have grown! Some of these tags are now 3 inches, instead of our standard 2 inch!

The 3 inch tags come in the following sets: Birthday, A Sweet Summer, Triple Scallops and Vintage Notes.
In the photo above is a side by side shot of a 3 inch circle vs. 2 inch circle! They are big and have extra room for longer journaling, could hold a photo that is cut into a circle and more!

NSD Plans! We have a couple of fun things planned for National Scrapbooking Day on May 1st – but, one of them will only be available to our newsletter readers! So, make sure you are on the list, you can sign up here!

Hope everyone’s having a good Monday!
xo, Elle
P.S. I started my Week In The Life project this week, because last week was too crazy. So, I’ll be sharing my process with you soon! I really, REALLY recommend this project – it’s so fun and interesting! I’ll be using these tags, and making a little mini book with them!

Here’s a little preview of the amazing creations our design team has made to inspire you for April!By Jenni

By Paige

By Daniela

By Laurie

By Samantha

By Mel

The new April gallery is now live! Make sure you head on over there and check them all out – they are amazing!!

Thank you so much for putting such amazing creations together, ladies! I love this team 🙂
xo, Elle

We are super excited to announce today that we have 36 new items in the shop!

There is a ton of fun going on in this launch! We made a full line called “A Summer’s Breeze” – it contains mini papers, journaling tags, note/atc tags, tiny tags, stamps and MORE!

We expanded our birthday and baby category, along with adding more tiny tags and more ATC sized tags! Plus, can’t forget about the new vintage tags, too! There’s lots to see, make sure you check it out!
We were playing around with them and couldn’t resist making this layout of my sweet little one 🙂 We are loving the colors and patterns in our new “A Summer’s Breeze” line, it has a very light cream color that gives it the perfect vintage look. The quilt pattern was inspired by a quilt that my great grandma made for my mom when she was a little girl, I’ll have to show it to you sometime!
If you are participating in Ali’s “Week In The Life” these new tags are perfect for your project! I love this idea of being able to tuck a photo into a photo sleeve and then follow it up with a small tag that has a little bit of journaling on it! Our Tiny Tags or Date and Place Strips are perfect for this! Plus, all our ATC sized tags fit right into the ATC/baseball card photo sleeves!
I think this will be how I put some of my sister’s baby album together, and mix in some full layouts, too! Eek!! Can’t wait to get started on that 🙂

Hope you all like the new items! Thanks for stopping by today!
xo, Elle

P.S. I was so excited I almost forgot we have two winners to announce! Our winners from the post below are:
Meg at April 16, 2010 11:42 PM
Emeraldvalkyrie at April 18, 2010 8:24 AM

Please email me your address and we’ll get your goodies out asap! Thanks so much to everyone who left a comment!

P.P.S. Don’t forget! Your cards for our card challenge must be postmarked by TODAY! Huge thanks to everyone who has sent cards in already!!

We are getting really excited for our big launch on Monday morning! We’ve been packaging the items up all week and having a blast over here in the studio. We decided to go live with this launch a little earlier than normal for the people in the later time zones. All new items will launch at 7:00 am PST this coming Monday, April 19th. There will be over 30 new items, with a complete summer line (mini papers, journaling tags, stamps), birthday tags, baby tags, vintage tags and lots, LOTS more!

To celebrate, we thought we should have a giveaway leading up to the launch! WOOHOO!!!! The sneak peek above features six different journaling tag sets! We’ll pick two winners that will each win all six sets! Just leave a comment below, about your favorite part of spring, to be entered! We’ll draw names Monday morning 🙂

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend!
xo, Elle

The last couple months I’ve been hearing a ton of talk about Monkey Bread and it always looked sooooo good! When I found out that The Pioneer Women featured it awhile back, I knew I HAD to try it. Have you seen her blog and cookbook? ALL her recipes turn out delicious and are easy to do – she is my hero 🙂

Now, I usually follow every recipe by the book, but there was one small problem here… She used the pre-made biscuits 🙁 For some reason, I don’t really like those, they always leave a funny taste in my mouth… But I knew I LOVED Rhodes Dinner Rolls, so I experimented a little and after a couple of tries, it turned out perfect! Here’s a look at what I did:
Gather your ingredients.
First, open the bag of rolls up and let them thaw out for about an hour.
Mix the sugar and cinnamon together. You could also do this in a zip lock bag.
Grease your pan. I used a 13 x 19.
Cut your rolls into 1/4. First time I tried this, I did 1/2, and they turned out bigger than one bite… even though the 1/4 will look small, they grow when they bake!
Put the quartered rolls into the cinnamon sugar mix.
Mix them up 🙂
Pull the coated pieces out and put them in the 13 x 19 pan.
This shows how close your going to cut it with your cinnamon sugar mix, it’s just enough! The little bit that is left, I sprinkled over the top of the rolls in the pan.
Yuuuummmmy!
Okay, start melting the evidence… I mean butter 🙂
The brown sugar goes into the butter and needs to cook until the sugar and butter combine together, about 2 minutes… depends on how hot your heat is.
This is what it should look like!
Now, pour the mixture over the sugary rolls. Try to get it as even as possible.
Ta da! It’s ready for the oven!
Wait. Had to get a close up shot 🙂
I baked this batch for 35 minutes. The first batch I baked for 20 minutes and it was pretty doughy. Baking for 35 minutes makes the tops a little crunchy, but everyone said it was better this way.

Notice how close the rolls and sauce come to spilling over the pan? Best to put something on the rack below so you don’t make a mess in the oven.
Here they are! Are you getting hungry, yet?

In true Pioneer Women fashion, and because I love how she does this, I now must tempt you even more 🙂
See how the sugar cinnamon mix completely coats them? This makes them pull apart so easily.
And, really, the fork is just for the photo 🙂 at this point I wasn’t wasting time eating them using a fork 🙂
Yes, totally okay to lick the plate, I won’t tell anyone!
Another close up 🙂
Uh oh! I told everyone they could try ONE before the company arrived… Who tried more than 10?!!

Ingredients:
36 Rhodes Dinner Rolls, thawed
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon

1 1/2 cubes of butter
1 cup brown sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350

Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Cut the rolls into 1/4 pieces and coat each piece in the sugar/cinnamon mix. Lay the coated rolls into a greased 13 x 19 casserole dish.

Melt the butter on the stove over med. heat. Once melted, pour in the cup of brown sugar and stir constantly. When the butter and sugar have combined (about 2 minutes), pour this mixture over the rolls in the pan.

Cook them in the oven for 35 minutes – these will come very close to spilling over when they bake, so if possible, protect your oven with a pan on the rack below.

Try to let them cool a little before diving in 😉 They are best when warm. Enjoy!

We got a chance to play with some samples last week and test them out… here is a special sneak peek at some of the new items, plus some of the things we made with the samples 🙂
We’ll have some more sneak peeks later on this week, but we really can’t wait for the full reveal! There’s a lot in this launch… over 30 new items!! A full summer line with mini papers, journaling tags, stamps and more! Plus, new baby items, everyday journaling tags, more birthday tags, lots of vintage tags and MORE!

We hope you like the sneak peeks!
xo, Elle

My name is Daniela Dobson. I grew up in Croatia. When I was 14, I moved to Texas to live with my Dad. I still live in Dallas, with my husband, Peter, and our little boy, Alex, who turned 2 in January. I graduated college with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing and I worked in an operating room until Alex was born. Now, my days are filled taking care of him and I am grateful that I am able to stay at home and watch him grow.

What is your favorite color combo?
I love pink, yellow and blue together. Orange, blue and green is my second favorite combination.
What is your favorite scrapbooking supply?
I love patterned paper, I love mixing different papers and patterns. I love to work with scraps or whatever is left over on my messy desk, especially for cards. I love stamps, too, especially background stamps.
Why do you scrapbook and how did you get started?
My love for art started at an early age and continues today. Serious paper crafting started about 6 years ago when my cousin had a baby girl. I haven’t stopped since. Not too many layouts back then. I was just getting started and I was collecting supplies. I love making cards. They are easy and fast. When Alex was born I couldn’t wait to get those layouts started and record all those special moments. I love taking photos and I don’t go anywhere without my camera.
Who inspires you?
I love visiting blogs and galleries for inspiration, magazines, children’s books, clothing… I love my Google reader where I can see everything all at once. There are so many incredible designers who inspire me: Kimberly Neddo, Leslie Ashe, Anabelle O’Malley, Melissa Phillips, Roree Rumph, to name a few.
What is your favorite thing about scrapbooking?
I have always kept a record of my life, through journaling and photos. Scrapbooking allows me to combine those two. I don’t want to forget the important and not so important moments. I hope that through scrapbooking and making cards I can accomplish just that!

Thanks so much for sharing about yourself today, Daniela! It was so fun getting to know more about you 🙂 That mini book you made is amazing – we LOVE how you used our vintage flashcards for little pull outs, along with our Note Stamp! Very clever!! And, your scrap space looks so dreamy! We are truly blessed to have you part of our Design Team!