e: is for elizabeth

new product alert & sale:: the "barbara"

As a craftswoman, I take tremendous pride and integrity in my creations. However, one of the most gratifying aspects of what I do is working with my customers to make sure their needs are getting met. This requires tremendous flexibility (and some humility), but it's so worth it.

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law, Barbara, contacted me, as she wanted some unique gifts for her friends and club members in New Orleans. She really loved my TINYbooks, but was concerned that they were a little too small, and that the ladies may not know what to do with the eclectic mix of paper.

Thus, The "Barbara" book was born:

 

The "Barbara" features the same beautiful fabric front cover and woodgrain back cover as the original TINYbook, but is filled with 3x5 ruled index cards. These would be the perfect little books to keep your lists, notes or New Year's goals. I will soon be offering these with plain (not ruled) and grid/graph index cards.

To celebrate this new item, I have a special offer for you. From now through New Years Day, any order over $10 will receive a free Barbara book! You can read more about the promo at the top of my shop's home page.

xo,

e

ch{all}enge masters december scraplift challenge...

...is up!! Here's my entry for this month (sorry for the blurry scan):

I must admit I got a little teary-eyed when I was creating this layout. This is Sade and Jasmyne, the very first friend she made when we moved to Washington. At one point, these two were inseparable (as were Corey and Jasmyne's dad). Fast forward three years. The girls go to different high schools and have different interests, so they don't see each other often. Since our families are so close, we're not very concerned. This is likely a lifelong friendship. It's just so hard to watch them grow up so quickly.

OK, so that's my sad story for the weekend! Hop on over to my post at Ch{all}enge Masters to play along and to find out WHO I was scraplifting!! 

december daily::four thru six

Whoa!! Time is flying over here...I can't believe that it has taken me so long to post my December Daily pages. I'll try to catch up quickly without inundating you with my rambling :)

December four:

Sometimes, an idea SOUNDS terrific until you realize it isn't. This is definitely one of those times. I didn't have a photo for the 4th, but I wanted to talk about how much I enjoyed my manicure, brow wax and cup of Peet's (which I can only get when I go to the day spa). I decided to use my Peet's coffee sleeve for my journaling and HOPED that painting the inside would help my words stand out. Ummm, no.

December five:

On Saturday the 5th, Corey and I accompanied some friends and neighbors a few miles down the road to the Woodinville Wine Country Open House. Over 30 wineries were sampling wine and food. We visited as many as we can, which made for a very interesting day! I used one of the winery's coasters as the base for the first page. On the backside, I cropped and glued the title page from our tasting "passport" (complete with a wine stain). I through all of our photos from the day into the clear envelope. Envelope: paper source, number: every jot and tittle.

December six:

I left the front of the page as is. I just added a little journaling on the back. Sunday the 6th was a day of solitude for me. With a toddler, a teen, and a husband who works long hours and travels often, solitude is a must sometimes. I did a little shopping, had some sushi, then headed to Borders to spend a few hours reading craft/design magazines. While I was grabbing the latest copy of Cloth, Paper, Scissors, my left contact lens popped out. I took that as a sign that I needed to head home. Star stamp (embossed): Creating Keepsakes KOTM sometime in 2008, number: American Crafts

I'll be back later with more catch-ups :)

xo,

e

  

treasures from scraps - holiday challenge

Hello everyone! I forgot to mention that Treasures from Scraps' holiday challenge is up! This will be our only challenge in December, so squeeze us in!!

This month, we're challenging you to use up all of your letter stickers. Fun!! Here are my goods:

 

Yup, a bunch of Ms and Ls!! I've been wanting to do this for some time, so I was super excited when I got this assignment. I saw this idea in a magazine (I can't remember which) awhile ago and loved it! The magazine used all of the letters A-Z with different style stickers, but I really wanted customized frames for Lauryn and Madison. Here's how they look in their room:

(wow, that photo is horrible. sorry!) 

I'm slowly but surely working on this little corner of their room...it's so fun!!

Anyhoo, you have until the end of the month to submit your stash-reducing project! See all of the details here.

xo,

e
   

ch{all}enge masters holiday blog hop...right now!!

 

Welcome to the first ever Ch{all}enge Masters Holiday Blog Hop!! The Ch{all}enge Masters Blog was your 1st stop and you are now at the 2nd stop of the hop. To be eligible for the Ch{all}enge Masters prize, you must post a comment on EACH blog in the blog hop (Yes, all 22 of them!), as well as commenting on the Challenge Master's blog when you're finished. One winner will be selected at random from all of the eligible entries to receive a $25 gift certificate to an online store of their choice. The winner will be announced by Friday, December 11. You better start hopping! This hop ends at midnight EST on Sunday, December 6.

To add to the excitement, I have my own RAK to give away. All you need to do to win is tell me the best gift you have ever given. Leave your comment on this post by midnight EST on Sunday 12/6 to be entered to win this goody from my shop:

 

It's a super cute red and gold floral fabric mini composition book cover. It's 100% portable and reusable! I'll announce the random winner by noon PST on Monday, December 7.

Before you go, I'd love to share my latest holiday layout with you (sorry for the funky photo):

In this post, I lamented about how difficult it was getting my toddler to pose for our annual holiday card photo. Not fun! The photos do make for a cute layout, though :). All components (except adhesive pearls and vintage buttons) are from Cocoa Daisy's amazing November kit. I'm IN LOVE with the sweet Melissa Frances frame at the bottom right :D

Thanks for hopping with us today! Your next stop is my friend Janet's blog. Have fun!!

xo,

e

december daily::one thru three

Before my weekend completely gets away from me, I wanted to share days one through three of my December Daily album.

December One:

 

This was simply a remnant from a sheet of 3x5 page protectors. I took the photo at the airport, after dropping off my aunt and grandma (we so enjoyed their weeklong visit!). Number: everyjotandtittle, adhesive button: jenni bowlin, letter stickers: adorn it (I think!).  

December Two:

This is a 99% digi entry illustrating my (ahem!) obsession with Glee. I'm not ashamed a single bit :). I originally had something else in place for this day, but felt compelled to change things up as I was watching the last episode before the fall finale (yikes!). Glee bingo card: Katie Pertiet for Designer Digitals, red label: Jenni Bowlin.

December three:

This didn't quite turn out as expected, as I realized that my beloved white Sharpie doesn't not work well on photos I print at home. But, in the spirit of keeping things as stress-free as possible, I'm leaving it alone :). Number: everyjotandtittle.

Talk to me! How are your December Daily albums coming along? Are you any of you struggling with the process? If so, take a deep breath and press on. You'll be glad you did :)   

xo,

e

 

december daily::nuts & bolts (very photo heavy)

I meant to post the "skeleton" of my December Daily album over the weekend, but I got totally distracted by my house guests (thank you Grandma and Auntie!). This is the third year that I've created a December Daily album, and I'm super excited to give it a go once again! I LOVE looking back at all of the memories from years past, especially since our little family changes so much each year. 

In 2007, I was pregnant with Lauryn and wasn't quite sure what I was doing, so the book was super small and simple. Last year my entire holiday theme was pastels, so that's the direction I went in for that album (I also make it bigger, which I really liked).

This year, since bookbinding has become an obsession of mine, I decided to do something a tad bit different:

 

As soon as I spotted this lonely guy at the thrift store, I knew that I wanted to turn him into a December Daily binder. So excited! Here are a few internal shots:

 

 

Phew! If you made it through to the end, thank you! I'm going to wait a few more weeks before completing the rest of my starter pages (my December Daily album always extends until New Years Eve), just in case I find something fun I want to add in later.

I'll be back tomorrow with my completed pages for days 1-3.

Have a great night!

xo,

e           

 
 
 

2009 holiday card photo shoot, take ONE

Well, I was starting to get nervous when mid-November came and I realized that I had NO clue what I was going to do for our annual holiday card. Since Lauryn is still young, I knew I needed to wait until almost the last minute to take the photo; a month or two makes a huge difference in the way toddlers look. And, since many of our friends don't celebrate Christmas, I always try to make the photo, as well as the card itself, as neutral as possible. I thought that the black/white/grey color palette in the master bedroom would make for a nice background:

Umm, yeah. Miss Lauryn was NOT being cooperative. Plus, she was disappearing a little in Sade's shadow. So we tried putting her on the other side of Sade, closer to the window:

Hmmm, not so much. Lauryn simply wasn't interested. Meanwhile, poor Sade had to corral her sister and still be cute. I then figured we may have better luck if the girls sat on the edge of the bed instead:

 {note: the 4th photo does NOT look like this. i just learned that the mosaic maker doesn't handle vertical photos well :) }

Any of those first three would have worked, but each had something (blurriness, etc.) that just didn't work right. Alas, the teen had a "perfect" solution: "how about JUST ME??"

Nice try, but no dice!!

To be continued....

e 

treasures from scraps

I am honored to be a on the design team of a new challenge blog: Treasures from Scraps. The first challenge was posted earlier this month, but I didn't participate due to a death in the family.

The second challenge is to create ornaments/decorations for the upcoming holiday season. Here's a sneaky peek at my project:

 

To see the rest of my project, as well as the fantastic projects by the rest of the design team, click here.

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

xo,

e

ch{all}enge masters design team call

fellow scrapbookers-

Ch{all}enge Masters is looking for 2 new group leaders!
1. Go Green Group Leader
2. Altered Group Leader

Group Leader Requirements:
*Post 1 new challenge on assigned date each month along with a project sample to your challenge group.
*Make sure you leave a comment in the gallery on each of your category's submissions.
*Be as active as possible on the forums daily.
*Check the Design Team group daily for posts containing important information or requiring your response.
*If you have stuff going on in your life, you're going on vacation or whatever & you can't be around, contact a member from the site's ADMIN to let us know.
*Since there is no compensation for your design duties, you are eligible to participate in all of our to win the prize each month!!! Please play along as much as you'd like!
To apply, please send a link to your blog and/or main gallery to: challengemasters@gmail.com . Please send a .jpg of 1 {only 1 please!} layout/project that best represents your style along with your full name & email address. Submissions will be accepted until Nov. 27th. Don't forget to let us know which position you would like to fill.