enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

project life : week 12.

Week 12 and I still love this project.

(click to enlarge & the images above will be [somewhat] clearer)

Not too much to say this week - it was pretty quiet and I didn't take too many photos with my big camera. Was able to incorporate a lot of "filler" this week - lots of paper and generic photos like the palm trees and dandelion. That's okay - not every week will be groundbreaking.

The paper in the top date window this week was cut from a bag of oranges. I love that this project makes me look for cool papers again, and more importantly that it gives me a spot to save them.

After last week's post, I played around with PSE and the "wonderful takes work" expression. I printed it as a 3x4 card and have uploaded both the .pse file and .jpg file if you would like to download and print for your own albums.

Click and save 3x4wonderful.jpg to desktop
Download 3x4wonderful (photoshop file)

Also added in a David's Tea bag and a small card that came with my Persnickety Prints order this week.

We went hiking on Friday (Paul had a day off) and I took lots of photos on my phone. Decided to throw a bunch into the album using another coin protector sheet. I processed all of these photos with Instagram, but did not want to flood my feed with 17 photos so for most of them I had the phone in "airplane mode." This is a good option if you want the look without making your photos public.

I trimmed my page protector down so it was just 2 columns and was able to fit all the photos plus some text and our parking pass.

I used a Hunger Games quote this week because we saw the movie Saturday in LA with my brother. We all thought it was a pretty good adaptation.

We finally saw our first sunset this week. I printed a 4x6 photo of the beach and then added a small 2x2 square photo of us on top of it. At first, I couldn't decide how I wanted to do the journaling so it didn't detract from the photo but am happy with the plan to write it on the white border. I might be using that method more often.

And that's it - simple, simple.

I am going to be doing a Project Life "thoughts on three months" post soon to talk more about my process with this album. I'll also be answering a lot of the general questions I have been getting about this project. If there is anything you'd like to know, please ask in the comments and I'll follow up in that post.

supplies / Paper Source circle label & ribbon, Martha Stewart and Avery labels, American Crafts patterned paper & file tab, Ormolu "tuesday" tag, Elle's Studio circle tag, Design A page protectors (which are available in this variety pack), Clementine core kit, square pocket page protector, 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.

taco tuesday.

The month leading up to our wedding and then the six weeks after, Paul and I were without a permanent place to live. It was a crazy and exciting time but we were so relieved to finally, after ten weeks, find an apartment in San Diego and have a kitchen again (and all our wedding gifts to cook with). To celebrate, we decided to eat only home cooked meals for one month.

I tell this story because, almost two years later, we are right in the middle of another "eat only at home for a month" experiment. This is because Paul is back and excited to be cooking again. And also because with someone else in the house, I feel like meals are worth effort again. And mostly because we ate a lot of meals out on our trip down the coast and were ready for a change. I love this challenge and kind of want it to continue forever.

On Tuesday, we made tacos for the first time. And they were awesome.

Paul grilled chicken (we LOVE our grill and the plan from here on out is to once a week grill enough chicken to last for three different meals) and made up a simple salsa.

The base is just frozen corn (heated in the microwave so it's "cooked"), chopped tomatoes (with seeds and extra juices discarded) & diced onion. Paul mixed those together in a bowl and then added a squeeze of lime, salt & pepper to taste and a bit of cayenne pepper. The measurements are all relaxed, just be sure to taste test throughout to make sure it's shaping up into something you'd like on your tacos.

We also added sour cream, queso (the key to making tacos taste legit - I picked some up at Target and then just crumbled it with my hands) and homemade guacamole. I would hardly call our simple guac mix a recipe, but if you're curious, for ours we just chop up a ripe avocado and add a bit of lime, garlic salt and pepper. That's it. No tomato, onion, cilantro or anything fancy.

Our finishing touch, which we both agree added to the flavor, was grilling the white corn tortillas for about 10 seconds a side once the chicken was done. The grill warmed & stiffened them so they didn't break apart while we were eating.

Seriously - a win of a dinner. We both agreed that tacos will be added to our short list of meal stand-bys. And like I told Paul, the whole prep and cooking process will go a lot faster when I am not trying to make things look cute for photos.

p.s. our yellow tablecloth is Williams Sonoma. The white dishes are Crate & Barrel and the blue plates were bought at Target in the dollar spot for $2.50 five years ago.

material 3 of 27 / wood into a photo display.

My parent's recently had to have a redwood tree cut down in their backyard. It had grown too large for the space and was a risk if a big storm came through. (Don't worry, they planted a new one in it's place.) When I heard about it, I asked them to have the tree guy cut some "cookies" or rings from the trunk and save them for me.

I went through a few different ideas for this wood. Originally, I wanted to paint "welcome" on the flat surface and hang it in our entry area. Then I changed my mind and decided I would just paint a big "C" - our last initial - on it and hang it somewhere else in the house.

But when I actually saw the tree cookies in real life, I realized they were thick and very heavy. The hanging plan went out the window and I started thinking that because of the weight it would be better to rest it against a wall (like the ampersand). Considering that the downstairs is pretty much complete, I knew it would be going upstairs and most likely into the loft area which we are hoping to turn into Paul's office in the next month.

The "C" would work well in Paul's office. So that was still the plan. I had a bunch of ideas - at first I was going to paint the whole thing and leave the "C" blank so the woodgrain would show through. But I realized that would mean covering up a lot of the beautiful wood. Instead, I decided to paint just the letter and leave the background alone. Anticipating an error and not sure I would like the results, I worked on the backside of the piece first (it had a sap stain which made it the backside).

Ugh - it was no good. The wood absorbed the paint before I could really even get it on there and it was all wrong anyway. I (obviously) stopped right in the middle of working and left it alone to think about it. Around this time, Paul came home for lunch and saw what I had so far. "You're working on the wood." he said. "Yeah, I know, terrible," I groaned. "I'm going to figure out something else." "Hmm" he said.

Paul clearly agreed that my first attempt was tragic.

I had a few options: I could buy different paint. I could get more technical with the "font" of the letter. I could do something less "block" and more "script." But instead, I decided to think about the wood. Why had I wanted it saved? Why had I gone through the trouble of carting it all the way from my parent's house? Why was I struggling with painting on it?

AH-HA! It was because it was beautiful. The woodgrain on it's own was stunning. The color already perfect. I wanted the wood in my house because it was from my old backyard and already awesome.

So I decided to keep it simple. I hammered in a tiny nail and added a 5x5 photo (my new favorite of the two of us) and hung it from the nail with a circle paper clip. I can change the photo when the mood strikes. I can add more nails and photos if I want to. I can remove them all and just have a stunning piece of wood - art in it's own right - on display.

When Paul got home from work for the day, I had the wood with the photo leaning against the door. "Hey! Love the photo on it, babe" he said as soon as he walked in and without me even having to ask. That usually means a project deserves a check plus.

I can't help but grin at the simplicity of this project. I can't help but grin at how much of my process on this project relates to Tuesday's post about making it work. That was not intentional - but it's a wonderful example. ;)

This is project 3 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.

And some fun news : I am honored to have an article about minibooks in Everyday Storyteller, a digital memory-keeping idea book that will be released in early May.

40 loaves / rosemary rolls.

Bread no. 37 : rosemary rolls.

Adjustments : I made these up. Basically, I took our exact pizza dough recipe, split it into 9 small balls, let it rise for four hours (the dough balls doubled in size) then covered the whole pan with some olive oil, dried rosemary and sea salt. Then I baked the pan for about 24 minutes at 400*.

Notes : I thought I was going to end up with wheat dinner rolls that had a touch of rosemary and salt taste. Thanks to the olive oil, what I got was basically focaccia bread that was lacking in salt and oil flavor. (If you want an excellent focaccia, check here.)

Review : still decent though. Great texture. Would probably be even better dipped in olive oil and vinegar. If I did them again, I'd let the dough rise for about two hours, then knead it again, form dough balls and let it rise a second time before brushing with olive oil, rosemary & salt.

i love march.

DIY wine cork herb labels, jcrew striped sweatshirt (I joked that this had "elise" written all over it. it's so me.), weber charcoal grill (this isn't the one we have - but you can't go wrong with a charcoal weber), poshlocket bangle (I have this in black and love it, but the teal is so cute too), FORLIFE tea mug (great news - I got Paul hooked on tea!), orange & park california coastal print, old navy pink pants (the sizing on these is totally off - so check in store, but these wonderful for the price).

March - you are more than halfway over. I can't believe it. 2012 is flying by in a candy colored haze.