[News] Elsie Flannigan Leaves KI Memories

Designer Elsie Flannigan made the not entirely unexpected announcement today via her blog, A Beautiful Mess, that she parted ways with KI Memories last month:

For the past two years I have been working exclusively for KI Memories designing the Love, Elsie product line. It was truly one of the most fun and challenging experiences in my life. Your response and support for the products were so amazing. I really had a wonderful time.

Anyway, to make a long story quite short I resigned from my position with KI this past month. I have mixed feelings about that choice. On one hand, I loved the product line (both the designing process and the actual product) and I will be very sad not to see it coming out again. It was a very fun season in my life and certainly a huge learning experience!

Flannigan's "Love, Elsie" product line debuted at CHA-Winter 2007. Her book, "52 Scrapbooking Challenges", had been published in August 2006 and at the time she was riding a wave of popularity as the icon of the trendy "doodle-y" style.

Since then, interest in the "doodle-y" style trend has seemed to wane somewhat in the scrapbooking world. KI did not have new product introductions for the "Love, Elsie" line at CHA-Summer 2008, and the company explained that omission by saying Flannigan was taking a break.

Flannigan says that moving forward she will be continuing her work for her successful Etsy store, elsiecake, and other projects that she has yet to announce.