Wendy and I are busy planning our April eZine, and it's going to be Ella good!

In our Editor's Note, we'd like to share YOUR best layouts and projects that have been inspired by anything you've read or seen in an Ella eBook. Send your entries to submissions@ellapublishing.com with "April Inspirations" in the subject line by March 17, 2010 at midnight MST to be considered for this article! Make sure you explain which eBook inspired your page or project and include a complete supply list. We'll pick 3-5 winners who will be featured in the article and will each receive a free eBook of their choice. (Please click here for complete guidelines and quality standards.)

Here's one Ella inspiration submission we received a while back, just to get your creative juices flowing!

Nita Vleeming of The Netherlands was inspired by Stacy Julian's How to Make a Smiles Mini-book (half of the proceeds of which go to benefit Operation Smile). So she created this precious accordion album (size 2.5 x 2.5) for her tiny grandson.

How sweet is that? To see more of Nita's work, visit her on twopeasinabucket.com or Flickr.

Every now and then it's fun to get a little peek at the man behind the curtain. (No, I'm not revealing anything secret about my gender identity. I'm being figurative, folks!) So, here are a few fun "behind the scenes" tidbits about Ella Publishing Co.

Tidbit #1
Once a week or so, Wendy Smedley comes over to my house for a "work day." We really do try to focus, but there's SO much to talk about. We get quite a lot done, and we also spend plenty of time discussing books, parenting, movies, scrapbook industry gossip, Richard Armitage (hero of of our favorite BBC mini-series North & South), and so much more. (Disclaimer: we're both growing our hair out for either Locks of Love or Pantene Beautiful Lengths, and it's starting to drive us crazy!)

Tidbit #2
Joe the Programmer is the genius (and the little brother of one of my husband's high school chums) behind making Ella Publishing Co. work. Having come from the financial industry and worked in may other industries as well, he has seen his fair share of tech-support requests. And he's always floored by how NICE Ella readers are when they're reporting a problem.

Average tech support request: "Your website sucks. I downloaded a file yesterday, but today it disappeared. Please fix this immediately or give me my money back. I'll never order from you idiots again!"

Ella tech support request: "Hi! I LOVE what you guys are doing. Keep up the great work! I hate to bother you because I know you're busy, but it seems that a file I recently downloaded has disappeared from my account. Could you please look into this for me when you get a chance? xoxoxo! ~Janice"

The above may be a slight exaggeration, but it's only VERY slight. After the site had been live for 3 months, Joe the Programmer e-mailed me to say, "I'm shocked! You just got your first tech support complaint that DIDN'T end with 'xoxoxo'! How are you going to handle it? This customer might possibly be a bit disgruntled."

Well, I replied to that customer, offering her money back AND restoring the missing file to her. Her response? "Oh, you didn't have to give me the file AND return my money! Here, let me pay you for that again!" Of course, I wouldn't let her. But the level of kindness and respect among Ella customers is truly unprecedented.

Tidbit #3
We have picked a winner for Thursday's UR2 Cre8ive giveaway. And thanks to random.org, the winner is #11...Fun Mama Deanna!

We're also selecting the winner of our Six Weeks of Sketches challenge as we speak, and we'll post it later this week!

We're thrilled to announce our newest eBook, created in partnership with bigpicturescrapbooking.com!

It's fun, it's fabulous, it's freeing, and it's affordable! And with Stacy Julian as the author, how could it not be wonderful? Get your copy today.

We asked a couple of our Ella Friends to create projects inspired by our newest eBook, and you're going to LOVE them:

• * Go check out what the adorable Noel Culbertson has to say about this eBook, and get yourself a FREE download while you're at it!
• * Read all about Barb Wong's journey to discovering her own, unique brand of creativity, and check out her classy "Live, Play, Create" notebook.
• * Enjoy the FIVE LAYOUTS that Katie Scott was inspired to create after reading a sneak peek copy of UR2 Cre8ive!
• * Find out how a light-switch cover tutorial from Stacy's book lightens Tami Morrison's room AND her mood!
• * Get inspired by Monica McNeill's creative use of crayon wrappers on a layout about her son's coloring adventures.

We'd like to give a free copy of this eBook away to one random reader of The Daily Parade! Leave a comment on this post that answers this question: When you feel the most creative, where are you, what are you doing, and who are you with? (e.g., "I'm in the kitchen whipping up a meal, surrounded by my children." or "I'm alone in my scrapbook room with Ingrid Michaelson blasting on the radio.") Go ahead, spill it!

With all the giveaways that have been happening on The Daily Trumpet lately, you must be thinking to yourself, "Are Angie and Wendy attempting to BUY my affection?" The answer to that question is YES, and we're not ashamed to admit it. Will you be our friend? We'll give you stuff!

Another reason for all the great giveaways is our recent return from CHA, where we met with lots of cool people who are eager to spread the word about their products, services, and classes. People like Renee Pearson of reneepearson.com ("Digital training for crafters and artists"), who would like to give one of you a FREE spot in an upcoming class!

Class Title: Get it together. Keep it together! Organize your digital lifestyle with ACDSee Photo Manager
Instructor: Molly Newman
Class Dates: March 17 – April 13 (4 weeks)
Description: Get a handle on your digital photos, scanned images and digital scrapbooking supplies once and for all with this hands-on class. You’ll learn how to design, step-by-step, an organizational system that works for you and the way you scrapbook. Get the encouragement and motivation you need to create a system you’ll actually enjoy keeping up to date. Scrapbook more and faster than ever before when you know just where every holiday snapshot, vintage family photo and piece of digital paper is located.

Take it from me. I've known Molly Newman for years, and not only is she incredibly smart, creative, and talented, she's also one of the wittiest people I know. Get ready to learn AND to laugh! Learn more about Molly's class by clicking here.

If you'd like to enter to win a free spot in this class, leave a comment on this post telling us roughly how many digital photos you have stored on your computer! (Angie Lucas happens to have 6,813 digital photos, approximately 15 percent of which are of dogs.)

Good luck!

1. An Ella Publishing eBook was featured in Utah's largest newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune, on Sunday! My mother-in-law Beverly (who is my main Source for Breaking News, Weather & Sports) called immediately to alert me of the mention. Click here to see the story.



2. Ella Friend Moon Ko sent me the most adorable handmade elephant pincushion in the mail! I think everyone should have one. I blogged about this at my Yeah, Write blog today too, because I want everyone to know how awesome Moon is. Thanks friend!



3. Alert reader Leah McLean, who lives in Brussels, Belgium, sent this cool photo from the Royal Museum for Central Africa. Wooden elephant sculptures? In the immortal words of Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, "I want to go to there!"


Elephants rule.

You've seen the likes of Jennifer Barksdale, Barb Wong, Katie Scott, Moon Ko, and Aly Dosdall on the cover of the Scrapbook Ellaments eZine. How would you like to add your name to this illustrious list?

Announcing our March Scrapbook Ellaments cover contest!

To enter, email a scan or a photograph of your layout to submissions@ellapublishing.com
with "March cover" in the subject line. The winning designer will mail
the layout in to be photographed, be profiled on our website, and will
win a free Ella eBook. Here's what we're looking for:

DEADLINE:
February 7, 2010, midnight EST

It's giveaway day! To enter to win, just leave a comment describing how digi savvy you are, using a school analogy. In other words, when it comes to digital scrapbooking, you are: in kindergarten, a 3rd grader, a 7th grader, a high-school graduate, a Ph.D., etc. :-)

I'll pick one random winner who'll get a seat in Renee's awesome "Just the Basics" beginner's workshop, plus one random winner who'll get a seat in Tiffany Tillman's "The Photoshop Brushshop Class" at reneepearson.com. Here are the details:

Just the Basics
January 28 – February 25 (4 weeks)
Instructor: Renee Pearson
Experience Level: Beginner

Nearly five years ago, when Renee wrote the first Digital Designs for Scrapbooking, computers were not yet an essential tool for mainstream scrapbooking. As the popularity of digital scrapbooking has grown, so has the need for easy-to-follow instructions. That's why she developed this workshop.

Renee will personally lead you through the fun, fast and easy lessons designed specifically for the beginning digital scrapbooker or crafter. Using Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, 7 or 8 and the digital kits and templates provided, you'll be whipping out digital scrapbook pages in no time.

The curriculum is based on weekly lessons including video, pdf and other learning aids. The workshop is designed to gradually introduce new topics and skills, allowing you to master one skill set before moving on to the next. At the end, you'll have a comprehensive set of skills you can use to create your own digital pages.

The Photoshop Brushshop
February 1 – February 21 (3 weeks)
Instructor: Tiffany Tillman
Experience Level: Intermediate

Grab your smock, clean your digital palette and get your hands dirty for our premiere art class: The Photoshop Brushshop brought to you by Tiffany Tillman.

This is the perfect course for digital enthusiasts who want to explore the Brush tool as well as discover their inner, creative artist. Tiffany will teach you secrets to mixing your brushes, not with paints, but with paths, masks and modes that put digital design on the map! She'll also pull you out of the pixels and into your own paper to digital art studio! My friends—this isn't just a workshop. This is the Brushshop!

Enter and win!

p.s. Our winners from Monday's quiz video contest are commenter #10 TracyBzz and commenter #18 asetti. Congrats! I'll be emailing you your coupon codes!

It's that time again! Time for a behind-the-scenes peek of our newest Scrapbook Ellaments issue. Here are five little background tidbits, just for fun:

1. Buh-Bye Beta
Did you notice that the Ella logo in the top left corner of your screen has shed a little bit of weight? That's right, her orange "beta" tag has disappeared. After four months being live, we now feel comfortable being out there without the protection of the beta tag, which in effect says "don't blame us if this site is a mess, we're still in the beta development stage!" Knock on wood. We really hope this won't be one of those occasions where the minute you pay off the car loan, you get rear-ended in your own driveway.

2. Blog Hop Barb
The very day Scrapbook Ellaments went live, we heard from a reader who was inspired by Barb's "Shop Your Stash" article to start a blog hop on her own site. If you were as inspired as Liberty Cottage was, head on over and join the fun. Way to inspire the world, Barb!

3. Apple of Elizabeth's Eye
We heard from a reader who was intrigued by Elizabeth Dillow's timeline layout in "Ten Years Later." (This was Elizabeth's first digi layout ever, by the way.) This reader wanted to know more about the program Elizabeth used to assemble the page, but unfortunately there was no e-mail address included in the comment, so we couldn't respond directly. Instead, we'll respond to everyone! Elizabeth used Apple's Pages software, which is a word-processing and desktop-publishing program. Here's a link to a short video overview of the program. The lesson? You don't have to be a Photoshop expert to try digital scrapbooking; you can use any program that will help you accomplish your goals.

4. The Rise of Valerie
With this latest issue, we discovered a new scrapbooking (and cookie-baking) talent! Without even realizing it, we requested three different submissions from scrapbooker Valerie Mangan all in the same week. We love it when that happens! She had three layouts featured in a pre-Christmas blog post, then we requested layouts for the "Editors' Corner" and "Stretch a Sketch" articles too. We have a feeling you might be seeing more great work from this up-and-comer in the scrapbooking world at large. What do you think?

5. Cover Calls
For our January issue, we limited our monthly cover contest to the members of the Write. Click. Scrapbook. collective, because we wanted to reward them for their hard work writing the awesome Year in the Life eBook, and we wanted to celebrate this fun new eBook's release. Our winner? Aly Dosdall. Read all about her here. And check out their eBook as soon as humanly possible, if you haven't yet.

And now for your chance to be a Scrapbook Ellaments cover girl:
We hereby announce our cover contest for our February issue of Scrapbook Ellaments! If your layout is chosen, you'll be profiled in our eZine, including a link to your blog if you'd like, and you'll receive a coupon code for the free eBook of your choice. Here's what we're looking for:

Love layouts. Share layouts you've created about love and romance. Your page might list all your favorite things about the love of your life, it could take a "he said, she said" angle, it could highlight a new flame, it could focus on your wedding or a memorable anniversary, it could spotlight your favorite couple (your parents, for example), or it could cover any other angle you choose! Read our submissions guidelines for complete details, and send in your layouts by Wednesday, January 13. Good luck!

Yesterday, we sent a special coupon code to all the members of our e-mail list, inviting them to save 10 percent on their entire purchase at Ella Publishing Co. What a great way to celebrate the arrival of 2010!

Did YOU get the e-mail?

If not, click here to add your name to the list! Then come back and leave a comment on this blog post TODAY (Tuesday) to let me know that you've just signed up, and I'll send you the code directly. Now you may have come across this code already on Twitter or FaceBook, and that's just fine by me, but if you want ME to give it to you, I'm going to make you work for it.

This exclusive sale ends Wednesday, so now's the time to buy that eBook you've had your eye on for a while.

Happy 2010!

(We can't emphasize enough how happy we are that 2009 is over. It just feels like the time is ripe for a fresh start. Are you feeling it too? Potential, possibilities, hope, exciting new eBooks...bring 'em on!)

We've clearly established that our new eBook, A Year in the Life, contains 174 photos and 24 layouts. But that, my friends, is certainly not all. We'd like to share a few more statistics about the most amazing, incredible, revolutionary, life-changing eBook you'll read for the REST OF THE YEAR.

Inside A Year in the Life, you'll also find:
* 30 pages of delightful ideas
* 12 photo checklists so you won't miss a single photo op over the coming year
* 120 individual ideas of photos to take
* 19 two-page layouts, featuring anywhere between 3 and 15 photos each
* 4 shots of fresh produce (raspberries, green beans, and more!)
* 23 talented designers, all from the Write. Click. Scrapbook. collective
* 37 mini-brads used as journaling bullet points on two separate layouts
* 24 extra "bright ideas" you'll be dying to try
* 13 different ways to include "2009" on a layout, from large titles to photo captions
* 7 scrumptious shots of Francine Clouden's tiny baby boy
* 6 darling digi layouts
* 19 perfectly paper layouts
* 14 different ways to arrange a photo collage
* 1 photo of Jen Wozab's feet

If you didn't think you needed to add this eBook to your collection before, you certainly do now. Am I right?