enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

  • DIY branding.

    I'm over the hump of the brand re-design. Everything has been ordered and sent to print. Which means I am now playing the waiting game. Business cards, postcards & stickers are all in process or in transit to my little home office.

    And while I wait, I am getting a few things together on this end.

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    I am planning to add little circle stickers with my "logo" on them to all the print, kit & book packaging that leave the shop. I think it's a little more professional to get my name on there and if I ever get my act together and sell at a live craft fair, they would be a perfect spot to write on the price.

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    I made these stickers with Paper Source 1.25" Round Labels & their printable template. Very easy.

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    Something else new that I have wanted for awhile were designated shop notecards. I always try to dash a note off with custom orders and have never had a uniform way of doing it. Now I do.

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    I ordered custom stamps from Simon Stamp and made up a bunch cards so I'll have something ready to go. I cut 8.5 x 11 Cover Paper in some fun colors into four smaller cards and stamped a logo on top.

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    The stamps are also perfect on tags for mixed paper books.

    I'm very happy to have some less expensive do-it-yourself projects to supplement the bigger costs of business card printing and everything else.

  • mini list : updated.

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    Last summer, when I made my website, I included a page called mini list. It had every minibook I had made plus a link to a photo of the book cover & more details. This past weekend, I finally went through and made links from the book page to the inside of the book for most of the albums.

    Now the catalog is actually fully functional and I'm slightly cross-eyed. Worth it.

  • favorite posts

    dear ellerie / week one

    i want to remember : from the hospital

    i want to remember : mornings

    our home buying story

    magic sky

    the difference between goals and to-do list items

    taking creative work seriously

    blog content generation

    how I get from idea to reality

    on expertise & tips for making it work

    turning my instagram photos into a book

    on the homecoming : Paul’s return from his first deployment

    26 favorite things

    26 projects wrap up

    a checkerboard knit blanket

    quite a long ramble on staying inspired

    since Paul’s been gone…

    on the nike women’s half marathon

    small diet changes

    home is wherever i’m…

    do your best : when Paul left for Afghanistan

    palm springs minibook

    running & half-marathon tips & tricks

    q&a on the shop & small business

    our new quilt

    on motivation

    our honeymoon album : a minibook from Bora Bora

    our wedding album

    ruffled pillow tutorial

    living room tour

    our engagement book

    NYC : album on the road

    letterpress printing : a how to

    bridesmaids invites : how I asked my girlfriends to be in my wedding

    the e + p engagement

    e + p : a love story

    kauai : album on the road

    window shopping. : a window display I helped to make

    on mini books

    the moon

    europe inspiration : photos from an adventure

    college graduation : from USC

  • the she & he book.

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    I finally got started on a physical journal to hold my monthly "she & he" musings and photos.

    It's laughably simple and that is completely the point. I wanted an album that I can update a few times a year forever and ever. And by forever and ever, I really hope I am right.

    95% of the scrapbook projects I do are just for fun. I really don't think about the "future Elise" or our kids reading/looking through them. But this is totally different.

    This album is our story. Elise & Paul. She & he.

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    I am including in this album the essentials : the text from my monthly blog posts, the life events, and for now, our weekly photobooth strips. 

    Everything has a format.

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    Monthly "she & he" posts are printed on kraft cardstock in black 9pt helvetica font. And then on goes a photo from the month that was printed at home with a thin white border. And around the whole thing is a machine stitched line in white thread.

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    Life events get a page with a photo from the event and a blurb. I make big and mini albums for all sorts of events. This album is not to provide detail. This is to provide a time line. Again, it's our story in a simple form. These pages are printed on semi-gloss photo paper at home and then a machine stitched black line is added.

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    For the photobooth strips, I want to see how many I end up with over the next few months. I will probably sew them into place by stitching right on the plastic page protectors.

    Supplies : album from Target, page protectors by American Crafts, kraft cardstock from Kraft Outlet, letter stickers & photo paper from Office Depot.

    I'm excited to try and keep this up. A photo a month of our family (obviously future little ones would get added in) + a quick write up of what happened to us kept for years? That would be awesome.

  • perfect kraft paper.

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    After quite a hunt and a lot of disappointing results, I finally found the perfect kraft cardstock. It's from Kraft Outlet. If you want something that looks & feels like genuine paper bag (except even better), you want this.  Thicker cover weight is the Lunch Bag Kraft at the bottom of this page ($2.75 for 10 sheets). Regular text weight is here ($1.90 for 10 sheets). Both worked great in my inkjet printer. 

    I'll be sharing the book I am making with this paper by the end of the week.

  • a three day weekend.

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    It's a holiday weekend here & due to magic, Paul has three days off from the hospital. We're going to drink coffee and visit the farmer's market this morning.  Then for lunch we get to see my brother & meet his girlfriend. As of Wednesday, Robbie is living right next door in Los Angeles and starts his new job in a few weeks. It's sort of like all the sudden we are done with college and have become grown-ups together. How cool is that? Who'd have thought?

    And after that … we have no plans. So it's going to be a lazy couple days (with an appropriate amount of computer work.)

    I'll drink to that.

  • 100% worth $4.

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    I told Paul we are probably going to be taking at least one photo strip a week until we move away from Little Italy.

    He's on board.

  • thoughts on the re-brand.

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    I spent too much time on moo.com yesterday (thanks for the reminder of it's amazing-ness, Kal) getting ideas for my shop/brand re-design. I think I'll be going with their glossy business cards for sure. I love the idea of having different sayings and colors on the front of the cards and then my details and info in gray + the color on the back. (The colors are super muted for the web but would be bright and bold in real life.)

    As I was jotting ideas for the front of the cards I realized just how similar the concept is to my website. (Hover over the different photos & you'll see the similarity.) That was not on intentional but I love it. Makes me feel like I am headed in the right direction. And it thrills me that the website will not need too big of a facelift.

    It's also cool that my new last name is going to be on these cards. Email-wise and typepad-wise and twitter-wise and flickr-wise (so basically internet-wise) I think I will always be "Elise Blaha." But legally, in real life and on my business cards Blaha is just a second middle name. Pretty cool. And totally strange.

    I hope this stuff is interesting, because I would love to keep you posted the next month or so as I make stuff for this re-brand and re-launch. It's starting to occupy my dreams!

  • this close.

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    There is a bar down the street from us that we go to about once a week for happy hour. In the back of the bar there is a photobooth. Every week for the last few months it has had an "out of order" sign on it.

    I figured it was a pretty permenant problem, I mean, who's going to fix an old photobooth? But just in case, I always had to check.

    And yesterday? It was up! And running! And demanding just $2 for a strip of photos!

    So we go sit down. And of course, all we have between us in cash is one dollar.

    I took the photos above of our reflection in the little camera screen. Paul was pretty sure they were just as good as the real thing.

    I'm not convinced.

    Next week, I'm bringing $10 in ones.

  • september.

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    I'm pretty sure that for the rest of my life the start of September will feel like a new beginning.

    It means new shoes. Doodle-free notebooks. A scuff free backpack. A clean desktop. Organized notes. Good handwriting.

    Somewhere around Halloween everything falls apart, but in those first few weeks it feels like you'll be able to keep up with all your good intentions for the rest of the year.

    We're super low on fall weather around here (which is excellent by me) but I'm all about using the good intentions.

    The fresh start. The clean desk. The good attitude.

    Today is day three of my online workshop and I am feeling more on top of it than under it, if you know what I mean. It's working (at least it seems that way) and that is always a relief. I can see the light at the end of the lesson-planning and sample-making tunnel which means I am starting to entertain ideas for the next big project.

    I would love to re-brand and re-vamp my shop. Change up how I package things. Order new business cards. Become "elise joy" instead of "enjoy design". Make more stuff. I'm getting close (well, in the vicinity) to 2000 items sold and I want to celebrate that with a sale of some kind.

    Oh, new starts.

    Oh, big ideas.

    Oh, September.

    I welcome you with open (but bare) arms.