enJOY it

40 pizzas / pepperoni & green olive with red sauce.

October 9, 2012
pizza no. 12 : pepperoni & green olives.

occasion : we don't have much in our fridge.

crust : our whole wheat usual. (truly folks, I'll be changing this up! But the best part of this pizza is the sauce!)

sauce : red tomato sauce of Paul's concoction :
- olive oil
- 1 large garlic clove – minced
- 28 oz can of whole peeled plum tomatoes
- pinch of dried rosemary, basil and oregano
- salt & pepper to taste
Saute the minced garlic in olive oil over medium heat. Add the tomatoes (crush them up with a wooden spoon), dried herbs and a bit of salt and pepper. Turn the heat up slightly and let the liquid in the tomatoes boil off. It took us about 20 minutes to get it to a great consistency. Taste it! It may need more salt. The trick is to NOT taste it too early because so much will boil off leaving a more intense flavor and you'll end up oversalting.

cheese : sharp cheddar.

toppings : turkey pepperoni and green olives also known as all we had in the fridge.

thoughts : this was amazing. Much more amazing than it should have been. And here's the secret – we built it upside down…cheese first, then toppings and sauce dribbled on top. I had no idea this would taste that different, but Paul seemed convinced all along that sauce on top would result in magic. He was right.
building a stamp display.

October 8, 2012

I think I sign up to sell at craft fairs because I like to build displays. Merchandising was probably my favorite part of the job when I worked retail. It's incredibly fun to build something from nothing and decide what will work best for the product.

But I was stumped for a few weeks when I signed up to sell my stamps at the Queen Bee Market at the end of this month. I knew I wanted to reuse as many display pieces as possible (you can see my previous QBM booth here), but I would also be working with completely different (tiny-sized!) inventory this time. How could I make statement with something so small?

The statement idea came quickly – I plan on reusing my hinged boards as a backdrop and covering them completely (so no teal is visible) with blown-up black and white images of the stamps. The impact should work from a distance, and if I do it right, it will not be too cluttered. (I'll share this part when I get it out of my head and on to paper.)

How to display the actual inventory so it was shopable was still a challenge. The stamps are too small and insignificant to just flay flat on a table. So I considered boxed risers. Then I thought about building cubbies. Then, overwhelmed with that idea, I considered just using my Pottery Barn cubby display (see it in this post) that I use in my office to hold craft supplies. I even went so far as to set the whole thing up to see how the stamps would look in the cubby. And the answer was terrible.

It looked like a block. It was un-sturdy. The wood was too dark. The cubbies to deep. And on and on with problems. I didn't even want to buy my own stamps, much less touch the display for fear it would topple over.

So I thought about it a little bit more. I needed something with super shallow shelves. It had to be big enough to fill the table, but small enough to look full. It had to be clean and bright and organized.

I told Paul my plan and in true Paul fashion, he was skeptical. After a few sketches and some patience I got him convinced. I was optimistic that Lowe's would sell molding that could work as a shallow shelf, and sure enough, they had a full aisle of the stuff. And even better, they had it in white.

Then came the easy part. I wrapped a piece of wood in kraft paper, held it in place with staples, trimmed my molding (which is cheap, light and made from balsa wood) to the correct length and secured them to the board with guerrilla glue. After a few hours of drying – I had a custom shelf display! We are going to add two hinges to the back and wooden legs so it's sturdy and can stand on it's own on top of my folding table.

I love it. It totally accomplishes what I need it to and I like that I can use the different rows to delegate different stamp prices. I have oodles more to do, but this feels like a good start.
project life : week 40.

October 7, 2012

Week 40 and I still love this project.

(click photo above to enlarge for a [somewhat] clearer image.)

Annnnd, I am caught up. I've done a decent job staying on track with this album throughout this busy fall, but posting about it makes it feel official. For the record, if you are on the fence with how long PL takes, know that getting these posts together takes almost as long as completing the spreads each week – and is way more boring. 😉

Pretty standard left page. I left the tea package pocket from last week alone so this week you see the other side. And you might notice that on my goal photo (bottom left), the last two goals were written in. I accidentally printed an unfinished version of that graphic and instead of wasting the ink and the paper to reprint, I just hand-wrote the last two goals. (Perfectionism would absolutely destroy me on this project.)

Into one of the small pockets, I stuck a trimmed down piece of my stamped stationery. And into another one, I put a manilla tag with Kelly Purkey's cute October stamp and some journaling.

And the right is also pretty standard. That kraft and white journaling card is just hand-painted stripes.

Hooray, hooray and on to the next week…

supplies / Paper Source
circle labels, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, ELISE JOY his and hers stamps, Amy Tangerine heart sticker & patterend paper (kraft with white icons), Studio Calico patterned paper, SMASH paper clip, Office Depot date stamp, Design A page protectors, Clementine core kit, Bebas quote font. I use a Fiskars corner rounder (it's not amazing, but it's lasted the longest of any corner rounder I've ever had). I am using a Zig Millennium 0.1 pen and Recollections glossy marker throughout this album.

Confused by Project Life? Start here. Have a question about how I am tackling this project each week (including questions about the quotes & photo printing)? Check here. See all my Project Life posts here.
project life : week 39.

October 6, 2012

Week 39 and I still love this project.

(click photo above to enlarge for a [somewhat] clearer image.)

This was a simple week – Paul was out of town and I was making stuff. I got a question the other day about if I consider this album an "Elise and Paul" album or an "Elise" album. That's a good question. Technically, I consider it an "Elise and Paul" album, but I do all the journaling, take all the photos and determine what goes in each week. I would be happy to share the documenting process with Paul but I don't think anything could interest him less. 😉 It still tells our story though and that's the point.

This week's spread actually includes an insert page with more photos but it's currently top secret for a different project and I cannot share it here yet. I decided to take my favorite photo from the week and blow it up to 12×12 to make a big statement on a full pocket page. (This post has a tutorial for how I print a full page photo in sections on my home printer.)

I have done this a few times over the past year and still LOVE the impact it makes. I journaled right onto the photo with a Zig Millennium pen.

The right side is the simplest one I've had in awhile. Just photos and a folded bit David's Tea packaging. The packaging is bulky and was causing the pocket to gape so I clipped a paper clip around it and the plastic pocket and it's fitting better.

And that's that! Tomorrow I will blog about week 40 and I'm officially caught up with sharing.

supplies / Paper Source
circle labels, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, American Crafts thickers, SMASH paper clip, Office Depot date stamp, Design A page protectors, Clementine core kit, Bebas quote font. I use a Fiskars corner rounder (it's not amazing, but it's lasted the longest of any corner rounder I've ever had). I am using a Zig Millennium 0.1 pen and Recollections glossy marker throughout this album.

Confused by Project Life? Start here. Have a question about how I am tackling this project each week (including questions about the quotes & photo printing)? Check here. See all my Project Life posts here.
around here.

October 5, 2012

It was a pretty good week around here.

The backordered stamps arrived and got out the door in a flurry of packing tape and business cards. That is always a huge relief and if you've been waiting, I hope they arrive soon! This also means that all stamps are back in stock and ready to ship. Check plus.

Today, I want to congratulate Becky Higgins on three years of Project Life. How cool. She has been celebrating the birthday all week and yesterday shared downloadable cell phone backgrounds based on the new kits (and plenty of awesome ones from past years). She is also offering a free "quote card" download and I was happy to contribute one of my favorites from the past year. Go here to check them out (see if you can guess which one is mine…)

Thank you so much for your kind words on my stamped cards giveaway and "sharing personal stuff" blog post. I read every single comment always and I appreciate them so much. As promised … giveaway winners! Random.org picked #97 – Hannah @ let my heart be, #113 – Jaimie Lee, #119 – Shannon Younger & #229 – Catherine Daly. If that's you, please email me (elise.blahaATgmail.com) with your mailing info and I'll get your cards shipped out.

Paul has today off! Hooray! We're headed to Lowe's to try and turn my stamp display idea for the Queen Bee Market into something real and awesome. Other plans for the weekend: seeing Looper, picking up quilt batting at Jo-Anns (it's supposed to be 50% off this weekend!) and finding a pumpkin patch.

Have a good one.
feel up for a quilt making challenge?

October 4, 2012

I am on a mission to make four quilts by Christmas.

Technically, I'll be wrapping them up (with big red bows) on 12/22, but "Quilts by December 22nd" doesn't have the same ring. One is just for fun and for me to keep (and more than likely will be the first one complete!) but the other three will be gifts for special folks in my life.

Three of them are going to be just like the last one I made. Simple color schemes, pretty patterns, triangles and striped borders. I am taking a short cut this time around and following this method for getting my triangles. Less perfect cutting is totally my jam. (Thank you for the suggestion, Siobhan!!)

The quilt that I'll be keeping is solid colored equilateral triangles. I am usually not a pinks and purples girl, but I am obsessed with this one. Actually, I think addicted is the correct word. I will do a full post with tips for making your own when I finish.

I got a suggestion on my last quilt post to host a quilt challenge. I don't really know how to do that, but I do know that nothing motivates me more than a goal and a public declaration of my intentions. Hopefully, the same will be true for you!

And so, I invite you to post about your own Quilts by Christmas plan on your blog. (Actually, you don't have to make quilts and you don't have to finish by any holiday but set a craft deadline!) And then commit! Get it done. No excuses. I'll be posting here about my own progress a few times over the next few months and each time, you are welcome to share your own updates in the comments or on your own blog.

Please feel free grab the logo above to share in your posts (no need to though!!).
reader question : sharing the personal stuff.

October 3, 2012

I often get questions about how I work my personal life into my blog posts – where I draw the line, how I deal with privacy concerns, if I think sharing has helped grow my business, etc. This is a huge topic, and a great one for a reader question post.

To start, I want to recognize two things :

First, despite all the craft projects, I consider this blog a personal blog. That's how it started and that's how it will end. Everything in this space – the projects, the photos, the editing, the scrapbooks, the recipes, the coding, the design, the writing – is done by me. Everything is crafted and written about because at best I'm passionate about the topic and at the worst, it seemed like something fun to try. I blog because I want to share. But obviously, when I share details about life events (our wedding, trips we take, etc) I provide more personal information. I sometimes share much more than that too and would consider the posts where I share my thoughts and feelings (on marriage, on running my business, on deployment, etc) to be the most "personal."

Second, I think I am lucky in that I started blogging in 2005 when almost every blog was a personal blog. Like most people at the time, I shared anecdotes from my life every few days and included the good, the bad and the ugly. I had no idea that this space would gain an audience or become a career tool. I saw it as a creative outlet where I could share my inspirations, be tastefully self-depreciating and nothing more. I consider it a huge blessing that I learned how to be authentically personal first and authentically business-focused second. It seems much more difficult to try and work backwards. (Though if that's you – I would recommend starting with "around here" & "currently" posts.)

I know that there is a lot about me (and Paul) on this blog. I do my best to keep specifics about where we live to a minimum, but in reality, I recognize it's not top secret information. I am not too concerned about it. Right now, I feel very comfortable, but this is something that Paul and I will look into more carefully once we have kids and their safety and privacy to consider.

What I share has changed over the years and I have become more thoughtful about what I post. I guess some readers might consider this a bad thing, but I think for me it's just been part of growing up as a writer. I have been blogging for almost seven years. I am (thankfully!) a different person than I was as a junior in college. Going back and adapting my original writing style again would be as impossible as it would to move back into my sorority house and attend classes again (not that I haven't considered it).

When you share your life online, you open yourself up for a stream of opinions from strangers. This is awesome and terrible depending on the topic. There is a lot of room for assumption on the Internet (though it does no one any good whatsoever). Unlike in the real world, where you can rely on body
language, facial expression and tone to help you get your message
across, in Blogland, your words float forever, to be
interpreted in any way, by anyone. I'll admit that stresses me out a bit.

But, as I have been mulling over this post, I've realized I really need to let go of that stress. In my years of blogging, I received probably 20 rude comments and only a handful of those were mean-spirited enough to really hurt my feelings. On the flip side, I have made some great friendships, built a business, shared helpful insight and most importantly, documented my life. I have worked out many problems and thoughts in this little text box (sometimes I don't really know how I am feeling about something until I start typing) and I know for sure writing has helped me develop emotionally, creatively and professionally.

While I can schedule posts about craft projects or life events (you can read more about how I do that here), I cannot "plan in advance" personal posts because I have two hard and fast rules :

1. When a personal post doesn't come easy, I don't think it's the post that needs to be written…yet. Usually it means the topic doesn't fully make sense for me and I am still working on it. I have started and stopped many posts over the past few years, not because I worry about how they'll be received, but because I don't know how to write them. As a blogger, I am willing to share my thoughts on difficult topics, but I never fight for posts when they are not ready. I trust that the words will come eventually, and they always do.

2. And completely the opposite, when I have a "personal" or emotional post working though itself in my head, I write it. Immediately. My greatest posts are the ones that take me by surprise and pour out of my fingers. The posts where I cannot do anything but write usually become my favorite. Middle of the night? I get up and sit at my computer. Driving home from the grocery store? I pull over to jot down notes. One hundred other things on my to do list? I push them aside and type. These posts are the magic posts and written quickly, usually after I have just realized something monumental.

Other than that, I draw simple boundaries –

I don't blog (or tweet) mad. And have never once regretted it. This doesn't mean I don't get mad. I get very mad. But I like to work though that anger (or sadness) a bit first before I share here (if I share at all). That's not called "hiding my feelings" it's called, "dealing with my feelings the old-fashioned way."

I don't present Paul in a bad light. Again, this doesn't mean that I always think my husband is the most amazing person on the planet who can do no wrong. It just means that our dirty laundry stays ours.

I try not to take myself too seriously. At the end of the day – this is an online journal. That's it. It is not worth all the stress that I could so easily place onto it and it certainly isn't life or death. There are real problems and there are blog problems and never are those two things the same.

Blogging is so bizarre and amazing. I love the friendships and connections that I have made while writing here, and for me the good that has come out of sharing bits of my life vastly outweighs the bad. I have had a few ups and downs while finding "my voice", but after almost seven years, it's still a joy to write.

And please know that I am honored my
words are read by you.
material 16 of 27 / rubber into a hand-carved stamp.

October 2, 2012

Stamps have sort of been the theme around here the last few months, but I thought it would be fun to cross "rubber" off the materials list and carve my own. I have done this before and really loved the results. I use that intial stamped stationery all the time.

This time I went with a simple pattern – repeating triangles. Not sure if it's because I currently have triangle quilts on the brain or becuase I just love the shape.

I drew my pattern in pencil first (the X's represent the triangles I needed to scoop out) and then carefully carved it.

I used this stamp kit (with this brayer to roll out the paint) and Paper Source cardstock and envelopes in various colors. Instead of using oil based printing ink (which I have done in the past but hate because it takes forever to dry) I used simple craft paint (in white, mint, gold & hot pink) and was happy with the results.

With something like this, the imperfection and ease is the charm. If I wanted perfect triangles, I would have designed something on the computer and printed it out on to the cardstock. If I wanted painted triangles, I would have painstakingly used a brush and done one at time. But the first option would be less "hand-made" and the second would take forever. Hand-carved stamps are a good middle ground.

I got a bit carried away with all my stamping and made a few dozen cards. I'll be holding onto some for my penpals, but I would also like to giveaway four sets of five to you guys as a thank you for reading. This isn't a promo opportunity – I am out of the "selling greeting cards" business – it's just a thank you. If you're interested, leave a comment below. Giveaway is now closed, I'll be announcing the winner tomorrow. Thank you!

This is project 16 of 27. I am
attempting to complete 27 craft projects using 27 different
materials before I turn 28 on 02.22.13. You can follow my progress here on the blog or on pinterest. Birthday challenges are my favorite. You can see the 26 Projects I completed while 26 here and the 27 materials I have used so far here.
october goals.

October 1, 2012

I have some pretty standard fall projects on the list this month and then random items like ridding the house and patio of dead plants (and hopefully bringing in some live ones). I have a long list of things to take care of before the Queen Bee Market at the end of the month so that will be fun. And I would love to keep my sewing machine humming for the next 31 days…

Ready, set, go…October.

And a warm welcome to some new and returning blog sponsors this month! Please click through the right sidebar to see what they are offering. Thank you for supporting this blog.
project life : week 38.

September 30, 2012

Week 38 and I still love this project.

(click photos above to enlarge for a [somewhat] clearer image.)

Fairly simple stuff this week (which is really LAST week). Projects and football – that's what fall is for, right?

I didn't take a lot of photos this week. No big deal but it meant I was stretching it a bit to fill the pockets.

Because of this, I needed some pocket filler. I decided to go with a simple statement. I dropped letter stickers from Studio Calico on patterned paper (this one is by American Crafts) and added a bit of handwritten text.

I included a small insert this week to say goodbye to summer. The photo grids on the front are from this post and show 75 (!!) different summer images. (Many of which are already in the albums from this year, but I love the look of all of them together.)

And the backside is the text from that same post, printed out onto three different 4×4 papers and slipped into the pockets.

The right page is dominated by the USC v Cal game from last Saturday. We made up a fun drinking game to play while we watched. I wrote our "rules" on 3×4 journaling cards and slipped them into pockets behind "his" and "hers" stamped stickers. Sweet.

supplies / Paper Source
circle labels, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, American Crafts
patterned paper, Studio Calico thickers, Amy Tangerine patterned paper (red day of the week), Elise Joy his & hers stamps, Office Depot date stamp, Design A page protectors, We R Memory keepers 4×4 square page protector, Clementine core kit, Bebas quote font. I use a Fiskars corner rounder (it's not amazing, but it's lasted the longest of any corner rounder I've ever had). I am using a Zig Millennium 0.1 pen and Recollections glossy marker throughout this album.

Confused by Project Life? Start here. Have a question about how I am tackling this project each week (including questions about the quotes & photo printing)? Check here. See all my Project Life posts here.