Many of us scrapbookers like to listen to music or watch TV while we scrapbook. I enjoy listening to scrapbook chatter while I am scrapbooking and wanted to share with you awesome Ella blog readers what I recommend and please share what you listen to or watch.

* Paperclipping Roundtable

This show is a casual discussion between 3-6 scrapbookers who work in the industry (plus Izzy) and they cover topics from product trends to the latest news to IKEA. You can listen either in itunes or on via their webpage. However if you subscribe in itunes you are helping support them. (and it is still free)

* Listen to Stacy Julian talk about scrapbooking by color and other topics

* Former counselor turned paper crafter/scrapbooker Amy Coon hosts interviews with industry influencers and discusses  the most interesting topics

* and of course the Diva Craft Lounge is another favorite

*Creating Keepsakes magazine has started an informative and focused series, check it out

What else is out there that you listen to or watch?

Share!

Did you know you could earn a little bit back every time you recommend an Ella eBook on your blog or website? It's true!

We haven't quite gotten around to putting up a dedicated page on our website related to our awesome affiliate program (it's coming...eventually!), but the program has been up and running for months already! So it's about time I put up a quickie announcement here.

We're set up through a company called Share-a-Sale. All you have to do is register your blog or website through Share-a-Sale, and then search for Ella Publishing in their company listings. Once you find Ella, you'll see lots of links, banners, and book covers that you can add to your site, and you'll earn 10 percent of all ellapublishing.com purchases that originate from those links!

Interested? Click here to learn about the five-step process of becoming a Share-a-Sale affiliate. You could be earning dozens of dollars in no time! :-)


Above: This is what the screen looks like after you've been approved through Share-a-Sale and you start browsing for banners. You just click the "Get this Banner's HTML Code" link, then you copy and paste the link into your blog or website. It's that easy!

After the CHA-Winter tradeshow, the Daylight company generously offered to send Wendy and I review models of two new lamps we saw at the show. I have to say that I have seen the light about one fact in particular: light quality does make a difference to my creativity, motivation, and color perception.

I had the Daylight Table Top lamp to test in my home. The light was even, natural, and it flooded a surprisingly large space. Wendy Smedley, Elizabeth Dillow, and I crowded into my family room last weekend during a girls-only sleepover, and we all had plenty of light (from just one lamp) to paint our canvases for an art project! (To see our finished projects, visit my blog sometime in the upcoming week.)


The lamp is off in this shot. We're relying on the uneven overhead lights, which cast strong shadows.


The limits of my photography skills aside, you can see how clear and natural the light is. What you can't see is how large an area it lights.


Here's another view, this time showing an optional magnifying attachment arm, which is covered by a white fabric cloth. I had everything out of the box, set up and working within 5 minutes.


Here's the optional magnifying arm. You can attach it or not; it's up to you.


And here's an image from the Daylight website that better shows the scale of the lamp.

I'm used to working underneath an old artists' lamp, circa 1986. (It looks exactly like the lamp in the Pixar logo that hops into place at the beginning of any Pixar film.) The light it casts is very yellow, and it gets so hot that I'm surprised I haven't caught on fire yet. So the difference was amazing! The Lucas household is hooked.

And as for the Smedley household, they're on board as well. Wendy was able to try out the Twist Portable Lamp, which is small and compact and easy to take to crops or move from room to room in your house. It would be great to take to a crop as well (as long as there's an available power outlet) to help combat the unpleasant fluorescent light at many crop venues.

This image, borrowed from the Daylight website, shows the lamp itself better than I could. (You can clearly see how you can angle the lamp to light up your workspace, and how it folds into a tube for easy transportation.) But I did take some illuminating photos of a layout Wendy recently created.


The lamp is off in this picture. But isn't the layout adorable, nonetheless? The journaling says, "I forget you are nine years old SOMETIMES. I know that seems silly, but after all, you do have four older brothers, and they are all teenagers. You know the newest lines from The Office and have a vast knowledge of popular music. I reguse to let you have your own email address or Facebook page until you are older, even though you ask regularly. I do try to do things with you that are age appropriate and sometimes it is just you, me, and dad heading to the park. For now I try to balance the big kid stuff with enough fun stuff for your age because I do not want you to grow up too fast."


Now we'll shed some nice, natural-looking light on the subject. The colors of the layout in this picture are far more true.

Are you convinced? Well, the Daylight Company is offering to give one of each lamp away to a lucky Ella reader! Just leave a comment letting us know what kind of light you use in your scrapbooking (recessed, chandelier, fluorescent, floor lamp, table-top lamp, etc.), and we'll pick two random winners to receive either the Daylight Twist Portable Lamp ($74.99) or the Daylight Table Top Lamp, with magnifier ($129.99). Let's hear it!

p.s. You can still comment on yesterday's giveaway until midnight, April 1! I'll announce winners for both contests on Monday.

Enjoy a quick little video where Wendy and I demonstrate how to print your eBooks and magically transform them into classy, professional-looking keepsakes. (Hang in there through the hair disclaimer—it's short! Er, the disclaimer is short; the hair is actually getting quite long and unwieldy.)



Products mentioned in the video:
Text Tricks for Scrapbookers by Margaret Scarbrough and Sara Winnick
Stretch Your Sketches by Donna Jannuzzi
PhotoBookCreator by Unibind

Thanks for watching, everyone!

p.s. Did you download our FREE Super Sampler yet? If not, get on it! If so, which project inside was the most exciting, intriguing, or inspiring to you?

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.

Stacy Julian, who is authoring an eBook on creativity for February (hurray!) mailed me this fun magazine clipping when she sent in her projects to be photographed:



I just had to share! How cool are those paperclips?

And shortly after we finalized our brand colors and logo, I spotted this beauty at IKEA, which now holds a place of honor in my office:


Three cheers for elephants!

On another note, I hope my fellow Americans are having a fantastic Martin Luther King, Jr., Day! In parting, I'd like to share two of my favorite quotes from Dr. King:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."