enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

(first ever) what i wore post. (at least i think it is.)

April 2, 2011

I don't think anyone requested "what I wore" posts when I asked for suggestions the other day. But personally, I love style posts when they pop up on other blogs, so I am going to try and work a few in over here. PLUS, I think they are going to encourage me to pull myself out of jeans and start mixing and matching some things. I wore this out to dinner last night – more on that coming soon.

Here we go. shoes: random boutique in hawaii circa summer 2008, skirt: ann taylor clearance, belt: j.crew clearance, shirt: gap, necklace: this one from verabel on etsy (I turn it around when my shirt has a pattern), bracelets: kate spade & tiffany, clutch: helena de natalio via swirl.com, sunglasses: kate spade.

ps : when I asked Paul what shoes I should wear, he said "combat boots" because apparently, this is the most military outfit he has ever seen.
business goals progress in quarter one.

April 1, 2011

If I had an ELISE JOY team meeting scheduled for today I would say :

"Good job this past quarter, team. We are right on schedule with product roll outs and are doing much better with expense management. I am happy to see that past workshops have all been turned into PDFs and I am pleased with the work that has gone into the Blog 2.0 workshop. Way to go on the craft fair acceptance, but man alive do we have a lot of items to tackle for that one! There are nine long months ahead of us and it is going to be difficult to maintain the sales numbers from March. I expect a list of highly profitable product ideas from all of you on my desk by the end of next week. APRIL FOOLS! I will, of course, need it by the end of the day."

And then as the only member of the ELISE JOY team, I would feel proud but panicked because my boss can be very unrealistic at times. Not to mention how embarrassed I would be that I just dressed up for a meeting of one that took place in my living room around a big trunk that is pretending to be a coffee table.

No, but seriously.

2011 is my first year with this business as my only job. Every single day I wake up and am thrilled that I get to make stuff for a living. Sometimes though, I wish I had a co-worker to come up with ideas while I worried about my virtual crops on facebook. (Except not really, because I refuse to grow virtual crops.)

It's the best job ever. And I am happy with what I have done so far this year. Especially the Blog 2.0 workshop that officially starts Monday. (YAY!) The only goal from January that I have let go of is turning the minibook workshop into a book and really, that was a good move. I need the income that comes from the PDFs much more than I need the idea of a book sometime in the future. I would still love to write a book someday, but I no longer envision it as a scrapbooking book. We'll see. I'll chat more with the boss at my Q2 meeting in July.

Thanks for humoring me, and thanks (as always) for the support.
March 31, 2011

I am so inspired by all the blog suggestions that were left today. Thank you. I have a few goal wrap up posts scheduled for Friday & Monday and then I am going to dive into these. I especially love the idea of getting Paul to write a post or two. That will be happening for sure.

ALSO, it's been a few years since I have done a video post for this blog. (I do them often my workshops.) So I filmed one this afternoon. It's a little rambly – because that's how I roll. But if you want to see the girl behind the blog, check it out. I answer a few questions from today's post that seemed like they would fit the video format. I didn't rehearse, so like I said, it's a little rambly. More questions and answers coming soon. And if Paul is willing, I would like him to do a video with me next week.

elise gets chatty. from elise blaha on Vimeo.

Fingers crossed the video doesn't scare you away. I say "like" and "you know" about eight million times. I'll work on it. And seriously, thank you. My big wall calendar of blog posts is so full right now.

(Giveaway winners will be picked tomorrow morning.)
you give ideas, i give prints! – winners below.

March 31, 2011

hi folks!

Next month is shaping up to be crazy with the blog workshop and prep work for the craft fair I will be participating in.

Of course, it is also a big priority that this blog stays active and so I'm asking – do you have any suggestions for blog topics? I've got 20 days to fill and not a ton of time to be thinking up blog ideas.

If you'd like me to write about something, please leave a request in the comments. And to sweeten the pot – I am giving away 5×7 digital prints (your choice) to three randomly chosen commenters. Suggestions are always welcome, but this giveaway will close tomorrow (Friday) morning. And the winners will then be announced in this post.

WINNERS : Dawn S, Andrea Miller & Erica. Please email me with the print of your choice and I'll send it out! Thank you!!
poster packaging.

March 30, 2011

Amidst the blog workshop lesson developing, I am mentally planning out my booth for the Queen Bee Market in early May. This market is going to have a shared checkout which means I will not need to be at my booth for the entire two days. This is great news, as I am looking forward to wandering around (not to mention being able to go to the bathroom). It is also a bit challenging because it meant I needed to come up with a way for my 11×14 posters to be "shopped."

I can't just have them flat out on the table, they are too delicate for that. And I can't have someone (me) at the table at all times to "pull" the poster the customer is looking for. Plus, I think it helps when people don't have to ask for help and can just pick through product on their own.

So I was a bit at a loss for what to do. And then, while driving, I had the idea to roll the posters into plastic sleeves (we used these when I worked at Paper Source to package flat paper for customers) and close off the top with a piece of cardstock and label.

I ordered 2×14 inch sleeves from uline and tried packing posters in them yesterday. Happily, the prints fit perfectly.

I am including a small sample image of what is in the plastic on the backside of the cardstock label. As of now, I am planning to machine stitch the sleeves closed between the folded cardstock.

Of course, I am also going to have a few of the posters framed in the booth for display purposes so people can see them at full size.

Fingers crossed these will be easily shopable and will help the posters stay safe.
she & he in march.

March 29, 2011

He is working a lot.

She is working a lot.

Everything she can think of to say really gets summed up by the first two sentences.

But this set of pictures made her smile so big.

And three cheers for new glasses!
project 3 of 26 / a striped pillow.

March 28, 2011

I cannot figure out if this pillow idea came to me in a dream or if I saw it while scanning blogs sometime last week. But the pattern and color scheme was very set in my head before I even entered a fabric store.

It's different than the colors I am usually drawn to, that is for sure.

It took much longer than it should have because I was unsure of how to make the stripes do what I wanted to. Because of this, I don't have step by step photos. Also because of this, my stripes are far from perfect and don't measure up quite right.

But what ended up working best was cutting the fabric into strips and then sewing them in a repeating pattern so the ends were like stairsteps.

Once I had my "striped" fabric piece, I sewed another one and then sewed the edges with the stairsteps together so the stripes lined up and formed a "V" down the center of the pillow. It became much more complicated than intended, (and very wrinkly – yikes!) but I am happy with the result.

Instead of using one full piece of fabric for the backside, I used two and hemmed the edges. I pinned the pieces together to form one piece and sewed the front and the back together. After I removed the pins, I had a pocket to slide the pillow insert into. I might need to add a little button to the back to keep it together, but for now it's working well.

Hmmm, maybe I'll get a complete tutorial together for this project … 🙂

This is project 3 of 26.

I am attempting to tackle 26 personal craft projects before I turn 27 on 02.22.12. You can follow my progress here on the blog, on pinterest or on flickr.

See project 1 & 2.
thoughts on saturday.

March 26, 2011

I saw this quote on twitter a few weeks ago and loved it. It's exactly how I feel about creating new workshops. There is always so much to do. So much to articulate and then so much expectation. It's completely overwhelming. But so far, the end game is always worth it. Being uncomfortable makes me work that much harder.

Paul is on call this weekend for the last time in this rotation and I am settling down with a cup of coffee, a long list and my laptop. So far I have the first week of lessons 70% complete. And already there are over 10,000 words, seven videos and dozens of visual aids. This is a hell of a workshop.

If you have not yet signed up, but are interested, I have about four spots left. Class starts on Monday, April 4th. If you have already joined in – Thank you, thank you. You are responsible for all of my go & get it energy right now.
the trunk & other thoughts.

March 25, 2011

TA-DA! We got our trunk home. It was pretty high tech : we pushed it four blocks on a rolling dolly. This trunk is HUGE. Much bigger that I realized. I figured it would make a good coffee table until it was in our living room next to our current coffee table and it stood 11 inches taller.

Not quite right. So the backup plan is to replace our TV table with it. It's about the right height and a perfect footprint for that side of the room.

But first, I need to finish up the inside. I mentioned earlier this trunk needs some TLC. I love the worn look of the outside, for sure. However, the lining on the inside is junky. I would be uneasy storing stuff in there (and right now I am thinking books or blankets) until it gets relined.

I am planning on relining it with thin fabric or maybe even heavy paper. I need to try a few things. Hopefully this weekend I'll get it done.

It's so pretty though. I can't complain too much.

AND ALSO : I mentioned over the weekend that Paul and I were going to be curing our Ikea addiction. To be clear, I love Ikea. Some of their stuff is awesome for what we need (like the bookcases) but other pieces, we end up buying because they are cheap, not because they are our style or we really love them. After months of pinning favorite rooms on Pinterest, I realized I want to make our space look a little more collected and a little less like an Ikea or big box store catalog. The key of course, is collecting the new pieces and it's going to take forever and ever. But this trunk was a good start and I am excited to share more of the adventure here.
i love march.

March 24, 2011

j.crew plaid, vamoose necklace, striped summer skirt (tutorial), kate spade tipsy flats, american apparel leather clutch, gap shrunken blazer, dear june scarf set / all photos via appropriate website.

So I decided to make my I LOVE posts monthly posts. I love creating these litte round ups and surprisingly, online window shopping curbs my real shopping appetite (sort of).

Above are my March picks. I'm a bit addicted to anything plaid and buy button ups whenever I find nice colors on sale. That shrunken blue blazer from GAP is awesome in real life and I am learning to work it into my wardrobe. Other than that, these LOVES are just a big wishlist. But hopefully I'll find time in the next few months to try out that striped skirt tutorial…

Care to share what you are loving this month?