Happy February 19th! It's a nice little by-product of the Take Twelve project that the 19th gets a little extra attention each month, isn't it? Welcome to this month's February Take Twelve round-up, where I feature some of our Take Twelve team member pages and encourage you to take some time to visit the pages/photos that our creative participants have posted all week long through InLinkz. What amazing moments and memories you're capturing! 

If you're following along with the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit, this month suggested to look around for color as you took your twelve photos. Take Twelve team members Aliza Deutsch and Lisa Ottosson both used this challenge on Sunday; you might think their results would be similar, but you couldn't be further from the truth. Check out their photos, first:

Lisa's take on colors

Aliza's take on colors

I absolutely love the contrast of their results. There are so many factors that influence our photography; our personalities, our preferences, our geography... Lisa took her photos within her home in Sweden, while Aliza headed outside in her New York City neighborhood. They both turned their photos into stunning pages:

8 x 11.5 spread by Lisa Ottosson; click to read more about this layout

12 x 12 spread by Aliza Deutsch; click to read more about this layout

They might have very different results, but one thing holds true: no matter where you live or what your color preference, kraft cardstock is awesome!

Team member Jennie McGarvey focused her camera on the slow, easy pace of a cold, February day. Doesn't her color scheme just scream cheerful? Her page is a great reminder to capture what you love about family life—sometimes the weeks get so busy and the pace gets so wild that a scrapbook page about a relaxed Sunday is not just a nice addition, but essential to our mental health!

12 x 12 page by Lisa Day; click to read more about this layout

Lisa captured 12 "moments of love" for her Feburary page, and captures the feel of Valentine's Day without being overly Valentine-y with her product choices. Check out how she mixed a wood grain pattern with a chevron pattern—it works so well because of her uniform photo size! Don't feel like you have to journal full sentences and paragraphs every month; notes are a perfect way to convey what's going on in each photo so you won't forget years down the line.

Click image for larger view

And, coming in at the last minute, Ella owner Angie Lucas finished, photographed, and uploaded her February layout late at night on the 18th. Her page features a traditional Valentine's Day palette, with two color photos taken on her SLR camera and nine black and white photos taken via the Instagram iPhone app.

Like Lisa Day, Angie opted for short-and-sweet journaling this month. And she couldn't resist including stamping techniques in her design, since February is Stamping Month at Ella Publishing Co.!
 

All of the stamps on Angie's page are by Fiskars, and she used Close to My Heart Ink with Top Boss clear embossing powder.
 

Check out what some of our other Take Twelve team members have been up to this week:

Angela

Valerie

Stephanie

Janette

Van

Margie

Monica

Janette

And finally, let's all give a cheer for DebB, #26 in the fantastic collection of pages you all submitted for this month's giveaway from Stampin' Up! Deb will receive My Digital Studio from Stampin' Up (and the rest of you can try it out for free!).

Congratulations! Just because our roundup is finished for this month doesn't mean the scrapbooking is over... keep working on those February Take Twelve pages and add them to our Take Twelve Flickr group so we can continue to be inspired until March 12 rolls around!

It's hard to believe it's been an entire month since we kicked off the Take Twelve photography challenge! If you're new to the concept, take a minute to read about it all here. It's definitely not to late to join in—a calendar year is a calendar year whether you start in January, February, or July!

A few reminders as you pick up your cameras:

+ There are no rules! Use whatever camera—or combination of cameras—you like.

+ Stop in to check out what beautiful photographs and scrapbook pages are filling up the 2012 Take Twelve Flickr Group! Better yet, why not become a member yourself and share your Take Twelve photography challenge results, too? Check out two beautiful pages that were added after the January round:

from Flickr member KTnestingspot

from Flickr member MajiclnOz

+ Want to quickly connect with other Take Twelve photography challenge participants? Use the hashtag #take12 on Twitter or Instagram to see what others are up to on February 12.

+ If you bought the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit don't forget to check the February list of fun photo ideas! You'll never be at risk of taking the same photos over and over every month with your photo checklists in hand... unless you want to, of course. It might be fun to include a photo each month in the same location! If you didn't buy the kit, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, go grab it—we'll wait!

+ Do you have a little more time or creative energy to pour into your photos today? Try this month's themed project, found in the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit. (Of course, you can always take twelve everyday photos and complete the themed project—remember, no rules!) Check out what an amazing job Ella Friend Audrey Neal did with January's themed project, all about collections:

You can see Audrey's photos in more detail in the Take Twelve Flickr group. They're fantastic! I already warned her to lock up those globes and cameras, ha!

Whether you plan to add your pages to already established albums or to create a special album or mini-album for your Take Twelve pages, why not create a cover page to tie them all together like 2011 Ella Friend Valerie Mangan did? What a great idea!

cover page by Valerie Mangan

Get clicking then come back for your chance to receive a treat from this month's Take Twelve sponsor, Stampin' Up! One lucky recipient will receive the acclaimed My Digital Studio software from Stampin' Up, a $79.95 value. It's simple and easy to navigate, allowing users of all levels to create beautiful, professional looking digital pages with trendy page templates and digital products. Ordering photo books through the software is a snap, and all colors are guaranteed to match Stampin' Up's physical products for hybrid scrapbooking. You can create some pretty cool results using My Digital Studio software!

Enter This Month's Giveaway

Happy January 19, everyone! Can you believe it's been a week since we all embarked on the Take Twelve photography challenge? Each month on the 19th I'll feature some completed Take Twelve layouts from our team and draw names of lucky recipients of the month's giveaway.

Speaking of the monthly giveaway... you'll find the link submission information at the end of each 12th-of-the-month post (see January's here); from now on, we'll extend the entry deadline to midnight EST on the evening of the 18th. That's an extra day to turn those twelve photos into something magical (a blog post, a layout, or whatever your heart desires!). We also encourage you to continue adding your photos and layouts to the Ella Publishing Co. 2012 Take Twelve Project Flickr Group (whew! Say that five times fast!) all month long—we'll feature a few photos/layouts here at The Daily Trumpet on February 12!

Let's get to it, shall we?

I decided to use one of Donna Jannuzzi's fantastic sketches from the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit for my photos—while I'm going to make an honest effort to use some of the less linear sketches she created, I couldn't resist beginning with the clean lines of this one. My photos weren't all landscape orientation; I just resized and cropped them so they'd fit the sketch measurements. I added a few simple details (including that super-fun letterpress camera I cut out of a card—there are four more on the card so I might use a different one next month!) and summarized my notes that I wrote up for my blog on January 12.

Next up: Take Twelve Team member Margie Scarpignato. I wanted to include her digital layout today to prove a point: you can fit in twelve photos and a layout even if you're really, really busy. Margie did—on a flight with her boys from California to China. Amazing!! She simply focused on one event (albeit a GIANT event for most of us) and snapped away. Her journaling takes the form of a descriptive list—not complicated at all.

I absolutely loved the spin Take Twelve Team member Van Nguyen put on her twelve photos: her resolution for 2012 is to work on finding balance in her life, so she's going to use her involvement with the Take Twelve Project to check in with how that's going. Whether you approach your photos in a random, haphazard way (ahem—like me, this month) or in a reflective way as Van did, you're still on your way to capturing 144 unique memories through your camera's lens. Make this project your own!

Take Twelve Team member Angela Gutshall's page is bright and happy—and the perfect blend of order (square photos) and whimsy (embellishments). She lopped her List-It in half (printed from the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit) for a unique look that saves space and provides balance.

Last up for today is team member Monica Bradford. Look familiar? Look closely—we used the same sketch to create our layouts! The beauty of sketches is that they are infinitely customizable; no two layouts based on the same sketch will ever turn out exactly alike. Our layouts are both focused on the everyday moments that occurred on January 12, but she took an hourly approach to capturing them.

Want even more ideas? Be sure to visit the following Take Twelve Team members' blogs to see how they approached the challenge!

Valerie

Jennie

Stephanie

Aliza

Lisa D.

Check out some great ideas from some of our staff and Ella Friends, too:

Bobbi-Jo

Christa

Missy

Angie

Now... how about that giveaway? Up for grabs: a seat in Cathy Zielske's Ten Tips for Better Type and a seat in May Flaum's The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide. Thanks to Big Picture Classes for their generous sponsorship of this month's Take Twelve Project giveaway!

[drumroll please][the accidental latecomers to the link party were included in the integer spread]

Congratulations to #11 (Fay) and #35 (Michelle Evans). We'll have our people contact your people very soon to work out the details!

Thanks to everyone who participated this month. And for those of you who haven't jumped in yet... it's not too late!

As you'll read on our Take Twelve page, this photography challenge (and well, it's a scrapbooking challenge, too) encourages scrapbookers worldwide to take 12 photos featuring their everyday life on the 12th of every month, for 12 months, during the year 2012.

But what if you didn't even find out about this challenge until January 13th? (Or March 22nd for that matter.) Does that mean you can't join in the challenge? NO.

There are LOTS of ways to participate, even after January 12th has come and gone! Here are a few.

1. Fake it for January
For the month of January, take your first 12 photos on the 13th or 15th or even 27th of the month. You don't have to tell anyone! (And we won't tell either...) Then make sure you join our email list, so you'll get a reminder to take your photos on the 12th of the month every other month this year.

2. Start Any Month You'd Like
You don't HAVE to start the Take Twelve photography challenge in January. You can go from February to February, or June to June. It would be extra fun to start on your birthday month or your anniversary month, and do the Take Twelve challenge for one year from that date.

3. Focus on 12 Photos From Your Whole Month
You can also do the Take Twelve challenge in hindsight and focus on highlights from the whole month. In other words, at the end of each month, look back through your photos, choose your 12 favorites, and make a page. The Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit and Take Twelve Templates will still help you scrapbook your 12 photos in style, no matter what day you took them.

See, it's flexible! You can make this project your own. We even heard from one Take Twelver who is asking her family members from across the country to each email her a few photos taken on the twelfth, and then she's turning all the photos into a collective family scrapbook page. FABULOUS idea!
 

And remember that every month on the 12th, you can save 12 percent off of any two items on our site, including the Take 12 Kit and Templates shown below! Your coupon code will come via email, so be sure you're signed up. 

$20.12 Peek inside before you buy!

$12.12 Just $1 per template! Peek inside before you buy!

Here's a little peek at the 12 photos I took on January 12th, just waiting to be added to a scrapbook page. Seeing them all together makes me SO happy! (Especially that crazy photo of my dog, mid-jump.)

So, won't you join 700 other scrapbookers worldwide (and counting) and start your own Take Twelve project?

It's January 12, and you know what that means—the official kick-off of Ella Publishing Co.'s 2012 Take Twelve Project! It's a project with a simple commitment: take twelve photos (or narrow down to twelve, who am I kidding?) on the 12th of each month throughout 2012.

Hundreds of scrapbookers, photographers, and bloggers from around the world will be clicking away today, and we sure hope you're one of them! The best part: this is a project that is 100% doable and 100% finish-able, especially with the inspiration you'll find in the Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit and the ease of use you'll experience with the Take Twelve Templates.

Can I just tell you how awesome it feels to have completed a project in December that you began in January? Take my word for it—it's Awesome. With a capital "A."

Here's a quick overview of some important Take Twelve information:

+ There are no rules. Use whatever camera—or combination of cameras—you like. If you happen to miss the 12th of the month, don't give up! Just take your pictures on the 13th. Or the 18th. No one will ever know. It will be much harder to forget with Ella on your side, though, because once you purchase a Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit you can sign up for handy reminder emails. As everyone knows, elephants never forget!

+ The 2012 Take Twelve Team will be at your service to inspire and encourage you every step of the way! Ella would never let you Take Twelve alone. Speaking of which, bookmark the 2012 Take Twelve Flickr Group so you can upload your photos and layouts to share with other participants all year long!

+ Want to quickly connect with other Take Twelve participants? Use the hashtag #take12 on Twitter or Instagram to easily connect with others playing along.

+ Not ready to join in just yet? You can jump in at any time and simply continue for 11 more months. (Or go February to February or March to March. It would be super fun to start on your birthday month!) This is a flexible project, and we invite you to participate in the way that makes most sense to you! The Take Twelve Guided Inspiration Kit and digital templates will return to full price tomorrow, but you'll be able to snag a discount on the 12th of each month if you decide to jump in later. Bargain!

+ If you are ready, you'll be eligible for prizes! That's right, each month we'll be randomly choosing participants for terrific prizes just for showing up (and linking your visuals below). This month's Take Twelve giveaway sponsor is Big Picture Classes:

How about a spot in Cathy Zielske's new typography class, Ten Tips for Better Type? Or May Flaum's new creative layout class, The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide? All you have to do is stop back at this post and link us to your visual by January 18 for your chance to be eligible to receive a class pass.

2012 is a clean slate, friends—let's all go out there and document it together!

Enter This Month's Giveaway

We're so excited at Ella Publishing Co. about the 2012 Take Twelve Project that we've created a brand new team to inspire, guide, and encourage you all year long! In addition to the 2012 Ella Friends, check out this amazing team of scrapbookers:

You'll see their Take Twelve pages featured frequently here on The Daily Trumpet and you'll want to bookmark their blogs to visit regularly. They hail from around the world—the U.S., Canada, Sweden, China (by way of the U.S.), and Australia. They are super-excited and ready to go for the first round of Take Twelve picture-taking tomorrow! Recognize any familiar faces? They are, from left to right:

Aliza Deutsch
Amy Prior
Angela Gutshall
Jennie McGarvey
Lisa Ottosson
Stephanie Medley-Rath
Van Nguyen
Margie Scarpignato
Valerie Bishop
Monica Bradford
Lisa Day
Janette Kincaid

Take a minute to say hello! And don't worry, there's still plenty of time to join in the fun. Check out our Take Twelve Guided Inpsiration Kit today.

I don't know about you, but I'm REALLY excited to get started on the Take Twelve photography and scrapbooking challenge for 2012. And here are just a few of the reasons why:

1. I don't take as many pictures during the day as I'd like to, so I'm excited to have one dedicated day each month where I know I'll be toting my camera around all day.
2. 2012 will be a big year of change for my family. My stepson will be graduating from high school this summer (ack!), and my daughter will grow out of her baby stage and firmly into the toddler years—right before my eyes. And we're hoping/planning for other exciting changes, too.
3. With a baby, a teenager, and a business and household to manage, I often let the actual act of creating scrapbook pages fall by the wayside. Now I've committed to scrapbook 144 pictures this year!
4. I think I convinced my sister and two sisters-in-law (all very creative and crafty but not frequent scrapbookers) to join the challenge, too!

I've been so excited, in fact, that I "practiced" by taking twelve photos on December 12, which happened to be the day we bought and put up our Christmas tree. (It was our first live tree in years, and it was a pure delight—apart from the price tag, that is.)

Here are my 12 photos from December 12, all taken with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone:

I didn't intend for each photo to have a different filter/effect (I didn't realize the app was set to "shake" mode, which switches lenses and film for you randomly between pictures), but it turns out I really like them all as a group!

I haven't decided yet whether I'll take the bulk of my pictures with my "real" camera or my phone camera. I may just let the mood of the day guide me.

For my December pictures, I'm probably going to use one of the two templates below from the Take Twelve Template pack to assemble my page. Of the twelve in the pack, I chose these two because they both have exclusively square photos, to match my Hipstamatic pictures. Since this layout isn't actually going in my 2012 Take Twelve album (which will be 8.5 x 11 although I probably should go with 12 x 12 just because it fits the "12" theme so well!), there are truly no constraints as to size for my December page. Darn it! Sometimes constraints are just the thing you need to help you make decisions.

12 x 12 single page template

8.5 x 11 double page template

If you're not sure how to use templates, check out this step-by-step video that will truly make it a breeze!

So, the countdown is on. I hope you'll join us! Make sure you sign up for our email list, if you haven't already, so you'll get that email reminder on January 11th to encourage you to get out that camera and snap away.

The week after Christmas is always a tiny bit complicated for me; on one hand, that amazing sense of anticipation that behaves much the same way as adrenaline is over for another year, leaving me happy but a little—OK, a lot—worn out.

But on the other hand, I start to think about projects. Oh, I love projects. While so many people are busy writing New Year’s Resolutions, I’m scheming about my next project for the upcoming year. You already know you’re in luck because Ella Publishing Co. has designed an amazing project for you to participate over the course of 2012 and beyond! Today I want to share just one more thing I love about the 2012 Take Twelve photography and scrapbooking challenge.

I’ve told this story so many times I feel like a broken record sometimes, but it’s so important to me that I want to be sure every creative person hears it!

Once upon a time a scrapbooker named Shelby Valadez changed my life—I’ve told her this before and I’m not entirely sure she believed me, but it’s true. I was oohing and ahhing (but not yet scrapbooking) on twopeasinabucket.com one day about ten years ago when I stumbled across a challenge group she hosted called Art Inspiration.

I watched every week for a few months as people would post a completed layout based on some piece of artwork she would email them. The cycle was so perfect: the email would be sent, a few days would pass, the completed project would appear. I worked up my nerve to ask if I could join the group and was super excited to receive my first inspiration email. I could do this! And guess what? I did. I was hooked.

Week after week, challenge after challenge: I eagerly anticipated the excitement of seeing what was in store for the upcoming week. I participated until the Art Inspiration challenge closed its doors, but I’ve maintained my affinity for challenges to this day. Here’s what I love about them:

Challenges hold you accountable: especially when you’re part of a group. Check out my post from last week to read more about accountability!

Challenges help you narrow your focus: it is so easy to become helplessly overwhelmed by ideas that have no parameters, because you can add and tweak and add some more until you’ve created a beast that cannot be tamed. A challenge usually has a simple boundary—no more, no less. Simple.

Finally, challenges are fun: there’s no pressure, only an invitation to get your creative wheels turning.

Check out what 144 distinct memories look like all together from the first year I played along in a “12 on 12” photo challenge. I blogged about my photos every month and scrapbooked them later. This year I’ll scrapbook my twelve photos each month in real time!

Now of course the Take Twelve photography challenge will operate a little differently than the Art Inspiration challenge did, but you can count on receiving the same “challenge benefits.” By participating in the challenge you’ll receive reminders to take your monthly photographs, scrapbook layout ideas from Ella Friends, and even opportunities to win giveaways for linking your own layouts for all to see each month!

There is nothing quite so sweet as accepting a challenge and succeeding. On behalf of everyone at Ella Publishing Co., we’d like to issue that challenge again today—what do you say?

Good morning!

I’m excited to bring you a series of blog posts about the 2012 Take Twelve Project over the next few weeks—to get you as excited as I am about this upcoming photography project!

Our Guided Inspiration Kit is chock-full of ideas and tools to keep you motivated throughout the project, and you can read about it here if you haven’t already purchased it. Today, however, let's chat about the concept of accountability as it relates to Take Twelve. I know, I know, scrapbooking is supposed to be fun, so what’s with the serious word? Just hear me out, though.

Accountability is a concept we learn early in our lives. We’re expected to follow the rules and be held accountable for the consequences if we don’t. We’re expected to learn a thousand and one things throughout our school years and be held accountable for the evidence of that knowledge. And we’re held accountable for behavior, decisions, and responsibilities every minute of our grown-up days, whether we like it or not.

In scrapbooking, though, accountability is less about rules and consequences and more about sheer FUN and EXCITEMENT—the choice to be accountable to a hobby that makes us happy. It implies that we’re in it together, setting ourselves up for success with our creative friends cheering us along every step of the way.

Here’s the thing: we humans are more likely to achieve great things when there’s cheering. And camaraderie. And chocolate. But I digress.

I entered a few words at wordle.net that came to mind when I thought about the Take Twelve Project, and I love the visual reminder that resulted!

Is it possible to embark on this project alone and see it through successfully? Absolutely. But memory-keeping is more fun when shared with friends and family; the excitement we feel when we create is powerful stuff, and the anticipation we feel before we share is powerful, too.

We here at Ella Publishing Co. want you to have a super-fun time participating in the Take Twelve Project, and we whole-heartedly urge you to grab a friend (or a group of friends) near or far and participate in the Take Twelve Project together!

This week I had the opportunity to hear from Christine Bastian, a relatively new digital scrapbooker with a daughter who lives in Europe. I was moved by her excitement about the 2012 Take Twelve Project:

When I learned about the Take Twelve Project I immediately thought how much fun this would be to do together with Lydia, my daughter. She looking for a new hobby and of course she has a great subject, her baby boy, but I told her that the Take Twelve project was not going to be 12 months of baby pictures. That would be just a baby scrapbook. The Take Twelve is supposed to be about her. Her inspiration, creativity, dreams etc. Because besides being a mom she is still that wonderful creative person and I wanted her to remember that. ;-)

Because she is starting with digital scrapbooking/art I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to do this together. We could help each other, I can help her with translations if needed. Sometimes technical stuff is more difficult to understand in a foreign language. And she and I could connect on another level. She is very much looking forward to it and so am I. I think it will be doable for her even though she has a busy life, it's much more manageable than a 365 project… I'm a true believer in scrapping also the small stuff, the real life stuff and of course journaling with that all.

The support and excitement that Christine and Lydia will share over the course of the Take Twelve Project is what scrapbooking accountability is all about.

We’ll provide the inspiration, you provide the chocolate, and we hope you’ll be clicking away on January 12!