I hope you have a good one.
enJOY it
an archived personal and craft blog from Elise Blaha Cripe.
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It's week thirteen and I love this project.
click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.
Week of : March 25 – March 31.
What happened this week? I was up in Sacramento. Mostly this involved trips to Target, long walks around the block and pricking my finger four times a day. 😉 But also, it involved a baby shower, celebrating a best friend's engagement, making favors for the shower, a coffee date with a friend, Easter, seeing my brother and photos in a flower field.
Anything special in the spread? I included the invitation to my baby shower in a 5×7 pocket. The invite was small so I stuck it in with a cut down piece of Seafoam 12×12 paper. The orange dots on the front matched and the gray and white dots on the back matched too. Rad. I added a bit of journaling on a card from the baby edition.
Techniques this week : Really nothing special. Up to my old tricks of writing on photo white space and wrap around labels.
Overall thoughts : I really love the spread this week.
Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 7 to 4.
Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : No Paul photos this week, but my mom took one, my dad took one and Ashlee took two. 😉 Plus, Paul's donuts made a big appearance.
Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Seafoam 12×12 paper, Project Life baby edition, Studio Calico Project Life kit (letter stickers), Paislee Press Noted card (recolored by me to pink), Life Love Paper Easter freebie 3×4 card, Freckled Fawn arrow wood chip, Elle's Studio "remember this" tag & 3×4 card with tab, Chic Tags journaling tag, Paper Source label. The little dress was on one of the cards I got at my shower.
Tools used : Design A pocket pages, 5×7 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.
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It's week twelve and I love this project.
click the photos to enlarge for a somewhat clearer image.
Week of : March 18 – March 24.
What happened this week? I was home, nothing too exciting. Found out about the gestational diabetes and went to clinic about what to eat. On Friday, I flew up to Sacramento to spend the next week with my parents.
Anything special in the spread? I added an insert to the spread to celebrate getting to the third trimester. You can see more of the layout on the Studio Calico blog in my Tips & Tricks post. I still love breaking up a big photo into little pockets.
Techniques this week : Really nothing special. I love playing with the same colors throughout the spread. This week, that meant a lot of the Seafoam color. Partly from Seafoam kit cards, partly from embellishment labels and partly from the Studio Calico April Project Life kit. Having a color scheme helps me feel like the spread all works together.
Overall thoughts : I have stopped worrying about getting photos in any sort of "date order." I used to focus on keeping Monday-Thursday on the left side of the spread and Friday-Sunday on the right, but now it's more what fits where that matters. Chronological dating is over for me apparently.
Ratio of iPhone photos to "real camera" photos : 4 to 10.
Ratio of photos taken by Elise to photos taken by Paul : All me this week.
Supplies used : Seafoam core kit, Studio Calico April Project Life kit, Elise Joy heart stamp, Digital PL midnight edition, Evalicious flair badge, American Crafts patterned paper, Elle's Studio journaling tag, Chic Tags circle tag.
Tools used : Design A pocket pages, Design F pocket page, Scrapbook Dividers, 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? Check here.
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It's beginning to get a little pink around here.
How fun to have tiny baby clothes in the house! In addition to a closet full of tiny outfits (don't worry that stuff spans newborn to one year), my "real stuff" orders are beginning to trickle in. We have a crib! And crib mattress! And diapers! And my list of stuff to gather is slightly less overwhelming than it was last week! Progress in any department at this point feels fantastic.
Also so exciting : a few of my plants have sprouted tiny green tomatoes already. I waited months and months for this last summer, so I am not sure what's happening this time around. I think it has a lot to do with not over-watering and getting the plants into the correct size containers from the beginning. Or it might just be that the small tomatoes (these are cherry and sweet 100s) develop much faster. Either way, I am so pumped and inspired to get more plants going right away.
Have a wonderful weekend! I am looking forward to visiting with some college friends and celebrating one of my favorite bachelorettes.
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I am overwhelmed with all that we "need" to get this new space filled properly. Need is, of course, the wrong word. "Want" surely fits better. But our list of furniture to buy is very long and so the money jar to buy rad art is…empty. This means I have to get a little bit creative and try and make what I am looking for. (It also means I am drawing up plans for building a TV stand, but that's a story for later in the month.)
I wanted something bright, special and abstract for over the mantle. Because of the odd light in the TV area, I wanted a canvas, not a frame that would send off glare. I also wanted it to be big. (And would you believe I didn't notice the command hook it's hanging on was visible from the top until I was prepping these photos for the post?!)
This week, I picked up a 30×40" canvas with a coupon at Michael's and set to work with some inexpensive acrylic paints and super cheap brushes. Abstract is SO hard for me. I always over-fuss and mess it up. Or worse, I get impatient and start adding a new color before the first color has dried so I end up with something that looks over-blended and slightly brown.
So patience and careful "studying" of a few artists that really nail it (Claire Desjardins is my favorite) helped me a lot. I stuck with really just a few colors, teal, light teal, gray blue, orange and pinkish-orange. They were all mixed from white, black, red, yellow, teal and blue.
And I went slowly. Part of what I learned is that having some places where the colors blended into each other and some places where there were defined shapes helped make this look less like something I hated and more like something I loved. I used one brush for blues and another for reds. That helped too.
It also started really bad. Like stop working bad. But I pushed through and worked to build a balance of warm and cool colors. I also thought a lot about this tutorial on Oh Happy Day. Abstract is so hard to teach, but they did a fantastic job helping me make sense of it.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with our new mantle art! I hope to do a much (much) larger canvas for another wall in the main room inspired by my success with this guy.
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I can't even pretend this deployment is as difficult as the first one (and the first one really wasn't that bad). It's already been two months since Paul left. And as of today we're just about 10 weeks away from seeing each other. Because Paul is deployed to a non-warzone, he actually gets to take leave days so we are having him fly home in June to hopefully be here for the birth and spend some time with our newborn. (After he's been home about 10 days, he'll fly back and is expected to be home for good sometime in August.)
What's making this go-around easier?
FaceTime. For sure. Last deployment we relied on phone calls and google video chat. The phone calls were rare and the video chats were difficult to schedule. We both had to be sitting at our computer. We normally had to plan them in advance and sometimes we'd anticipate one just to have an awful connection and grainy picture. Since last deployment, we've both upgraded to the iPhone 4S and now have FaceTime capability. Paul's phone plan has been temporarily canceled, but he still has wireless access which makes our chats free and easy. He "calls" and my phone rings like normal. Usually I am home but sometimes I'm out and about (like our quick visit in the Target checkout line the other day).
Not having to "schedule" time to catch up and being able to talk face-to-face daily makes this whole experience feel less lame. There is no pressure to make each conversation long or particularly interesting. It feels normal. And during deployment you crave "normal" more than pots of gold or Nutella.
It's Spring! Last time, Paul left in August and I began the dreaded march to late February alone. We had to get through the holidays. We had to get through DST where the sun sets earlier. The days got shorter and shorter and bleaker. Ugh I hate just thinking about it. I crave sunlight and summer and so having Paul gone during the already awful months was hard (though it took until this time around for me to fully realize why that was).
This deployment, Paul left after the good holidays (Valentine's day and my birthday – which he missed last year anyway – are really not that big of a deal compared to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years). Everyday since he left, it stays light a tiny bit longer. And we are marching towards June – the month our baby will be born. It doesn't get more exciting or uplifting than that. (Plus, he'll be home in August! We'll still get to celebrate the summer good stuff like BBQing and tomato harvests together.)
WE'VE GOT A BABY ON THE WAY. I guess this could be a bummer. Being pregnant without your husband is not ideal. I know. But at this point in my life, having Paul leave for another deployment without us having a chance to conceive a child would have been so much harder for me to take. We are ready and excited for kids and I am so grateful to be carrying our little one. Expecting, even alone, is miles more exciting than gearing up for frustrating months of trying and wondering if a baby is in our plan.
Overall though, I have learned through two deployments that it's totally on me to get through this. Paul's rad. The raddest. But my attitude sets the tone for us. If I'm up. He's up. If I'm drowning, he's miserable AND stuck in another country, unable to throw me a rope to cling to. I stay upbeat for a million reasons. For me. For him. For the baby. For my family. For my friends (who are amazing). And for this blog. I believe wholeheartedly that writing here everyday forces me to stay active and focus on all the good.
And there is so much good.
JUST TEN MORE WEEKS! I can't help but wonder who I'll get to kiss & welcome home first? My hot husband? Or my sweet baby girl?
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I had a wonderful baby shower this past weekend thrown by friends of my mom and Paul's mom. As a thank you to the women who came, I wanted to do something simple but thoughtful.
In general, I am not a big fan of party or wedding favors. Mostly because while of course it's the thought that counts, it's hard to think of an inexpensive gift for multiple people that will actually be appreciated and not just add clutter to their homes. Food is good because you enjoy it and it's gone, but given my recent GDM diagnosis, it seemed a little odd to give out boxes of chocolate or homemade cookies. I figured a small plant would be better (it can always live outside).
I bought 3" terracotta pots at Michael's and small succulents at Lowe's. Their selection varies, but this week is was amazing.
Some of the plants had clearly been watered recently, but others were bone dry. To hopefully extend their lives without over-watering, I let the super dry ones sit in standing water for a few minutes before re-potting them into (dry) cactus soil in their new terracotta homes. We left all the plants and the pots outside for the week before the shower and they all looked better by the time they were ready to be given out.
For a super simple decoration, I added little washi tape flags on plastic toothpick like skewers my parents had in the house. I just wrapped the tape around the stick and added a handwritten "thank you!" to the yellow tape with a white sharpie paint pen (also from Michael's).
The tape flags are the easiest part and you could totally change up the colors to make this fit nearly any event. Potted succulents favors are hardly a new idea, but it's a fun one. And tiny plants are too cute.
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Every time I sit down to write one of these posts I pause to marvel over the fact that it feels like I just wrote one. March was good. Progress in on the setting the house front. Progress on the blog and business front. Progress on backyard landscaping and gardening front. I am now 31 days closer to seeing Paul and meeting the baby.
This month, I have plans for every weekend. That's awesome and will help the time move quickly. It will also help me be smart about how I spend my weekdays. I predict fewer Friends DVD changes in my future. (And that's a good thing.)
Bold intentions for April :
- get the basic necessities for the baby girl.
- re-invite daily walks into the schedule.
- set up our bedroom so it feels like a welcoming space.
In black and white text these are not overwhelming. It's getting them out of text and into reality that makes me a little nervous.
Here we go, April. Work your magic, Spring.
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…I am looking forward to catching up and sharing next weekend. In the meantime, these photos are reminding me that yes, there is a LOT that still needs to be done, but much has been accomplished & slowdowns are wonderful. March was full and good.
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I have had a great week in Sacramento with the parents. Lots of walks, good food, FaceTiming with Paul, online window shopping for furniture, celebrating a friend's engagement, coffee & creating thank you favors for my baby shower tomorrow.
The highlight though was the donuts. I told Paul Thursday morning that I was craving pink frosted donuts with sprinkles. He secretly had them delivered that afternoon. It was unexpected and like any normal seven month pregnant person, I sobbed. (And then enjoyed one immediately. And if anyone besides me is keeping score, my blood sugar levels post-donut came back completely normal.)
Just like I hoped I would be, this past week has been refreshing and I am excited to get home and back to house organizing and planning. April is jam-packed in the very best way and at this point in the pregnancy and Paul's deployment I am super ready for a full schedule.
This week I also shared a Project Life insert for my Tips & Tricks column on the Studio Calico blog. You can see the layout above and download a PDF with my tips for creating something similar here.
Have a wonderful Spring weekend.
A house-keeping note – If you asked me a question in the comments recently and
didn't get a response, it is because my reply comments were accidentally flagged as spam. So sorry about that.
I have published them and you should be able to see a response now (if
you didn't already get an email with a reply). If you have left a comment and it didn't appear, it also wound up in spam. I am monitoring them now and everything should be good until the bug is officially fixed.
enJOY it 