an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.
Anyone remember last spring when I couldn't paint enough triangles? I do.
I finally got around to putting one of them in a frame and wanted to list the others with the hope that they'll find good homes. These are super time consuming to make but strangely therapeutic. If you want a little graphic piece that looks pretty rad in a frame, they are listed here.
As always, thanks so much for your support.
& ps… that's just a white 8×10 frame from Michael's with a 5×7 white photo mat.
I have found that both a blessing and a curse of having a blog is that I am always thinking ahead. I am always thinking about next week's posts. Or next month's posts. What will I be doing? What can I be doing?
For me, it's much more a positive than a negative. It's important to me to have a post ready to go every weekday morning. I love writing. I love planning. I like waking up and knowing the first task of my day is already taken care of. This blog is both a personal journal and a business tool and daily posts are important for both.
And on a plane so much larger than the blog : thinking ahead is really how I get through the day. The full weight of Paul being gone is crushing when I think about today. And how far today is from next spring when he returns. But when I fast-forward to my next half-marathon in October or Thanksgiving up with my family, next spring really doesn't feel so far away. It feels much more manageable. And so, I look forward. I make plans for next week and next month.
But where it's a negative, is when I forget about today.
At the beginning of the year, I choose magic for my one little word. And other than choosing it, I have done nothing with it. Tuesday, I started thinking about my word for 2012. I picked the perfect one and wonderful reasons for why it would be good to carry with me.
And then, and this pains me to admit, I started planning (in my head) the blog post that I would write to share my 2012 word. It was witty and I was so looking forward to late December when I could write it out and hit publish. I started thinking about how I would say I didn't really do too much with the word magic in 2011. And then, out of nowhere, I realized I have three and a half months of 2011 which I had just written off without blinking an eye.
FAIL.
This is a really long way of saying, I want to talk about my word for 2011. About magic.
Not only do I have three and a half months to live with and through magic, when I really thought about it, I have already felt so much magic in the past eight and a half months. I wake up everyday and am in charge of my own time. I went from being a non-runner to a half marathoner. I celebrated one year of marriage. Paul and I decided that we are ready to be parents (for real this time). We shared this great day. I am 1/5 of the way through a deployment.
The running thing alone is nothing short of a miracle.
And obviously, magic is just a cheeky word I picked. Magic is real, no doubt, but it is something you make. It doesn't happen to you. (I mean, even people who win the lottery made the choice to buy a ticket.) Every single day, I make a choice to be upbeat. To focus on the good stuff. To work and talk and cry my way through the bad stuff. To get out of the house. To create something new. To love Paul more. To love myself more.
I have a few more months to create magic in my own life and I am going to focus on not wishing away a single day.
Moving right along with my fall minibook…
I added eight instagram photos to the back of the second page. I just uploaded them to iPhoto and printed as them very small a contact sheet. (I am absolutely obsessed with instagram.) For the page on the right, I brought up one of the kraft sheets and ran it through my printer to add some text about current favorites. There is a video in this post that talks about how I create the text and print directly on to the page.
For the next spread, I printed an 8×6 photo and cut it in half to fit in the book. I love adding journaling strips and to create the ones shown, I first wrote out the text then trimmed it with a paper cutter. I stuck the strips on to the photo using a roller adhesive.
The next spread is about tea (which I am sure will be a running theme throughout this book). I printed two 4×6 photos and added them right into the book.
The journaling is hard to read in the photos but was taken from yesterday's blog post and printed on an inkjet printer transparency so the photo shows through beneath the text.
See the start of this book here. Still need an autumn minibook? Pick one up with a copper or white cover. Working on an autumn minibook? Join the flickr group and grab a badge for your blog!
Bread no. 22 : garlic knots. (recipe below)
Adjustments : when I set out to make these, I was going to follow this recipe. But when I read it and realized the base was pizza dough, I just used my own dough recipe (it's super similar) and then missed the part about how you were supposed to add the wash AFTER you baked the knots. I was really happy with the result though, so I typed up my steps below.
Notes : easy. And you could do this same thing and toss anything on them… butter, cinnamon and sugar would be great if you wanted something sweet.
Review : am a fan. Will be making these again.
+
garlic knots (adapted from Joy the Baker)
for dough :
2 teaspoons yeast
1 C warm water (like hot tub temperature)
1 C wheat flour (plus some additional)
1 C white flour
1 T olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
for garlic wash :
2 T melted butter
2 T olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
salt to taste
a big pinch of dried oregano (or any fresh spice you prefer!)
Mix water, yeast and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Allow to sit for a few minutes until yeast is bubbling. Add remaining dry ingredients and stir with a dough hook on low. (If mixing by hand, use a wooden spoon to combine ingredients and then knead by hand.) After the dough has started to form, add olive oil and increase speed to medium for about a minute or two.
Evaluate the dough. You'll probably need to add another 1/4-1/2 C of flour. (I usually add more wheat, you can use white if you prefer.) Dough should form a ball and not stick to the sides of the bowl but may be slightly tacky to the touch.
Leave dough in a dry place to rise for about two hours – dough should double in size. (I keep mine in a turned off oven).
When you are ready to bake, pre-heat the oven to 400*.
Mix all ingredients for the garlic wash in a small bowl.
Roll out dough like you would a pizza. Cut dough into about one inch strips and tie them in a knot and tuck the edges in. Dunk your dough knots into the garlic wash and lay out on a cookie sheet.
Bake knots for about 15 minutes.
Enjoy!
In August, I tweeted that I was looking for new teas to try. Kal suggested David's Tea and then while I was up in Winnipeg, I was able to go to the David's Tea storefront. Safe to say, prior to a visit there I knew next to nothing about tea. Okay, I knew something about tea – but that something was : it all tastes similar and comes in tea bags.
Turns out there is a lot more to the story.
The experience in the shop reminded me so much of wine tasting except that everything is cheaper, brighter and you don’t need a designated driver by the end of the night.
At Kal’s the day before I had tried Jesse’s Tea, a great non-caffeinated version so I bought that as well as Forever Nuts and Copabanana. And then, I choose a few caffeinated versions : Movie Night, Read My Lips and Pumpkin Chai.
Since I have been home, I have tried all six. When Paul was home we tended to eat dinner and then drink wine. Sometimes I still do. But the other nights, when I really don’t want alcohol, I still miss the feeling of sipping and enjoying something. Enter non-caffeinated David’s Tea. Not the same, but really good and already habit forming. (My favorites so far are Read My Lips & Forever Nuts.)
Paul is also not able to drink wine while on deployment but has said he’s been drinking a ton of coffee all day long. (He’s exact words were “I feel like Mikael Blomvist [from the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo] drinking a cup of coffee on every page.”) I’m excited to see what he’ll think of drinking teas instead so I'm going to send a box of different favors and a infuser. Hopefully he’ll enjoy it. (I’m pretty sure that while on deployment it is all about the little things.)
Right now, I am just heating water and using a metal tea infuser but I am hoping to upgrade to something like this when I need to reorder.
If you are in Canada and haven’t already been to a store (which is unlikely, I know) drop in! And if you’re in the states, and want to try, they ship! We don’t get much of a fall in San Diego, but that will not stop me from wearing scarves and drinking hot tea for the next few months.
Any other teas I should be trying?
Want to share with your readers that you are saving your autumn in a minibook? Copy and paste the following into your blog sidebar :
<a href=”YOURLINKHERE”><img src=”https://eliseblaha.typepad.com/fallbutton.jpg”></a>
Be sure to replace YOURLINKHERE with the site that you would like your button to go to. Some ideas :
the flickr group : http://www.flickr.com/groups/1737284@N24/pool/with/6122008900/
my blog : http://eliseblaha.typepad.com/
your blog.
your minibook posts.
I am trying to figure out what would be the most fun and interesting minibooks to actually make in the workshop and this is experiment number one. I have done this zig-zag binding technique before and just love it with the sewn details.
While I was in New York, I ended up taking very few photos with my camera (FAIL – I blame Irene) but did get some winners with my iPhone and the instagram app. I printed them at home (using iPhoto) and cropped them up to add images to this little book.
supplies : Paper Source & Coredinations Foundations cardsock, Amy Tangerine, American Crafts & Hambly patterned paper, Kolo photo corners, Amy Tangerine chipboard letters, circle rub-ons source unknown, Sharpie pen.
And related : I was a guest on Paperclipping Rountable last week and the topic was … minibooks!
On September 11, 2001, I woke up early and got ready to go to school. I was a junior in high school. My friend Erin, who I carpooled with, called and told me to turn on the TV. I started watching just as the second plane hit. I remember thinking it had to be an accident. I remember not being able to comprehend the level of anxiety so many people were feeling. I remember coming home from school gluing myself to the television until it was time for bed. I remember watching people walk around numbly, holding photos of loved ones they were hoping to find. I remember the paper released a special afternoon edition, something I had never seen before. It was filled with photos that I couldn't believe were real.
On September 11, 2011, I woke up early to talk to my husband via video chat. He is in Afghanistan in great part because of what happened ten years ago. I still cannot understand the level of anxiety that family members of missing loved ones experience. I hope and pray that I never have to.
Today, I remember those that were lost that horrible day and all those that have been lost since then. I pray for their families and I pray for Peace.
I'm making stuff again. Look for photos of the full book on Monday.
And because a similar photo got a lot of questions on twitter : I got my instagram photos on paper by uploading them to iPhoto and then printing a contact sheet. For more information on how to print a contact sheet, please refer to the video in this post.
Happy weekend!
enJOY it 
