enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

  • material 1 of 27 / yarn into a knitted cowl.

    Cowl3

    27yarn
    Cowl2
    Cowl

    This cowl got away from me. I mean really. It's longer than I am…folded in half. I am not sure how or why the measurements are screwed up. But I adore it. It represents my first foray into creative knitting and fancy yarn and circular needles. Plus it looks rad and feels cozy wrapped around my neck five times.

    To get the "stripes" of color, I just changed yarn every row – alternating between gray and light teal.

    Cowl4

    p.s. Thanks Paul for the photos. I knew I wanted you home for a reason. 😉

    p.p.s. This is why I could never be a style blogger. I can't pose to save my life. My "photo plan" is to tell Paul to shoot 100 shots. I then run away from him, turn around and run back crossing my fingers for some gems.

    Dottedline

    This is project 1 of 27. I am attempting to complete 27 craft projects using 27 different materials before I turn 28 on 02.22.13. You can follow my progress here on the blog or on pinterest. Birthday challenges are my favorite. You can see the 26 Projects I completed while 26 here and the 27 materials I have used so far here.

  • project life : week 9.

    Plwk9

    Week nine is in the books… and I love this project.

    Plwk9full

    (click to enlarge & the image above will be [somewhat] clearer)

    I put this week together Saturday – so a full week after it was "complete". As a result, some details got missed. For example, two weeks later, it was easy to forget that there were some crazy moments as we readjusted to living together (I may have burst into tears in a sushi restaurant). Now all of that seems done and over with, but I should probably slip a note about the first few days in there somewhere.

    Plwk9left

    Life seems fuller with two. This book seems fuller with two. I am going to have to make sure to stay on top of it so things don't get missed again. I don't do any formal "note-taking" throughout the week, but twitter is awesome for saving little snippets of our lives (like the baby lookout joke – true story though.)

    Plwk9detail2

    This photo of Paul (taken from above in the loft window of our bedroom) is probably my favorite of the whole year so far. It just looks like life. Our dishes from dinner still on the coffee table. The Dexter DVD by the TV. The craft projects (blanket & heart pillow) actually in use. Running shoes by the door. And Paul – of course, Paul. Before he got home, I would not have thought to grab this "messy" shot. I would absolutely have cleared that table and picked up the sweatshirt and "styled" things. This is our life though. My house has people living in it again.

    Plwk9washi

    I tried something new with washi tape this week and wrapped it around a card to create a continuous pattern. After it was all on there, I rounded the corners. I love the look and that tape (c/o Freckled Fawn) is a new favorite. The chipboard "C" is super old … I can't remember the manufacturer. Yellow label stickers are Avery + Martha Stewart.

    Plwk9detail

    Also loving the circle tags from Elle's Studio for adding bits of text to photos.

    Plwk9right

    Semi-random assortment of photos this week, but it was a strange one because we were up in Sacramento and I didn't get my camera out as often as I should have.

    Plwk9detail4

    I wanted to get the "for the love of candid" blog post into the album and it worked well to stick the photos and the text on to one 4×6 canvas in Photoshop Elements. I added the "title" right to the photo after printing with another Martha Stewart label.

    Plwk9detail3

    The wine/drink paper is from an old egg press calendar that I have held on to for years. It's representing our dinner at The Kitchen. I wanted to save the whole menu, but the "thank you" portion really sums up the meal and I love what the chefs have to say about food.

    Man, it was wonderful to take a vacation, but I am so happy to be home. I am still finishing up week 10 and will be sharing that soon and meanwhile I am putting together week 11 as it happens. Again, I'm an broken record, but I really love this project. Thanks for continuing to follow along as I share. It's amazing how much text I come up with each week. 🙂

    supplies / Paper Source circle label, American Crafts patterned paper and chipboard embellishment, Ormolu "2" tag, Elle's Studio circle tags, Freckled Fawn washi tape, Design A page protectors (which are available in this variety pack), Clementine core kit, Bebas quote font. I use a Fiskars corner rounder (it's not amazing, but it's lasted the longest of any corner rounder I've ever had). I am using a Zig Millennium 0.1 pen and Recollections glossy marker throughout this album.

    Confused by Project Life? Start here. See all my Project Life posts here.

  • fancy it up.

    Seabeeball2
    Seabeeball

    Last night we attended the Seabee Ball at the Reagan Library (that's Air Force One!). I love any excuse to shop for a dress (and long dresses are the way to go – I officially hope everyone I know has a black tie wedding). I love seeing Paul in uniform. I love meeting all the guys he spent seven months with in Afghanistan (and chatting with their awesome wives). I love that Arrested Development was quoted around our dinner table. I love that my orange wedding shoes got another night out.

    Fun fact : Paul and I almost went to his senior ball together … twelve years ago. It's hilarious to think about what a high school e&p relationship would have looked like. I am willing to bet it would have been more dramatic and not nearly as successful.

  • so sweet.

    Bigsur

    We've had a fantastic vacation.

    And absolutely unreal weather for early March. It's like someone knew Paul deserved a wonderful week. I'm so looking forward to settling into our new normal with our new place and Paul's new work schedule and my new secret but awesome project that will take all my creativity.

    It's going to be an awesome month. And Monday will be a hit the ground running day. But we've got 48 hours of goodness (including the Seabee Ball!) before it's time to think about that.

    I'm excited.

  • from the adventure.

    Napa0
    Napa
    Napa2
    Epnapa
    Napaend
    Drive
    Sfdrive
    Sf2
    Sf3
    Sf4
    Sfend

  • from the archives.

    March2012

    Whenever someone comments on the blog, I get an email. I like it because it's easy to keep up with and answer questions when I get them. I love it because sometimes, someone reading the archives will leave a comment and I get brought back to the past. A few weeks ago I got a comment on a post I wrote on August 5, 2006 that went like this :

    I have been mulling over this post since the beginning of the summer. Trying to articulate it. Trying to describe it. Trying to title it. Trying to figure out if I could type in this little box something so big. And I sit here and type. And delete. And watch the cursor.  And all I can actually hear in my brain are The Fray lyrics. There are certain people you just keep coming back to.

    And that is true. 

    But there is more than that. There is a certain person that you just want to fall into. Completely. The person that challenges you. And learns from you. And cares for you. The person that will not let you skip to number four on the Jose Gonzales CD because there is time and you have to be patient. The person who makes you forget that you have a swollen mouth and stitches. The person that understands why you would only want a whole wheat crepe. The person that knows how beer is made and bridges are built. The person who tries to "cliff-notes" their stories but fails miserably. 

    It is the person who will catch you when you are ready to stop falling.

    I do not think that I thought that I could find what I found this summer. Am still not sure of exactly what I found. But it is simultaneously the most exciting thing and the most calming thing in the entire world. And I have a lot of faith. Faith in myself. Faith in Paul. Faith in synergy. Faith in honesty. Faith in distance and experience and growth. Which ultimately comes down to faith in God.

    Because life is good. And time we have. And I am blessed. So very blessed.

    Are you smiling, baby? Good.

    That post was the first time I wrote about Paul and the relationship we were starting. I wrote it five years before I dropped him off at LAX for his first deployment. TO THE DAY. I wrote it before I went back to college for my senior year and before he moved across the country for medical school. I wrote it before we knew the aching pain of long distance (and no, I am not talking about deployment).

    That first year we spent apart, both in school, was hard. Really hard. All of my close girlfriends were single or dating guys who lived a few houses down. I had a hard time balancing fun and carefree time with them and a long-distance relationship. I was struggling so much to land a job I liked and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find a job that liked me back. I knew our relationship was the Real Deal, but that was overwhelming, not comforting. I was scared to make a move across the country for a boy. I was also scared that if I didn't make that move, I'd lose him forever.

    The deployment was easy on our relationship compared with that first year before I graduated college. We have grown up so much separately and together. I am thrilled with where we are as a couple, but it's fascinating to look back at the girl I was when I was just starting to fall in love with Paul. When we had only nine weeks and a great summer under our belt. Before the struggles. Before the challenges. Before the two cross-country moves. Before the deployment. In some ways, I was naive, but in many ways, I already had it figured out.

    "Because life is good. And time we have. And I am blessed. So very blessed."

    I have never written truer statements.

    photo from Monday in Napa.

  • it’s fun to…

    Hands

    …go through your photos looking for similarities. Love the comparison. Love that I appear to have a weakness for beverages of all kinds, yarn and beach rocks. And as I learned from my adventures in running shoe photos, once pulled into a grid, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

    all photos taken with the instagram app over a period of about four months.

  • next adventure.

    Ep

    Paul and I spent the past few days up in Sacramento visiting our families & friends. It's been awesome. Yesterday afternoon we headed over to Napa. We'll be here for another day and then we'll be stopping to stay, eat and play in San Francisco and Big Sur before getting back home. It's a lazy, drive down the coast without too much of a plan, sort of vacation and absolutely right up our alley. I have been miserable about using my camera and I hope to turn that around this week.

    Those first few days of settling back into each other and refiguring out ourselves as a couple were so amazing and necessary. But watching Paul tell stories to other people and catching his eye from across the room and having someone next to me in big group settings again is just heaven. I missed Real Life with him so much.

    It's a joy to have him back.

    heads up : while there will be new posts here every morning and I am sure lots of photos in my instagram feed (username : elisejoy), I will not be checking or responding to email or comments all week. 🙂

  • for the love of candid.

    Kitchen

    The past few months can be summed up in a lot of "still-life" photos (mostly of craft projects, brussels sprouts and running shoes). My life was full, but in a completely different way than it is now.

    I love these photos that my dad snapped at dinner last night for their candid-ness. It's the details : Paul covering his mouth – which is his go-to "shocked" face. His arm on the back of my chair. A full table of wine glasses. Me telling the chef I had "@-ed" him on twitter and then him pulling his phone out to say "OH! So this is you…"

    We had a fantastic dinner up in Sacramento last night at The Kitchen. It's an experience and a half and one we'd been waiting a long time for. It's awesome to have a little bit of the night saved. It's even more awesome that our families are good friends and that a dinner with all of us together is easy and comfortable.

  • 40 loaves / honey cornbread muffins.

    Bread2
    Bread

    New40loaves

    Bread no. 35 : honey cornbread muffins.

    Adjustments : I cut a bit of sugar – used a little less than 1/3 C instead of 1/2 C.

    Notes : easy as pie. Which is good because I am anxious to wrap this project up and unveil my new cooking adventure. Five "loaves" to go!

    Review : the batter was fantastic. We both would have just ate that instead. Cooked up, they were still pretty good and got even better the second and third day.