enJOY it

the most colorful wedding there ever was.

September 15, 2014

On Labor Day weekend, Paul and I headed to the Santa Cruz area to celebrate the wedding of our friends, Bart and Veronica. I have like 15 stories to share about this wedding and SO MANY GREAT PHOTOS, so feel free to pull up a chair and pour yourself a cocktail/cup of tea (depending on time zone, obviously).

First things first : the only thing I like more than a satisfying final book of a seven book series that I have dedicated my life to is a great wedding. And the only thing I like more than a great wedding is great photos. This weekend had two of the three.

Another funny story : Bart and Vern hired Geoff and Lisa, the husband and wife photography team that shot my wedding (and engagement and headshots) over the past few years. Geoff and Lisa are friends of ours now and it was SO fun to see them in action again (and with new and improved photography equipment! Geez!). I love watching hard-working, talented people find success and it's been so fun to follow The Goodness over the years.

Another funny story : above is Bart and Vern at my wedding in 2010. I don't what we thought would happen back in those days, but I know for sure their path took a better and different turn then we expected.

Not funny, just a story : this wedding was held outdoors at a winery that is owned by Vern's parent's friends. It goes without saying that the space was gorgeous but it was much improved by all the color Vern brought in. An explosion FOR SURE. I couldn't believe all the bonus touches and details.

I know, right?

An awkward story : I feel like it's important to mention I did NOT wear my watch and fitbit down the aisle. I did, however, tuck the fitbit tracking sensor into my bra (like a crazy person) in order to take advantage of all the dancing steps that were sure to occur. It probably wasn't accurate, but it was more accurate than leaving it in the hotel, so that's a win. (And a #protip for you fellow fitbit lovers who also need to dress up on a rare occasion.)

Another funny story : I got to meet the original Ellerie! My daughter, Ellerie, is named after this little girl Ellerie (who is giving me flowers in the photo above because I have a baby named Ellerie!)! Three years ago Vern told me about her family friend who had just had a daughter and named her Ellerie. I practically shouted "HOW DO YOU SPELL THAT?" then promptly emailed Paul, who was deployed, and told him I had named our un-born, un-conceived, possible future daughter. (See aforementioned crazy.) It was so fun to meet the "original" Ellerie (the wedding was held at her grandparents' house) and I'm only sad I didn't have "baby Ellerie" to introduce to her.

Short story : don't worry, we watched the "first look" from the window like complete creepers.

Shorter story : cute baby!

Another funny story : we rode up to the ceremony like the classiest group of bridesmaids & brides ever in a convertible beetles. I mean really. (ps : I have no idea what that Washington State flag is doing there, I know FOR SURE I had already pulled it down once before we drove up.)

Truly deserves it's own book : look at the ribbon backdrop. I can't handle it. Also v's laughing here because like a pro she mangagned to throw a joke into her "repeat after me" vows.

True story : at the reception we took "shots" of Moonshine Cherries which really are just as awesome slash terrible as they sound.

Quick tanget to the story : I am in love with this photo of Paul and Kyle and can't wait to see this hilarious buddy comedy/bromance about crime fighting wedding attendees when it goes directly to DVD next fall.

Losing the story theme : we also took an obscene amount of photos in front of the sunflowers at magic hour because, duh.

…seriously, duh. My only regret about my own wedding is that ten years prior we didn't plant sunflowers that would grow be taller than us in front of the Citizen Hotel.

The real story : veronica is the sixth of my eight close college girlfriends to walk down the aisle (we're celebrating the seventh in early October) and every wedding we go do is like a mini-reunion. We're semi-dreading the days when we're all hitched and have to come up with other reasons to get blowouts, buy dresses and see each other. (I mean, besides football national championships.)

The end : I love these girls. I love when Paul's not deployed and we get to go to weddings together. Bart & Vern, you're our favorites. Check plus on a great party and check plus PLUS on a long life full of love.

All photos used with permission by The Goodness (and Veronica, of course). Here is my (unsolicited and un-sponsored) plug: Geoff and Lisa are awesome and the real deal if you're looking for wedding or family photography in Northern California. HIGHLY recommend. [insert thumbs up emoji here.]

note : silk chiffon bridesmaid dresses are j.crew, these are my shoes & this is my arrow bracelet. vern's lipstick is stila beso and her shoes are prada.
weekend links / 35.

September 13, 2014

As part of my word WHOLE this year, I want celebrate the work of others by sharing links to my friends, possible friends and complete strangers who are doing great things on the Internet. This is some of the rad stuff I recently saw online…

love you, Tara.

it's all good, no need to speculate.

the September j.crew catalog is looks rad.

for real.

a few Sons of Anarchy series finale predictions. (heads up: there are spoilers if you have not seen season six.)

loved this red lipstick round-up.

5 easy ways to improve your handwriting.

I met Steven at WDS last summer and am so excited to follow along with his big goal.

this house, man… #emilydoesitagain
elise rambles on a friday (about blogging, obviously).

September 12, 2014
This week I read a thoughtful and heartfelt post from John and Sherry on Young House Love that they were going to take a break from blogging for awhile. YHL has probably 20 times the readership as my blog and has become an empire based around their DIY personalities. I can only imagine the stress that comes with an audience that large and stakes that high. I both admire and feel overwhelmed on their behalf over what they've created and I wish them so much success with whatever they decide to do.

I read through some of the comments on the post and one that really stood out to me said something along the lines of (and this is deliberately paraphrased)…

"Whatever you do, don't try to go back to your old style of blogging. You have changed and it only makes sense that your writing reflects that."

This random comment on a blog that is not my own really resonated with me. Occasionally, I think about what blogging was like for me when I started. It was spontaneous. My writing was naïve and fresh and personal. I was also 20 years old. In real life I was naïve and fresh and totally caught up in my own personal life.

Sometimes I think, "Ahh, those were the days. I wish I could still write so off the cuff like that."

But I never could. Even with a strong cocktail in hand and endless hours I couldn't deliberately write like the archives. It would be forced and awkward and uncomfortable for me as a writer and probably for you as a reader. I'm almost 30. I'm still naïve in a few areas but I have much more knowledge in others. I would like to think that I still bring a fresh perspective but I also know I have nine years of experience. I've been around the block in Blogland, both as a content consumer and a content creator. My writing grove has come and gone (and left and come back and will leave and return again). I know what fills me up. I know what I like to read. I know what I like to write. I know how I like to write and, let's be honest, that's not spontaneously.

And when I read the comment the other day it clicked. That's all okay.

My blog is an old friend that I've known since college who I decided to go into business with. We've both grown a lot over the past nine years. Our relationship isn't new. It's lost it's spontaneity (for sure), but (at least for me) it has not lost it's spark. It's more polished (duh) but also feels comfortable. I like who I am with this blog. I like who this blog is with me.

What makes this space a blog first and a website second is that I'm telling my story. And my story has changed and will continue to change. I can't make up a story because my audience wants to hear it. I can't hire a staff member to keep the content "consistent" because the only "consistency" over the past nine years is that I'm still writing.

I am absurdly thankful that I have grown over the course of a decade. (Can you imagine if I was still writing about going to the 9-0 for double jack and diets every Tuesday? Or if I was still so emotionally raw with motherhood? Or, perhaps worst of all, if my teeth had never gotten fixed?!)

I know this post seems like it's leading somewhere. Like now would be a good time to share that I'm moving on (I'm not) or that I'm hiring help (I'm not) or that I'm considering tattooing "enJOY it" on my forehead (probably the most likely of the three). But really I have nothing BIG to say. I'm just sharing a somewhat cathartic experience that came from another blogger sharing their honest experience which is why I think blogging is so great to begin with.

I do, however, have something different planned for my posts in October. As mentioned, I have some fun DIYs on the pipeline for the fall. I have the coolest wedding photos ever to share with you Monday. I have a completely new business venture that I will launch late next spring. (That seems like forever away, I know, but after I secure a few things – trademarks! domain names! – I plan on sharing that new journey here with you one step at a time.)

So, to sum : this is a different space then it was in 2005, 2007, 2010 and 2012. It's freeing to accept and even be able to celebrate that.

Thanks for reading and to my fellow blogger friends, "Do you. And keep on, keeping on. Or stop if you want to. Or start and stop and return again. That's all okay. [insert your fave motivational hashtag here]"

photos in this post are self-portraits taken with timercam and are peeks at the September edition of MAKE29. More info coming to the blog next week.

Other posts you might enjoy:
the best garlic cream pizza sauce.

September 11, 2014
I have one more recipe to share as part of my blog collaboration with Got Milk.

This is our absolute favorite homemade pizza sauce but one that I have never shared in detail because in Paul's words, "it can be hard to get right." But hopefully with more than a few photos and a bit too much text, I'll be able to communicate the texture you're going for.

As mentioned last week, milk is a staple in our house for all three of us. Milk is, of course, also the staple of this cream sauce. 😉

To make enough to cover a normal sized pizza (here's our dough recipe!) you'll need :
- about 1/3 of a medium onion
- 2-3 cloves of garlic
- about 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup milk (we used whole milk this time, but we've made it with skim too)
- 1/2 tsp dried basil
- 1/2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 salt (plus probably a bit more)
- pepper to taste (a few cranks to start and then probably a bit more)
- 1 Tbsp flour
Finely chop the garlic and onion. Then cook with the olive oil in a sauce pan over medium heat.

Just before the garlic and onion start to brown (and are looking pretty transulent), pour in just 3/4 C of the milk, saving the remaining 1/4 for later.

Turn heat to medium low and add your seasonings.

Let this mixture bubble (keeping the heat at medium low).

In the measuring cup, mix the remaining 1/4 C milk and flour well (ideally, you'll have no chunks of flour!)

Crank the heat up to medium and add the flour and milk mixture to the saucepan.

Here's where it gets a bit tricky. You want to continually stir the sauce to keep flour from getting lumpy. The goal here is to create a uniformly thick sauce.

It takes about 10-15 minutes and you can gradually lower the heat as the sauce thickens up. When you stop stirring for a bit you should see small bubbles rising to the surface. This is good!

You'll know when the sauce is ready because you'll be able to drag your spoon through and make a path to the bottom of the pan. (The fact that the sauce holds it's shape means it's thick enough.)

When you turn the heat down it will thicken up even more (and be perfect for spreading on a pizza). Be sure to taste it at this step! Does it need more salt and/or pepper?

Our favorite cream sauce topping is (cooked) steak and thinly sliced potato (with a bit of blue cheese!) but this is a killer sauce for a veggie pizza too (think thinly sliced bell pepper and small pieces of broccoli).

Hope you enjoy!

this post is sponsored by Got Milk. Recipe is Paul's concoction and opinions & post concept are my own.
it must be September.

September 11, 2014

This week I finished up the September edition of MAKE29. I have much more to share next week (and the edition will go on sale 9/22) but (as you've guessed if you've seen my Instagram feed) it's a sewing project. You would think wrapping up a giant sewing project would make me want to pack away the thread, but I found the opposite to be true. I was absolutely raring to go on the next project.

And, since it's September, that next project is a quilt.

I spent all of September (and October) 2013 working on the Get Quilty ecourse. In September 2012 I wrote a pretty in-depth triangle quilt tutorial. In September 2011, I was working on my second rectangle bed quilt. (And the fall before that, I sewed my first quilted project ever.)

September, man, there's something in the air.

I have had these fabrics for months (and sadly no longer have sources) but this is the first time I've felt inspired to use them. I decided to shy away from my normal "all pattern all the time routine" and add in some solid white. I am also skipping the fancy cutting technique and I just used normal scissors instead of a ruler and rotary cutter) to approximate 5×5 inch fabric squares. (I use this method to create the triangles.) I realized that since I am not perfect with my sewing seams it doesn't really matter how perfectly my squares are cut at the start. My corners are never going to match up anyway.

Either way, after a long summer break, it's nice to be back at the sewing machine.

ps… check back this afternoon for our favorite pizza sauce recipe!
why I set goals.

September 10, 2014
If you've been here for longer than a month you might have learned that I am big on setting goals. If you've been here a few years you might think my blog is synonymous with setting goals. If you're new here (hi!) these are a few long-term goals that I've talked about at length : mileaday, make29, the daily card, the 26 projects, the 40 loaves.

I recently had to update my bio for a few different things and the first line of my new "about me" reads :

Elise Blaha Cripe is a blogger, crafter and goal setter in San Diego, California.

Yep. Goals are my "thing." But something I don't think I have every really explored (here on the blog or even in my head) is why I set goals. What's the point? Why do I love it? I am going to attempt to answer this today.

I set goals so I have something outside the day-to-day to focus on. No matter how glamorous your life, you still have a "daily grind." You get up, make coffee, get dressed, check email, eat, work, eat, work, eat, watch tv, read, sleep. That's it. (Plus or minus a few kiddos and/or pets to care for.) There is nothing wrong with the daily grind. I am incredibly grateful that my days are mundane because for me it means my family is functioning and whole. However, if I only had an endless stretch of the same day ahead of me, I'd get a little antsy. So I set big goals to give me a little something extra to work on and move towards outside the normal routine.

I set goals to keep the focus internal and not external. The Internet has made it so not only can we see our own feedback in real time, we can see the feedback that others are getting as well. It's way too easy to compare how we are perceived to how others are received. "Look how many followers she has!" "I can't believe how many retweets he got!" "Look at the likes on that photo!" "Wow, he got 100 comments on that post!" It's much harder to do the competitive comparison with specific, personal goals. I can't look at some random person on Instagram and think "Wow, their MAKE29 project is so much more successful than mine." because no one else HAS a MAKE29 project (and if they did we could never compare 1 to 1 because it would be so different). Setting unique and special-to-me goals help me focus more on myself and what I am doing vs. Successful Internet Stranger and what she is doing.

I set goals because I want to learn and grow. Like nearly everyone, I love to learn new things. The best way that I have found to learn something new is to get uncomfortable and step outside my comfort zone. Once outside of my "zone" there only two options : fail or succeed. Either way I learn something. Either way I "grow" because I gain experience that helps me relate to others and/or tackle something else.

Yep. Those are my reasons. Pretty simple (and obvious) when I write them out. I love to pick goals that are hard enough to stretch my strengths and improve my weaknesses, but are not so impossible that I am discouraged at the start. A good goal is motivating throughout, even when it's hard. Perhaps especially when it's hard. A good goal will inspire you and be relevant to you. A good goal will challenge you and force you to grow. I am not interested in trying for myself 95% of the random goals that people set, but I am incredibly interested in the fact that they set them and the tools they used and skills they developed to reach them. People are fascinating. Goals are inspiring. People are inspiring. Goals are fascinating.

PS : here's a related post from summer 2012 with thoughts on monthly goal setting.

Today on ELISE GETS CRAFTY I am chatting with Chris Guillebeau about creative quests and his new book, The Happiness of Pursuit. Click here to subscribe or stream the episode from your computer here.

Since writing this post, I created Get To Work Book! It's a day planner + goal setting workbook that is designed to help you take your big goals turn them into something real. Learn more and shop the brand here.

Other posts you might enjoy:
let’s save valuable blogging time.

September 9, 2014

It's quite likely this "tutorial" is already known by most photo-savvy folks, but I had NO idea that this technology existed until a few months ago. I re-size every photo on my blog (and every photo on my website) to properly fit the column/size needed. Part of this is making them "web-friendly" or reducing the resolution to 72dpi so load times are not too long. These photos are NOT printer-friendly, but they look great on screens.

Before I learned this "process multiple files" trick I was re-sizing each image on it's own and it took minutes instead of seconds, which over the course of a month really adds up. I dreaded photo-heavy posts because they were so time intensive to prepare. Now I'm like, "bring it." (And I have brought it here, here and here.)

processing mulitple images for the web from elise blaha on Vimeo.

The above three minute video (click here to view full-size and be sure to let it load fully before starting) shows you how I used to process my image files one at a time and then shares my time-saving tip. I use PSE9 (I know, I know, upgrade already!) but I imagine the idea is similar no matter what version of PSE or PS you have.

I hope this helps! It was a gamechanger and time-saver for me, FOR SURE.
branch weaving.

September 8, 2014

I have been seeing branch weavings popping up on blogs for the past year or so and always loved the natural and imperfect look. The other day, on our walk to the market, I finally found the perfect branch. (You just need one with a healthy Y shape.)

I brought it home, ran it under the hose, let it bake in the sun for a few hours and then set about making my weaving.

I used twine for the original back and forth (called the warp) and then some multicolored yarn that I had left over from another project for the woven portion (called the weft – unless I have those backwards).

It took less than 30 minutes and turned out pretty sweet. A perfect fall project, for sure.

It's currently hanging in our bedroom next to the bathroom door that is thisclose to having an external sliding door in place.

ps. here is another weaving project from this summer.
weekend links / 34.

September 6, 2014

As part of my word WHOLE this year, I want celebrate the work of others by sharing links to my friends, possible friends and complete strangers who are doing great things on the Internet. This is some of the rad stuff I recently saw online…

I was in a wedding last weekend and the bride gave us the softest monogramed sweatshirt tees as a bridesmaid gift. (genius.)

this pizza puzzle is too cute.

a handy guide to essential oils.

already tempted to break my fall clothing spending freeze.

a few folks on IG liked this sentiment so I made it a free 8×10 .jpg download here. (just right click to save to your desktop).

glad I stocked up on these.

made me laugh.

sometimes I cannot believe how phenomenal blog photography has become.

the only item on my Christmas list.

business tips for introverts.

I have just five months left of my twenties.

so thrilled that Dream, Girl, the documentary, is going to happen.

gorgeous kiddo photos.

and random, I am currently on the hunt for a landscape architect in Southern California who can help me finish off our backyard like this. any recs?!
around here…

September 5, 2014

around here… I've got another list of house progress to make this month. (those photos are fridge magnets from sticky9.com. use code FRIEND29D9 to save 15% on your order.)

around here… I'm prepping the September edition of MAKE29. It's the first edition of just 29.

around here… I'm staining wood for our entry way cabinet. After a lot of searching I went with 2 of the IVARs from Ikea.

around here… I'm returning a stack of mostly un-read books to the library.

around here… I'm looking forward to a weekend of coffee, waffles, walks, beer and college football (in that order).