enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

40 loaves / brown butter biscuits.

Bread no. 34 : brown butter buttermilk biscuits.

Adjustments : substituted in one C of wheat flour. I melted 2 ounces of butter, but only crumbled in another 2 ounces instead of 4 like the recipe called for. I also only used 2 tsp of baking powder instead of 4. This is because I've noticed that when I use wheat flour the "flavor" of the baking powder is more obvious. Sometimes it makes my bread taste chalky. Because there was so much in this recipe I knew it would be noticeable if I didn't cut it down.

Notes : there were so many changes made to this recipe that I can hardly tell what's going on. This is the trouble with just me at home to eat all the bread. I try to "healthy it up" a bit too much.

Review : that said, these biscuits were still good. Great texture and just salty enough. Best biscuits ever? Probably not, but enjoyable.

CHA bound.

I'm super excited to drive to Anaheim bright and early this morning to wander around, meet some blog friends in Real Life and look at craft supplies. I'll be the wide-eyed one - please say "hi" if you see me!! I'll be tweeting and sharing photos all day and then hope to do a big post of the rad stuff I am bound to see later this week.

And hey! Fun fact : five years ago, I did this exact same thing only I was much more awkward back then. ;)

fonts above are Kamera Dings, Lobster 1.4 & Ariel Black.

project life : week 4.

Week four and I still love this project.

(click to enlarge & it will be a [somewhat] clearer image)

It's addicting. Over the top addicting. When I look back at the past four weeks I have a happy reminder that even though I am practically pulling my hair out with the waiting for Paul, I am living too. I am staying busy. I am staying creative.

I have been surprised that my old love of scrapbooking is coming back with this project. I know that the "point" of Project Life is to simplify the scrapbooking process. I think it's awesome that it does that for some people. But for someone like me, who takes a lot of photos and writes a ton, but doesn't really put them all together that often anymore, this project feels like a new creative adventure. The last thing on my mind is simplifying. Instead, it's re-figuring out my style and becoming creative with memory keeping again. It's awesome.

The usual suspects are filling this album again this week. I downloaded the Mumford & Sons album and it's been on repeat the past few days. The "awake my soul" script was painted while video chatting with Paul. I learned how to paint thanks to Kal Barteski's script school.

And the quote is of course from a song of theirs too. I have been getting lots of questions about the quotes. Here's the skinny : I find them. Usually on pinterest. I jot them down and tack them on my bulletin board. Then when one really shouts at me, I type it up in PSE on a 3x4 canvas. I use Bebas font. I leave out one or two of the words and then after printing and cropping, I hand write it in. I am considering making some of these quotes a free download, but they will never be for sale. I don't own these quotes and Bebas is a free non-commercial use font. 

The blurred out image is a hilarious email Paul sent to a group of our friends about his homecoming. I copied it into PSE and printed it super tiny so it would fit. It had to be blurred because of dates.

I worked on a project this week where I used a lot of those Amy Tangerine chipboard letter stickers. I love how they look together in a full sentence on top of a photo. Oh, and that image looks odd because my printer started to run out of ink in the middle of it. I decided to roll with it anyway.

The glitter "E" is c/o Design Editor. I added it to my photo before printing. I am kind of obsessed with these letters and can already tell they will be making lots of appearances in my album this year.

I ordered miniprints from Printstagram awhile ago and they arrived this week. I purposely chose "generic" non-week specific images so I can use them all sorts of ways. I anticipate more of them will make appearances in this album throughout the year. Above is a photo of some of them. I then wrote on one, cropped it a bit and stapled it to the photo.

I also wanted to share what I added to the front of the album this week. (See my full title page here.) The Project Life albums come with a plastic protector thing. I wanted to keep it in the album to protect the pages, but I also wanted it fancied up a bit.

So when I took down the January page from my big wall calendar, I trimmed around the "2012" section and adhered it right to the plastic. I'll probably do the same thing to the back of it when I take down February.

So yes! That's it. Wonderful adventure, this project. I am headed up to Sacramento this week and will be bringing the whole album plus a paper trimmer and supplies with me. That's a little obsessive, I know. But "Obsessive" is my middle name.

supplies / Paper Source circle label, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, digital glitter E c/o Design Editor, circle accents c/o Scrapbook Circle, American Crafts patterned paper & letter stickers, Design A page protectors, Clementine core kit, washi tape from SMASH & happytape.com, 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. See all my Project Life posts here.

project 23 of 26 / yarn wrapped bottle vases.

I may or may not have done a happy dance yesterday while taking pictures of this project. This is PROJECT TWENTY THREE. And I have absolute set in stone plans for the last three projects. Which means...

I AM GOING TO FINISH.

It was a huge deal for me to get these 26 projects completed. I have set birthday goals for the past four years and I have never actually succeed in finishing half of my goals. So hooray. Serious hooray.

It seems like 2012 is the year of the black and white. I wonder when and if I am going to get tired of this color combination?

I saw yarn bottles pinned (here's the original source and tutorial) at 4:50pm on Wednesday and by 4:51 I was drinking a beer so I could start on this project. At first I made two wrapped beer bottles. But they were too similar and didn't look quite right. So some digging in the recycle bin on Thursday morning provided a wine bottle. The height difference helps, I think.

The concept is simple enough, but each took about a half hour - 45 minutes to actually wrap. It was tricky stuff getting started and then going around the "shoulders" of the bottle. Lots of patience needed for this one. For the alternating black and white, I just wrapped two strands of yarn around at the same time. That one was actually much easier because there were no ends to deal with.

Without the green plants sticking out of them, they are quite awkward, so I picked some stuff from my front yard. I should do that more often.

And here's the full mantle. It will be "complete" when there is a driftwood wreath hanging in front of that mirror. That's next.

other DIY projects shown : copper leaf canvas, string art ampersand. That framed photostrip was just made by adhering the strip to a piece of thick white cardstock. That wooden love is from here. Remember, this cute blog has the full tutorial.

This is project 23 of 26.

I am attempting to tackle 26 personal craft projects before I turn 27 on 02.22.12. You can follow my progress here on the blog or on pinterest.

See project 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,  20, 21 & 22.

right now.

Right now, I find Sundays to be my most productive work day. I can wrap up and write and photo-edit and clear my inbox like it's my job on Sundays. It sets the tone for the next four days. And then Thursday afternoon I sort of coast into my version of the weekend. This will be changing when Paul gets home. I'll match his schedule so we can enjoy as much time as possible together.

Right now, I am celebrating living in this new house for eight weeks. I drove up PCH eight Thursdays ago with a smile on my face. It's unreal how simultaneously slow and quick time passes. It makes me feel old.

Right now, I am finishing up two projects. One custom invitation job for a friend and one mini-album for a fun blog.

Right now, I have a really great feeling about February. Thanks to a bad habit, I have already flipped all my calendars. It's going to be adventure-filled, for sure. I'll be up in Sacramento for a while and then I have friends coming for a long weekend. There is a parade of birthdays to be celebrated in February, including my own.

Right now, I love that I can see from my office window when the mailman arrives.

Right now, I think about Paul coming home and I start to cry. I imagine texting our friends and family while I wait in anxious excitement for him to get off the plane. I imagine seeing him in real life and getting butterflies in my stomach. I remember getting the same butterflies when I worked in Georgetown and knew he was coming to pick me up to go to dinner. I would be in the middle of helping a customer and he'd come in un-noticed. Then I'd catch his eye and my stomach would flip. And that was after we'd spent only nine hours apart.

Right now, I fall asleep thinking about my morning coffee. I think that might be considered an addiction.

Right now, I am a fan of Once Upon a Time. It's a pretty rad show. It has similar music to Lost which is kinda freaking me out. I also watched the first episodes of Smash and Alcatraz. Of all of them, Alcatraz seems like the one Paul would be willing to add to our weekly line up. So that's exciting.

Right now, I look forward to seeing this new documentary, SOMM. Should be amazing. I feel like it will be one of our favorites. And one of those movies (like Bottleshock) that cannot be enjoyed without a few bottles of wine and a plate of cheese.

Right now, I go to the beach everyday. Sometimes to run. Sometimes to look for driftwood. Sometimes to walk. Sometimes just to stare at the waves. I have purposely never watched a complete sunset. I actually turn my back on them and head to the house if I am ever caught on the beach at the wrong time. I promised Paul that is something we'd do while toasting our new place and our return to normal life together.

Right now, I am content. But oh man, am I counting the days.

Want to promote your blog or business on my sidebar? I am currently taking sponsors for February. January was awesome traffic-wise and I expect next month to be the same. I've got the 26 projects to wrap up and a lot of good stuff happening. Go here for details and shoot me an email if you're interested.