quick note!

Just wanted to give a huge THANK YOU to everyone whos placed an order over the last couple of days! We are quickly processing and shipping them. If you placed an order via our website http://www.shopellesstudio.com/ you will receive an email for when your order has shipped. Half of the orders went out today and the other half will be shipped by this Monday!

We'll also have some new items going up on Monday... Some sneak peaks and a giveaway coming tomorrow :)

Have a safe and happy Halloween!!!
XO, Elle

Vintage or brights?

Now that Christmas is getting closer and people are starting to get ready for the holiday season we have been getting a lot of questions regarding our two Christmas line colors: Brights and Vintage. Which one works best for what papers, what coordinates well and how do you know which line to choose?

We’ve put together a short list of the main papers you have been asking about coordinating our tags with. We hope this helps in choosing the perfect tags for your projects!

Christmas Vintage: The tags in this line have a cream tone and will work well with papers that have cream in them. Some of the papers they work well with include (but certainly not limited to):

My Minds Eye – Be Merry
Flair Design – Holly Jolly Collection
Making Memories – Fa La La
Cosmo Cricket – Oh Joy

October Afternoon - Good Cheer

Pink Paislee - Tinsel Town

Christmas Brights:

The tags in this line are printed on white cardstock and will work well with papers that have white or a very light cream in them. Some of the papers they work well with include (but not limited to):
Fancy Pants – Happy Holidays
My Minds Eye – Be Merry
American Crafts - Christmas
KI Memories - Joyful
We R Memory Keepers - Christmas

If you don't see the paper line you are looking for listed here, please contact us and we will be happy to help you decide :)

Happy creating everyone!
XO, Elle
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There's a giveaway at Ali Edward's blog today! Four people will be winning the tags below - make sure to head over there and leave a comment to be entered to win :)What's in this giveaway?

Houndstooth Gift Tags - Set of 4 3.95
Holiday Greeting Circle Tags - Christmas brights - set of 12 2.99
Holiday Greeting Squares - Christmas brights - set of 12 3.99
Crazy Numbers 1 through 31 - Set of 31 - Christmas Brights 6.75
These Moments at Christmas - red and white -set of 8 3.99
Candy Cane - Candy Shop Journaling Tags - Set of 8 3.75
Daily Note Flats w/envelopes – set of 8 9.99
Prompts, Patterns and Journaling Tags – set of 20 6.99
TOTAL: 42.40

{Two of the items are BRAND NEW and not listed for sale yet! So, this is a sneak peak of new product, too!}

Creative Cooking Monday!

This week's key ingredient was basil. I was incredibly lucky to find this basil (pictured above) that still contained it's roots. Buying the basil this way was only $1 more than the regular way (already picked and in a plastic container) and so far it has kept 3 days in a cup of water. It looks beautiful on the counter and smells nicely, too!

The first thing I made was a small and simple snack. I used Laughing Cow Cheese, spread on crackers and topped with basil. You could add tomatoes to this, too.

Next up, for dinner was this pizza! Which, went over so well and was ate so fast that I didn't have time to snap a good photo of it :( I guess you could consider it a good thing, though! So, this week I don't have an exact recipe... What I did was buy pizza dough mix (get the kind with yeast, it tastes much better!) marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese and all the toppings. You can top your pizza with anything really but I choose olives, mushrooms, tomatoes and basil. I think using just the mozzarella cheese and the fresh basil made this pizza delicous!

For the next nights dinner I ended up using up all the basil and tomatoes left over from the night before! After I cooked the noodles I sauteed some garlic in olive oil and dumped the noodles back into the pot. Added the tomatoes and basil and let it cook for just a tad bit longer, just to warm the tomatoes and basil. You could sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top or add any left over mozzarella cheese in when you add the tomatoes and basil.

And, I also ended up making these cookies :) I probably won't make dessert every time, but I just couldn't resist these! I found this recipe at http://www.marthastewart.com/ and they are called Outrageous Chocolate Cookies and they are outrageously delicious! I recommend these cookies for anything! You'll be the hit of the party with these on a plate! They were gone in about 20 minutes at my house (well... I did have help eating them!). I give these cookies 6 out of 5 stars :) *Quick side note: I did substitute the "8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped" for milk chocolate chips - just because we are a milk chocolate group around here and I knew that two packs would be to much semi sweet!

So that is all my cooking adventures for this week! We'll see what next week brings... I'll leave you with a picture of the baby :)

XO, Elle

We're back :)

We are back and packing/shipping orders! Thank you so much for all your support, sweet emails and concern while we were away, it means so much to me! I'm relieved to report that everything is going to be okay :)

I'm going to spend the next couple of days catching up and then I'll be back with a real blog post!

Happy weekend, everyone!
XO, Elle

Out of town...

We have had a small family emergency come up and have to leave town :( All orders placed from now until Oct. 26th will ship out of the 27th. We will still be able to answer emails, etsy convos and relist during this time, just not able to ship! I'm so sorry about this and we thank you so much for your patience!

We'll postpone the Monday cooking post until we return... We also have some other fun things in store for when we get back :)

XO, Elle

Creative Cooking Mondays...

Now that fall is in the air and the local farmer’s market has closed it’s time to start break the monotony of pasta or rice and fresh vegetables and start making actual dinners :) I’ve decided that this fall and winter I want to try something new – a brand new recipe at least once a week! Usually I stick with what I know, have made before or have tried at someone else’s house. But, my recipes are getting boring and I’m getting tired of eating the same dishes over and over. So, I started looking on the Internet for new dishes to try. So far I’ve had the most luck at foodtv.com and marthastewart.com. I do not eat red meat, nor touch raw chicken or fish (just a weird food phobia I have) so I thought finding recipes would be a little difficult but I was very surprised to see how much is out there! So, if you have picky eaters, don’t worry, you will definitely find something out there!

The first recipe I tried was Sesame Shrimp and Noodles and Chocolate-Ginger Cake (I skipped the sauce and just went with powdered sugar). Both recipes were absolutely delicious and fairly easy to make, too!

A couple tips:

• Pick recipes with ingredients you like! Example, if the recipe calls for rosemary and you know people that you are serving or you yourself does not like rosemary then either substitute it with something else or move on and find a different recipe. Don’t try to trick yourself into thinking “maybe I’ll like it once it’s in the dish.” You won’t and you’ll end up throwing it away.


• When needing fancy ingredients... try to use the rest of it during the week. For example, I usually don’t cook with fresh ginger, but this week my recipe called for it. So, I made a chocolate ginger cake to go along with it and will plan on adding it to other dishes during the week! Sometimes you can also freeze left over ingredients, too!


• Make larger batches! If you’ve made the recipe before or you’re 99% sure you’re going to love the new recipe make a larger batch and plan on freezing the leftovers for lunches or another dinner during the week. Try to eat your frozen food within 2 weeks to make sure you get the best flavor and avoid freezer burn!


• Substitute! Again, budget friendly is key – it’s not that good of a recipe when it costs $30+ per plate! If a recipe calls for “whole milk” but you happen to have “half and half” in the fridge, go ahead and use the “half and half”! I’m pretty relaxed when it comes to ingredients and try not to stress out if it’s not perfect. Most of the time no one notices!
  

I'll be posting my Creative Cooking Monday recipes here once a week. If you have a recipe you'd like to recommend or have come up with a better name than "Creative Cooking Monday" please let me know :)

October's Guest Designer - Caroline Ikeji!

Our new October inspiration gallery is up and we are so excited to have Caroline Ikeji on board this month as our Guest Designer! Make sure to check out her beautiful cards and layouts that will inspire you for the season and beyond! There is also a fun interview that lets you get to know her more. Thanks, Caroline for the great and inspiring work!

Gallery winners + some awesome kits!

Hey everyone! We have two gallery winners to announce from the October flickr gallery contest! They are:

DanielleQ

and Amanda*Sparrow

Congrats, ladies! Head on over to the shop and pick out any two items, then email me your choices and address and we'll get them out asap! (Email can be found in profile). Thanks to everyone who participated!! The October contest is going on now - any layout/card/mini can be entered that has at least one Elle's Studio tag on it :)

We feel so lucky to be in a couple of super fun kits this month! The first one is called "The Bookworm" available at Scrap In Style! We created some custom tags to go with their awesome kit! Here's what it looks like:Kraft Girls Kits has their Halloween themed October kit up and available for purchase - this kit is packed full and looks like tons of fun! Here's a peek at it:
Scrapbook Bakery also featured a couple of our tags in their October Sentiments kit! This kit also looks packed full of fun papers and embellishments!
And, Red Velvet Kit club has also added two of our tags to their October kit! I love the papers and colors of this kit, too! Looks so fun and artsy!!

And, we are sponsoring a blog challenge at The Pretty Committee this month! Check out the details at their blog and find out how you can enter to win the four items below:


Lots of fun stuff going on around here - thanks to all of you guys! Thank you so much for your awesome support, I am so thankful for you!! I'm off to work on some new designs and some other fun things that we are trying to put together before the years over :)

Have a happy Sunday!
XO, Elle