an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.
gap ooh la la onesie, furbish studio anchor door knocker, j.crew scarf, old navy long sleeve tee, j.crew tote (turns into a clutch - I'm obsessed), target blouse, crate & barrel moscow mule coppoer cups, frye short boots.
Something about the impending fall makes me anxious to buy stuff. It must be leftover from back to school shopping or something. Doing my best to hold off on all of these purchases though… and instead just color coding my online window browsing.
The first week of September I documented a "Day in the Life." This project is something Ali Edwards got me hooked on. Ali documents one day towards the end of each month and includes them in her Project Life album. I decided to do one every four months this year. I took a day at the end of April, the beginning of September and ideally, I get one at the end of December. In April, I used all iPhone photos and shared on Instagram. This time around, I primarily used my DSLR. For the photos that I am in, I used either the built in timer or my camera remote.
So here we go … this is Thursday, September 5th 2013.
6:00 AM / wake-up to an alarm. Head to the kitchen where Paul is making coffee and eating breakfast. This photo, the first of the day, is my favorite from the project.
Head back to our bedroom to pump breastmilk. Bring it back out and prep Ellerie's first bottle. (Since Ellerie was five weeks old, I have been primarily pumping and bottle-feeding. She's thriving and I am happy so for us, this method of feeding is working very well.)
Eat breakfast in front of the windows, read blogs, drink coffee.
6:45 AM / Ellerie is still asleep so I start a load of laundry. Sit down at the computer. Deal with email. Check in on the Big Picture Classes message board (my Project Life Lessons workshop went live this morning). Prep photos for my "around here" blog post that will go up tomorrow.
7:30 AM / brush teeth & get dressed. Back to the office where I write thank you notes, deal with email & print shipping labels for stamp orders that will go tomorrow when they arrive.
7:50 AM / hear Ellerie starting to stir. Grab her from the bassinet in our room and change her.
Bottle feed her in front of the windows. Breakfast is the very best in that space.
Change her clothes. Play on her floor and do some tummy-time. We've been doing tummy-time since she was a week old and she loves it.
She starts to get fussy so we walk around the house a bit.
9:00 AM / Ellerie is asleep on my shoulder.
I put her in the her chair, shake the blood back into my arm, move laundry and have a snack of apples and almond butter.
9:15 AM / she is still asleep. I work on my Quilting eCourse. (I am hoping to launch this "go at your own past" online course in early October. More information to come.)
9:43 AM / she wakes up in her chair. Diaper change and feed. I pump a bit more after she eats.
10:10 AM / move laundry and head to Target. Ellerie does really well on errands and I like to get them done in the mornings while she is awake. I keep her in the carseat and push the whole thing in the cart. We run errands to get stuff done (obviously) but also just to get out of the house on days where we don't have something else planned.
11:05 AM / home from Target. Ellerie is asleep in carseat. I move her to her crib and she says out (this happens about 25% of the time). I quickly tidy the house, unpack bags and check email.
11:30 AM / upload photos, work on blog posts (I tend to do bits of them at a time – this time it's the Project Life update and a pizza post). I check and respond to blog comments (I have stopped receiving them via email and I have noticed it's much more productive to just check in once or twice a day as opposed to responding as they come in).
12:00 PM / eat lunch of leftover Thai quinoa salad and a peach.
12:15 PM / more Quilt eCourse progress – ironing and laying out fabric while watching old episodes of the The Office on netflix.
1:20 PM / check email and the BPC message board.
1:30 PM / hop in the shower. Afterwards, pump.
2:00 PM / sit back at the computer to work, but Ellerie wakes up. She's super happy post-nap. I change her and bottlefeed her then we wander the house so she can digest.
2:25 PM / Ellerie is again asleep in my arms. It usually takes her a few tries to really "wake-up" after her nap. I lay her in crib. While she is out I work at the computer.
2:45 PM / she's awake again. We read and play in her room then I bring her to her chair while I have another snack. More play and baby babble.
3:30 PM / Ellerie eats a bit.
3:45 PM / after feeding, she's asleep on my shoulder. I browse pinterest on my iPad and find a recipe for no-bake "energy bites". I'm thrilled to discover we have all the ingredients. I set her in her chair and mix the ingredients. (I ended up throwing in some sliced almond too – they were fantastic though difficult to get to hold together.)
4:20 PM / E's awake from another cat-nap. Some afternoons we get one long nap, other days we get short cat naps. Some days we get both. Regardless, she always seems pretty content and thankfully my schedule makes it easy to just roll with it. We go into her bedroom where it tends to be the coolest (this Southern California heat wave is awful).
4:40 PM / after some more playtime and reading (obviously Ellerie is super interested in why Gerald the Giraffe cannot dance), Ellerie gets fussy so I feed her a bit more and she's good.
5:00 PM / get Ellerie into the ergo and clean up the house. Call my mom and we chat for about 20 minutes.
5:30 PM / put Ellerie into her chair on the kitchen floor while prepping dinner. We're having leftover pizza and a big spinach salad. I am chopping ingredients for the salad and finishing my no bake cookies.
5:45 PM / pump quickly
6:00 PM / Ellerie and I go for a short walk outside in the ergo and I regret it almost instantly…it's so hot out.
6:30 PM / Paul gets home. We give Ellerie a bath in the big tub. She's still not sure how she feels about bathtime, but I think they are growing on her. Never any tears, just wide-eyed stares as Paul and I both wipe her down.
I get her changed into a bedtime onesie and Paul feeds her while we chat about the day.
7:00 PM / we eat dinner with Ellerie on the table in her chair. (You might notice I am in my third outfit…no wonder we have so much laundry.)
She falls asleep toward the end of dinner.
We bring her into our bedroom, swaddle her and put in bassinet.
A few minutes later, she cries and we both go in, Paul feeds her a bit more and she's out for good.
8:30 PM / we watch Sons of Anarchy (we were re-watching season 5's last two episodes so we could be ready for the start of season 6) and fold the laundry.
9:30 PM / we brush teeth and get ready for bed. I pump one last time. Paul falls asleep almost instantly and I read my library book for about an hour. We are all lucky to sleep through the night and start the song and dance over again Friday.
Thoughts / It's hard keeping track of the times of things and remembering to take photos all day. It reminds me a bit of when I worked for a PR firm and I had to account for every 15 minutes of my time. Not so fun to do it in such detail, but I think this sort of thing is interesting to document and will be very cool to look back on. Life with an 11 week old baby = little chunks of time here and there and my goal each day is to be as efficient as possible with work and as present as possible with Ellerie and Paul.
ps…I am planning to write a post soon about how I have found some balance and how I am meshing motherhood and work. Look for that in the next week or so.
It's week thirty-six and I love this project.
click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.
Week of : September 2 – September 8.
What happened this week? We were home. My mom came down on Friday. I took photos to document a day in the life (which I will be sharing on the blog tomorrow).
Anything special in the spread? I included an insert for the day in the life photos and breakdown. I displayed the photos in the same format that I used in April. The page protectors are coin protector pocket pages and they work great to hold 2×2 photos.
I had more photos and text this time around so I ended up using 60 pockets total. I trimmed the pocket pages down a bit so they held 15 squares on each side and then used two pages. I printed an iPhoto contact sheet for the 2×2 photos. It's the easiest way to get them the perfect size. This video from a few years ago talks about how I do this. To make them fit in the coin pockets, I print 3 photos across.
Techniques this week : Really nothing special except that insert. And of course using white space on photos for journaling.
Overall thoughts : I got my mom in a photo this week – check plus. 🙂
Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 3 to 34. (All of the DITL photos were with my DSLR.)
Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : 36 to 1.
Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Paislee Press calendar card, Studio Calico "Mommy" card, Mer Carty journaling card, Elise Joy stamp.
Tools used : Design A pocket pages, coin protector pocket page, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.
Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.
I am busy. So busy. But I had a moment yesterday as I was buzzing around the house where I realized I am also so happy. I thrive on the "busy." It makes me more productive to have a few different things going on at the same time. Eventually I'll need some downtime to recharge, but for now, I'm enjoying riding the wave.
My quilt eCourse is coming along. I have almost all of the "project development and production" phase complete and now it's the designing, writing, photographing and editing phase. I love all the different aspects of bringing a class together and I think this one is going to be a good one. I am shooting for an early October launch date and it will be completely go at your own pace.
Paul has to work tomorrow (one of the downsides of residency though the upsides – no deployments and the fact that he loves his job – more than make up for it) so today does not feel like a Friday. Ellerie and I are going to have to find something fun to do while he's at work and then we're going to have to pack an entire weekend into Sunday. I have a feeling there will be pancakes. And two chemex's worth of coffee.
Two fun links to share – I loved this commercial from Carter's (thanks for the link Carrie!) and I was so excited to see the Sunshine Project Life kit hit amazon this week.
ps…thank you for your interest in the last of the minibooks – they are now officially sold out. Retired workshop PDFs are still available at a reduced rate until the end of the month.
pizza no. 19 : BBQ chicken in a grill pan.
occasion : I saw this pizza recipe on A Beautiful Mess where they cooked a pizza in a cast iron pan. We don't own one, but we have a cast iron grill pan and I wanted to see what the results would be.
crust : a smaller version of our whole wheat usual. Here it is again since this one is cooked up a bit differently :
In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the water, yeast and sugar. Give it about 10 minutes to "bubble." The sugar will help activate the yeast. Add in the flour, salt and olive oil. Mix with a dough hook until dough comes together and is tacky but not sticky to the touch (add more flour or water if needed). Cover the bowl with a clean towel and allow the dough to rise for 4-8 hours in a warm area. (We stick ours in the garage in the summer.)
When you are ready to build your pizza, roll out the dough on a clean surface with some flour until you have a flat sheet that will fit your grill pan. Brush olive oil on your grill pan to keep the dough from sticking. Carefully transfer the dough into the grill pan, rolling up the edges if needed. Build your pizza on top (sauce first, cheese then toppings). Cook on the stove-top for about 5 minutes then transfer to the oven for about 20-25 or until the crust is firm and cheese bubbles.
sauce : BBQ sauce.
cheese : jack and cheddar.
toppings : grilled chicken, onion, (frozen) corn.
thoughts : SO…this was a fun twist on our normal pizza nights. As mentioned, I saw that post and really wanted to try something like it. The fun part about using the cast iron pan is that you get to start cooking on the stove top. We loved the flavor and will be trying this method again soon.
I have sold a lot of different items in my shop over the past five years – but mixed paper books have been a constant. This batch is the last batch and I pulled from a giant stack of patterned papers and transparencies to make the final rainbow adventure. They are available at a special price right here while supplies last.
You've been good to me, little mixed paper books, but I'm excited for what's next.
ps. I am also retiring all past workshop PDFs. You can read more about those and purchase at a special discounted rate here. These will be gone for good at the end of September.
One of my goals for this month is to get more photos printed and framed. I have had a few projects in mind for awhile and this is the first one.
Remember when I shared my idea for the dining area? My "sketch" showed a big fiddle leaf fig in the corner and two oversized framed photos.
Well, I bought a small fiddle leaf fig (still on the hunt for a gorgeous huge one) and framed three favorites from our photoshoot with Tara Whitney.
The frames are Ribba from Ikea. I went with the 19.5×27 size and ordered 20×30 photo prints from unitprints.com. I was thrilled with the print quality and just had to trim a bit off the top and side to make the photos fit the frames (I knew this would be the case – Ribba frames are inexpensive, but annoyingly sized).
I wanted the photos to be family photos, but I didn't want them to be too posed or "looking at the camera" images. These were my favorites of the three of us that were in a vertical format. Originally, I thought black and white photos would be better here, but I am glad I kept them in color. Because there is not a lot going on in each photo, they don't seem to overwhelm.
I'm about ready to call this dining area complete. We have been eating dinner here (instead of in front of the TV) and every time we sit down I am glad I went for the big table. It's probably tied for favorite purchase along with the hanging lamp and ampersand. (The ampersand was purchased on clearance at World Market, the vase is Crate & Barrel and the candle holders were found via craigslist.)
Huge thanks to unitprints.com for helping me print these oversized photos. I found their site easy to use, shipping turn-around quick and photo quality fantastic. Please note that while project idea, post and opinions are all my own, I received a discount on photo printing in exchange for sharing here.
Over the past year or so, I have seen an increase in INSTAsales – pop-up shops on Instagram. It seems some people use Instagram as their actual shop, selling vintage or handmade items. Others use it as sort of a garage sale. It makes total sense. If you're active on Instagram, you're likely sort of addicted. It's mobile. It's free. It's incredibly easy to link to and share with others.
As I have watched these sales come and go in my feed, I have taken note of what seems to work and what doesn't. About six weeks after Ellerie was born, I went through everything in my closet and drawers and pulled the stuff that was still in good shape but realistically would not be worn again. The easy thing would have been to drop it off at goodwill, but there was value in some of the items so I decided to try my own INSTAsale.
It was successful! I sold all but one item and everything that sold was eventually claimed. It was also a lot of work – I didn't add up the hours but probably at least 16 were spent photographing, editing, listing, monitoring, invoicing and shipping. I made about $650 (after shipping and packaging) for 36 items though, so I was pleased.
Below are my tips for making your own INSTAsale work :
Create a separate feed. I found that it was easier to make a separate account to list my items. I share personal photos @elisejoy and I used @elisejoyshop for the sale. This meant that I didn't overwhelm (read : annoy) my normal followers with 36 listings AND it meant that I could prep the sale in advance by getting all the photos and listings up before I had people knew about it. I was able to work out a few kinks and typos this way too.
Promote. I used my own twitter account, blog and personal Instagram feed to promote my sale. I shared photos of the items listed and a link to the "shop." There is such a balance between marketing too little and marketing too much (read : being annoying) and I am always working to find it. Basically, I wrote a post about it once on the blog and then in a "ps" in another post. I tweeted about it at different times of the day (in an attempt to capture a "different" audience each time). And I mentioned it on my Instagram feed four times in two days. I was careful to use different types of photos each time (not the same image over and over). For extra promotion, ask friends or followers to help spread the word by posting an image and link for you. Consider giving them an item for free or a percentage off a sale as a reward.
Consider an auction. I held my sale in auction format after seeing the success Kim from Oh Sweet Joy had. I think this can be a win-win. For me, it meant I was able to make much more profit on a few items than I expected. All I had to do was set the base price and then interested shoppers could decide what it was worth for them. For the buyers, it eliminates the "rush" to claim an item. Nothing sells out right away and so if you love an item, it can still be yours depending on how much you want to pay. I really don't think the work involved is greater, because either way you end up monitoring the sale and invoicing buyers but it does end up being a longer time period (my auction lasted about 48 hours). I ended up making around $300 above my opening bid prices.
Consider donating a percentage of sales. Because I was hosting an auction, I decided to donate 10% of proceeds (money earned after shipping) to March of Dimes. This is totally not a necessary step and I have no idea if it influenced sales, but for me, having a charity at the other end of an auction makes sense. 🙂
Take good photographs. The bottom line is that your photos are going to sell your items. It's an Instagram sale so phone photographs are perfect, but make sure they are well-lit and clear. I hung my items on a hanger on a nail against a white wall and took photos during the part of the day when the light was best. Things that couldn't be hung were photographed against our dark table. When appropriate, provide detail photos that better show the item in addition to the full shot. You don't have to "style" your photos but a clean background makes a big difference.
Use Pic Stitch to combine photos. This app (or a similar one) will let you combine multiple photos into one square one for posting to Instagram. It's easy to use and saves you from having upload different photos of the same item. Be sure to share close up shots of patterns, the inside of items, etc.
Determine packaging and shipping rates in advance. Before I determined opening bid prices, I weighed everything on a postage scale (I have this one) and determined how much I would be spending on packaging and shipping. Some items are much bulkier to ship than others and you have to know if they are worth it to even list. I decided to include US shipping into the opening bid cost to make things less confusing for the buyer and easier for me. I have seen people use a flat-rate price in addition to the sale price and that seems to work. It totally depends on the size of the items and your shipping method.
Set the rules. It wouldn't be an INSTAsale without a long list of rules. Lay it all out there, shipping rate, who the sale is open to (international vs. domestic), bidding time, how the buyer will claim an item (most common is to provide their paypal email address), what will happen if the invoice isn't paid, etc. The clearer you make it, the easier it will be and the less questions you'll have to answer. I included my rules in the profile section and uploaded a graphic (created on my phone with the Beautiful Mess app) that shared rules. This image was at the top of my shop feed. Be sure to upload your rules photo last so it's seen first by buyers.
Close the sale and invoice promptly. Because it was an auction I had to be "ready" at the close to see who won. Thankfully, it wasn't like there was a ton of last minute bids that I had to sort through. I uploaded a SALE CLOSED image and went down the feed telling each buyer they had won the item. Then I sent out paypal invoices within the hour. In each invoice, I said :
When folks pay with paypal, their address will be sent to you when they submit payment (I was not sure on this until the first few orders came in).
So that's what I learned! I hope it helps you if you're considering trying your own INSTAsale. I know I will do something like this in a year or so when my closet needs another clear out.
It's week thirty-five and I love this project.
click the photo to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.
Week of : August 26 – September 1.
What happened this week? We were home. My friend Melanie came to visit. Friday afternoon I flew to Las Vegas to celebrate a friend and came home Saturday afternoon. Paul and Ellerie hung out here and Paul sent me text photos of the girl.
Anything special in the spread? I was super low on photos this week. Super low. It happens. Into the 3×4 pockets went fun decorative cards and a few short stories on journaling cards.
Techniques this week : I wanted to share something about the plush butterfly E has become obsessed with. I deliberately took a photo of it on the black and white striped rug, knowing that the stripes would be the perfect place to add journaling.
Overall thoughts : I much prefer having tons of photos to choose from instead of scrambling for seven. 😉
Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 3 to 4.
Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : 6 to 1.
Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Midnight core kit, Kelly Purkey badge and 3×4 cards, Martha Stewart and Avery Label.
Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Fiskars corner rounder, Zig Millenium pen, Rotatrim paper trimmer, Office Depot date stamp, staz-on ink. All photos were printed at home on my HP Photosmart 2575 printer on Office Depot semi-gloss photo paper.
Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. Do you have a question about how I am tackling this project (including anything about the photos)? Check here.
The start of September marked the beginning of my third 2013 Project Life album. To answer a common question – the albums I use
are 2 3/4 inches thick. They hold a lot of pages protectors, but I
always end up adding thicker embellishments and extra page inserts and
there is no way I could get an entire year into one album or two.
Because of this, I end up with three title pages and three end
pages over the course of year. I like to keep
the pages similar (and neutral) but they are never identical. Above is the second album’s end page.
I used two family photos from our shoot with Tara to wrap up album two.
I also went back to the beginning of this album and added two more photos from that shoot. (Remember, I had left those photo pockets blank.)
And into the four 3×4 pockets I tucked (from left to right) a card from the Midnight edition with a Heidi Swapp letter sticker, a Paislee Press digital element card, another Midnight edition card with an Evalicious badge and a journaling card from the Seafoam kit.
Into the top right pocket I tucked a cut down piece of 12×12 Seafoam paper and into the top left I added a Seafoam kit 4×6 card. I embellished it with my stamps and Paper Source circle stickers.
For the third album’s title page, I carried on a similar look. I recovered the plastic thing that comes in the albums
with Seafoam 12×12 paper and a flair badge from Two Peas in a Bucket.
I used a normal title card to hold the months that this album will hold (September-December). In the top left slot, I used a “hello” card from the Midnight edition.
My four 3x4s are super simple again. From left to right, a 3×4 Seafoam journaling card with a flair badge from Studio Calico, a Seafoam journaling card with text about where we are now, a 3×4 card from the Midnight edition with Paper Source stickers and an American Crafts number sticker on top, and a Midnight edition card embellished with a wood diecut from Two Peas in a Bucket and stamps from my shop.
That last 3×4 card is my favorite… love the look of those little people stamps on the white stickers.
I added a recent favorite photo of Ellerie but left the other slot blank – I need a current photo of the three of us that doesn’t look like it belongs on Awkward Family Photos. Hoping to snap that this weekend and slide it in.
I’m excited to finish out this year. I’ve adored this project in 2013 and am beginning to entertain ideas for 2014. I’ll be keeping a big album for sure – the 12×12 size is working for me. But I’m considering using only 3×4 pocket pages. We’ll see…
Project Life is a memory-keeping system created by Becky Higgins. I use photos, text and stuff to document our life weekly. You can see all the posts from 2012 here and 2013 here. You can see my 2013 title page here and find answers to common Project Life album questions here.
enJOY it 