enJOY it

an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.

  • giveaway winner.

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    Thanks for your blog and shop suggestions and for the excitement over the new poster prints! I think I have more than enough material to work on for the summer.

    I would really like to get another online workshop together for this fall. It's a good goal but a very daunting one. I'm trying to figure out the best way to "teach" the way I make mini books – I'll keep you posted.

    And as promised, the winner of the poppy gocco print is #58 : Rhonda Nickol. Rhonda, please email me to claim your prize.

    Happy Sunday!

  • shop update.


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    new gocco prints. Inspired by the poppy wall + some custom invitations I'm working on.

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    new 11×14 more + less posters. These are currently for pre-order and should ship by 6/22.

    Do you want to win a poppy gocco print? Leave a comment with something you'd like to see in the shop or on the blog this summer. And if you don't want to share that … tell me anything. I'll draw a winner this weekend.

    Thank you for your support.

  • right now.

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    Yesterday, Paul and I went to his new hospital for check in day. I had plans to blog about all the ways it was like Grey's Anatomy (I rode in the elevator with an awkward silence and climbed the stairwells.) But in the end, the day became much longer and more serious than that. There wasn't a lot for me to do but sit and listen. And watch him fill out forms regarding the process of notifying next of kin. In case of emergency and etc.

    Everyone on a military base knows what etc. means.

    That was hard. That is hard.

    We have had a really great couple of weeks as we settled into our new town. I joked to Paul that it's felt like a second honeymoon. And it really has. We've had time to decorate (one room that is; I should note, the other rooms are no where near complete). We've had time to make dinners out of cookbooks (instead of the usual nachos in the oven or spaghetti). We've had time to visit local happy hours and wander the farmer's market.

    It's been awesome.

    But it's been a vacation, not our real life.

    Real life starts soon when Paul becomes a medical intern. I was briefed yesterday on the true meaning of long work hours. It was explained that by law you have to have ten hours at home between shifts. Considering Paul likes to get about seven hours of sleep that means there will be very little free time around here. (Basically, I think we'll be pretty glad we canceled our cable.)

    And this means I need to continue working out what real life means for me.

    Unlike Paul, I don't have a job lined up. Instead, I have a small chart of ideas. An action plan for how I want to improve my blog, my shop and my custom invitations process. I have long and short term goals that right now are so daunting I just want to continue honeymooning for the summer.

    But today, Paul went back to the hospital by himself and I got down to business. To printing and designing and cutting. To emailing and blogging and spreadsheeting. I'm excited and scared. And anxious and exhilarated.

    And late in the day I reread this post and oh man, I am still so thankful.

    Real life, we're almost ready for you. Let's go.

  • home tour : the living room.

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    This is where we live.

    I talked originally about making this room black and white themed. But then the lamp I wanted sold out. And the rug I loved was too small. And slowly, the room became yellow. (Which means I can cross off number 16.)

    The furniture is the same as what we had in Maryland. That rug is Ikea. The lamp was a wedding gift from Crate&Barrel.

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    I pulled frames that were in all different rooms of our old apartment to change up the photo wall above the couch. I stuck with mostly yellow photos & added two wedding pictures. The ampersand is from Anthropologie.

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    I found this quote here recently and loved it. I formatted it and had it printed into a small poster.

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    On the opposite side of the window is a heart poster from here.

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    Our engagement book is the only scrapbook/mini album I have ever had on display. It’s my favorite and very simple which is why it made the cut.

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    The light bulb and gray vase were clay projects Paul and Kristen (his sister, my friend) made in ceramics class in high school. We found them in Paul’s room in Sacramento this spring and I love having them out. The blue and orange vases as well as the “vino” carafe are Crate&Barrel. The frame is super old and I think from Target.

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    Our DVDs hide out under the shelf that was built up to house the air conditioning. I love the extra storage space and surface it provides.

    When we moved, we decided to get rid of cable (previously we had Comcast) because we never sat down to watch live TV and instead just DVRed our shows. Now we have a MacMini hooked up to our TV and watch everything via hulu & abc.com. Come fall, we’ll watch football on espn360. So far we love it. And after a few months without cable bills, the mini will have paid for itself. Plus, I love checking email on a big TV screen.

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    And that’s it. This is our main room – for dinner and TV and folding laundry and video game playing and crafts spread all over the floor. I’m happy with it.

    I’ll be sharing the rest of our apartment as I make progress!

  • how to : ruffled pillow.

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    Today's tutorial will show you the step-by-step instructions for making a ruffled throw pillow.

    Disclaimers : My sewing experience is limited to a two hour lesson with my mom and viewing seven seasons of Project Runway. Because of that, this is not too technical, but I did my best to explain. As always, this tutorial and the projects that result from it are for personal use only. Please be careful when operating your sewing machine.

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    First off, gather supplies.

    You'll need one uncovered pillow, thread, scissors, a sewing machine, an iron and some straight pins. For fabric, you can use all the same for ruffles of the same color or different ones for multiple colors. I used inexpensive cotton and would recommend it for this project. If you are making a one color pillow, three yards of fabric should be enough. For multiple colors, get a quarter yard of a few colors (as long as they are at least a yard in width) and at least a yard and a half of one of the colors to use for the base (back and front) of the pillow. To add a bit more sturdiness to the back, I used an extra square of white cotton as well.

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    Cut three squares of fabric (two of a color and one of the white) for the back and front of pillow. They should be about 2 inches wider than the pillow on all four sides.

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    Cut fabric for the strips. Strips should be about four inches long and at least double the length of your pillow. My pillow was 16 inches and my strips were 36". This was just a bit too long.

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    Cut fewer strips that your pillow has inches across. For example, my pillow was 16 inches across and I ended up using 13 strips of fabric to to cover the pillow with ruffles.

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    Fold your strips in half and use an iron to set the crease for the entire length of fabric. The folds do not have to be perfect, but take care to get out wrinkles and make a strong crease. This will help you move through the sewing process much faster.

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    Once each strip has been ironed in half, decide on your pattern if if you are using multiple colors of fabric. I went with a gradient and faded green to dark blue.

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    The ruffles are made by folding the strips of fabric on to themselves and then sewing them into place. You can use pins to configure the folds first OR…

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    you can do what I did and manipulate the fabric by folding it back and forth as you are feeding it through the machine.

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    Sew the strip down for the entire length of fabric. To make the pillow look more interesting, follow a random pattern of folds – sometimes going back under the strip and sometimes folding over. Your thread line should be about 1/4 – 1/2 inches from the rough (unfolded) edge of the strip.

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    The most important job of the second strip is to hide the exposed seam of the the first strip. Keep this in mind as you sew the second strip into place.

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    Continue sewing manipulating the fabric into folds and sewing down strips. Always work from the bottom of the cover to the top.

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    When you reach the halfway point on the cover, it might help to start working from the other side. This way the already completed ruffles will have more space to the left of the needle.

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    When you are nearly to the top of the cover, you will add one more strip. This one has an exposed seam and is used to keep the top ruffle from flipping up once the pillow is tucked inside. It should be sewn into place about a half inch from the bottom of the strip. I changed to a dark blue thread to better hide the sew line.

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    Trim the extra length from the strips.

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    Now you are ready to put the whole thing together.

    Sandwich your three fabrics in this order : front piece with ruffles facing in, back piece of colored fabric, white fabric. (The white fabric is used to make the back of the cover a bit sturdier.)

    Pin your pieces together on three sides, left, right and top. Leave the bottom open. Use your uncovered pillow as a gauge for where the pins should go – about 1 inch from the edge of the pillow.

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    On the top side, put your pins close to the last thread line that is holding the top strip in place. You will want to sew outside these pins but probably just inside the side pins.

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    Sew through all three layers on the three sides.

    Remove the pins and turn the cover right-side-out and slip the uncovered pillow in to be sure it fits. If it's too loose, resew on the inside of your initial lines to make it a bit tighter. If it's too tight, rip out one side of stitches and run it through the machine again, this time a bit closer to the edge.

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    Once it fits fine, trim off the excess fabric and turn right-side-out one final time.

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    Tuck the pillow into place.

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    There are a lot of ways to close up the bottom and finish your pillow. The best would probably be to add a zipper. The second best would probably be hand sewing. I'm a little to impatient and decided to fold the fabric in and sew another exposed seam with the pillow already in the case. It was a bit hard to maneuver, but worked fine.

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    And that's it! A ruffled pillow! The yellow one is currently on our couch and the green/blue one is going to make a home on our bed. Now I just need to make a new duvet cover…

    Hope you enjoyed!

  • lined up.

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    I'm learning that when they're easy to see, they're easier to wear.

    hook rack from anthropologie. Necklaces from j.crew, kate spade and Macy's.

  • 25 to do list : the book.

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    Back in February, I made a list of 25 things to do while 25. Now it's June, and I really have to get going if I want to get through everything. So far, I've got three items checked off.

    I am making a 6×6 scrapbook to "save" the photos and thoughts that go with each item. The book is far from completed, but you can see the pages that correspond to the first few tasks (#4 sew something, #5 plant something, #8 use film). I hope to share my progress every few months. If I keep at it, this will be a very thick book.

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    Supplies used : Hambly transparencies + paper, chipboard, Ikea fabric, a baseball card protector, American Crafts pen, discontinued Paper Source labels, yellow staz-on ink, and stamps by either Ma Vinci or Purple Onion unfortunately, I cannot remember…

  • moving annoucements.

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    When we were still back in Maryland, I gocco printed the front side of our "we've moved!" postcards. You can see a video tutorial for that process here.

    Backside

    Now that we are actually moved and have an address, I finished up the backside of the postcards. Originally, I planned on typing and printing them, but in a rush to just do it, I decided to use a mix of handwriting and stamps to get the point across. I used our new address stamp + a star and (old) pencil stamp from Paper Source.

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    Card
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    Card2

    I think I should make stamped cards more often – I loved how each one was a bit different.

  • sewing project two.

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    I am so addicted.

    Yesterday, when I picked up batting for the round pillow, I bought three yards of yellow cotton to recover another old pillow we were going to give away. I had gone to sleep thinking about making a ruffle pillow and was anxious to try it out.

    I feel like I have seen a lot of Blogland tutorials for making ruffle pillows lately, but for this one I just made it up as I went along. Things went well until the end when I sewed the back and front together and the top ruffles stood up. I had to rip it all apart and add an extra ruffle (with an exposed seem) to hold everything in place.

    I am so happy that it turned out and am SO glad that I am getting the hang of my sewing machine.

    Would you be interested in a tutorial for making these? I can try to get one together for next week.

    EDIT : Thanks for your excitement! Tutorial coming by the end of next week.

    *The patterned pillow in the above images is from West Elm last fall.

  • sewing project one.

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    My first project turned out! It's far from perfect (you can't see the falling off button on the back) but it's a pillow!

    And now I am completely addicted to my sewing machine and am going to start my next pillow in about four minutes.

    (This one was based on this Design*Sponge tutorial only instead of a pouf, I made a small pillow.)