Today I am 26 years old 🙂 time to celebrate! At work I brought in the good old stand by, chocolate chip cookie bars. I made bars because I decided I didn’t want to stand by the stove for 3 hours baking cookies! Especially when they get ate within 4 hours 🙂 So making the bars took about 30 mins total! And then when I got home we had a pizza party and magic bars (pictured above) for dessert! It was perfect and delicious!

I think my 25th year was the best year of my life so far… I’ve had opportunities to meet the most amazing people and make some very sweet new friends. And, looking back on all the projects that were once ideas and now complete/almost complete is an amazing feeling. I am so thankful for each and every one of you! 25 was a good year, cheers to 26!

This week after getting the new items up and between getting orders out I took some time to scrap. I was feeling very inspired for the Christmas season and decided to make some Christmas and thank you cards with the new products! I really hope my family enjoys these – I know I always enjoy getting something homemade! Plus, I can’t stop making these cards, LOL! Warning: They are addictive! Especially the “Thank You” cards because they are the perfect way to use up all your odds and ends of scrapbooking materials that you cannot stand to throw away!

When I started making these cards I had the idea that they each needed an embellished, matching envelope! And, then I decided that the envelope flap need a fancy edge 🙂 So I made this one below and I made this present for you! Here are two envelope templates for you to download and use! One has the edge featured below and the other has just one fancy point, instead of the three! Download the template here. (This is a pdf file and you will need Adobe Reader to open it after downloading)
{The tags used for the cards above were the “Music Note Sheets,” “Vintage Holiday Greeting Squares” and the “Thank You Circle Tags – brights” both available in the shop and in our etsy shop.}

The new September inspiration gallery is up and we were honored to have Belinda Venables as our Guest Designer! She did some wonderful layouts, cards, a tag and even a mini birthday book! WOW!! Make sure you stop by and take a peek – there is a ton of eye candy in there for you to see that is so inspiring!! She also got to work with some of our new items debuting for Christmas – so you’ll get an extra sneak peek at those items! Thank you, Belinda!

The winner’s from our “Sneak Peek #2” post are…
Mike and Brianna on September 5, 2008 7:04 AM
Valerie on September 9, 2008 1:05 PM

Please send me an email (email can be found in profile) and I’ll get your goodies out asap!

We also have an update from the print shop to tell you about!! There printer is fixed and they printed our newest items as fast as possible… That means Christmas items will be arriving in the shop this Saturday, September 13th by 8:00 pm pacific time! So sorry about the extra wait!

See you all on Saturday!

XO, Elle

Here’s peek #2! I think I’m ready to put up the Christmas tree after seeing all these Christmas colors!! Saturday, September 6th is almost here… and we’ll be launching over 20 products in one day!! Plus, we’ve even added a brand new paper color to our line!! Stay tuned to find out all about it.

Leave a comment to be entered in this giveaway, too! Two winners will win the two sets featured above. (You can enter both giveaways in sneak peek 1 and 2) Winners will be announced late afternoon on September 6th. Giveaway extended to Wednesday, September 10th!! Please feel free to keep entering!

See you all soon!
XO, Elle
P.S. Thanks for all the get well wishes and tips – you are all so sweet! I’m not sure if it’s a cold or serious sinus infection now 🙁 But I am on an antibiotic to help kick it!

Here is our first sneak peek for our Halloween items coming on September 6th! Leave a comment and we’ll pick two people to win both of the packs shown above 🙂 I’m so excited for fall this year and all the holidays! I’m crossing my fingers we get a ton of snow this year… last year we hardly got any, but this year feels like it will be different. The air already has that crisp fall feeling in it and it is lovely!

Make sure to check back on Thursday! We’ll have another sneak peek of some of the new Christmas items – winners from both sneak peeks will be announced on Saturday. Please feel free to enter both giveaways!!

Love you all!
XO, Elle
P.S. Vacation pics coming soon – I promise! I’ve come down with a cold so I’m a little behind on editing those 🙁

We are officially on vacation! This is my first vacation in three years, so I’m pretty excited. The closer the trip got the more I started thinking about how I would document/scrapbook its adventures… by days, photos, just a journal – but the truth is, I’m not good at just writing or just taking pictures. Plus, I wanted it to be something I do there and bring back with me done (or, as close to done as possible). So, I limited myself to bringing the six items pictured above: A chipboard mini album, gluestick, tape, pens and mixed pile of my favorite tags and stickers. Anything else will have to be collected on the trip – like extra paper, brochures, napkins, coasters, anything really! It should be fun, I’m crossing my fingers it turns out. The photos I take will be plugged in when I get back. I plan on just punching two holes in them and adding them like pages. That is the main reason I went with the 4 x 6 inch chipboard album, so it would match the size of the photos! This mini should be simple enough to not get buried in my “I’ll do it later” pile.

While we’re away the main store and etsy shop will remain open for purchases. Anything bought during the time we are gone will start shipping, in the order they are received, starting August 29th. We plan to have everything that was ordered, shipped by the following week – we’ll work our hardest to get these orders out asap and you will receive an emailed confirmation when your order has shipped.

My sister, Michelle, will be in charge of checking my emails and relisting items in the Etsy shop while I’m away. So please feel free to email us if you have any questions! Although, any Etsy convos received during this time will be answered after I return home, on August 29th. Say Hi to Michelle!!

I’ll miss you all so much and I promise there will be lots of fun stuff in store when I return… Like new items for Christmas and Halloween 🙂 and maybe a giveaway or two!!
XO, Elle