How many digital photos are sitting on your hard drive right now? (I have 37,036, which means I average 350 a month. Holy cow!)

We scrapbooking enthusiasts take a lot of photos, and we want to get them scrapped—but 37,000 photos makes a lot of layouts. Multiple-photo, double-page layouts to the rescue! They are the perfect way to get a bunch of memories down in one space. Plenty of photos on a scrapbook layout means plenty of stories getting told. 

But sometimes it gets a little tricky, making all those photos visually appealing. How do you fit them all in, or best arrange them, or keep them from becoming overwhelming? Read more »

What are your scrapbooking-related New Year’s resolutions? This year I want to commit to putting more of myself down on my pages and telling stories on my layouts that really capture more of my personality. Won’t you join me in doing the same?

To give you a bit of a kick start, I’ve come up with a few scrapbooking layout ideas that will inspire you to share yourself more on your pages Read more »

Scrapbooking can be a time-consuming hobby—even more so when you have very young children, as I do. But thanks to a challenge from a friend, I recently discovered the perfect solution for completing quick, beautiful, and inspiring scrapbook pages—even during these busy holiday months—without all the mess. The solution? Digital scrapbooking templates. And I’m not even a digital scrapbooker! At least I wasn’t before now. Read more »

As the end of the year approaches (wow—that went fast!), do you find yourself reflecting on the celebrations, challenges, and memories your family has experienced over the last 365 days? Whether you've created a few or a few dozen layouts over the past 12 months, I hope you've captured details of your everyday life, relationships, and family values in addition to the major holidays and events. But if you haven't, this time of reflection is the perfect opportunity to do just that!
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Some of our devoted Ella fans out there may have noticed that this month’s eZine is a wee bit late. But we have an excuse—a 6 lb. 11 oz. excuse, to be precise. As the co-founder and primary editor at Ella Publishing Co., much of the wordsmithing and uploading falls to me. (And I wouldn’t have it any other way.) But the 11-days-early arrival of my new bundle of joy threw a little pink wrench into my plans. Read more »

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If you have daughters or other girls in your life, you probably create a fair number of girly scrapbook pages. My guess is you have no trouble finding products to help you do the job. In fact, your scrap space is probably overflowing with products that fit the bill. But, with so many options to choose from, Read more »

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There’s no doubt about it; scrapbooking is a lifestyle. Once you start preserving the past, you find that memory-keeping has an enormous impact on your present and your future. And I think it’s fair to say that the happiest, most productive, and most involved scrapbookers are Read more »

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Girls like pink. Boys like blue. Girls like crafting. Boys like sports. Girls are neat, clean, and like to dress up. Boys are slobs. Oh, the world is filled with these little nuggets of half-truth. If you know any kids (of either sex), then you know that some girls hate pink (I do), Read more »

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We’ve all heard the legendary tales of boys and their stinky socks, broken windows, snakes, and other outdoors-only wildlife loose in the house… And believe me, we mamas-of-just-girls know how good we have it. In our world, we have tea parties! Shopping partners! Pretty hair to fix! Read more »

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When I first started scrapbooking, I learned about design by copying (or very closely following) other scrapbookers' placement of photos, titles, and journaling on their pages. These days, when I look at layouts online or in magazines, I'm inspired not just by the structure of the page, Read more »