enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

material 11 of 27 / "leather" into a folded clutch.

Oh, leather. Since day one, I knew you'd turn into a clutch, but I didn't know you'd look like this. To be fair, I didn't use actual leather, I used "fake lamb leather" in "leather brown" color and purchased it from this etsy shop. My first attempt to use this fabric was a massive fail. I tried to make a large envelope clutch, but the neither the "leather" nor the lining was very stiff and it ended up looking like a very ugly cape for a very small super hero.

Into the scrap box went the cape, and I decided to forget about it until a better idea came along. While I was doing my reorganizing a few weeks ago, I found a yard of the dyed fabric* that I'd had for months. It was prettier than I remembered and looked like something I would want to have in clutch form. Knowing that I still needed to use leather, I decided to add some of it as a design element on the bottom of the bag.

This is the second clutch I've made (here's the first) and once again, I followed this simple zippered pouch tutorial. Just like the first time, I made the clutch super big so it could be folded in half. It's 10.5x15 inches (and then folds to about 10.5x8).

I think (I hope?) I'll get more use out of this one than my blue one. It's pretty similar to some of the other clutches that I have in heavy rotation...warm colors and patterned. I have to remember when making stuff to pay attention to the things I already have, wear, use often. I made it a week and a half ago and have already carried it out and about three times, so that's good news.

I spent more money on a decent zipper this time and I think the gold makes it look a bit more legit.

Because the patterned fabric and the "leather" are both thin, I used a duck canvas for the inside lining. It's thick enough to give the bag some structure, but not so thick that it's bulky or refuses to fold.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out.

*The outside patterned fabric is something I found at a small fabric store months ago. It says "Designed by Beth Ann Bruske for David Textiles Inc." if you want to look for something similar.

This is project 11of 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.

yep, yep.

Tossing out the plans and the post ideas and the photo walk today. I'm feeling so good about August that I flipped my calendar over last week. (Yep, I still know we're two days out.) I adore August, this final month of summer (not scientifically, or technically, but in every other sense of the word). Lots of good around here.

I am celebrating a garden that is producing bright red tomatoes in every size daily. These are the best tasting tomatoes I have ever eaten. I am proud of my container garden and my first foray into growing something edible. It's the start of an annual hobby, for sure.

I am grateful for an organized space. It's going to be a crazy few weeks and then a crazier few months. Projects on top of projects. I want to make more. I want to take 10,000 photos. I want to enroll in a ceramics workshop. I want to release new stamps. I'd love to launch a new mixed paper book. I will be re-running the Blog 2.0 workshop. (Edit : My schedule has changed! I'll be doing something different with the blog class material!) I will be working hard on my first class for Big Picture.

I am so looking forward to seeing my college girlfriends at the end of the month. It's been crazy difficult to get everyone together often enough. We tend to rely on weddings to do the reuniting for us. I spent much of last Thursday looking through old photos and remembering the hilarity and magic of that group. We're having reunion t-shirts printed and that about sums it up.

I am paging through Pantone swatch books and learning so much about design, color & printing processes. Every few minutes I want to pinch myself that this has become part of my job.

I am sketching on paper and playing with ideas for my site & shop relaunch. The best way I have found to embark on a revamp is break it all down and start from scratch. Destroy to develop. I have a home page plan and now I need a decent amount of text and a shop layout that makes sense. After that, it's just code. And while I am far from fluent, HTML is my favorite language.

I could have used one of the 50 photos I have taken of my TV over the last few days, but this one tells a better story. Also, my skin color is like a PSA for sunscreen.

I am such a fan of the Olympics. There is something special about them (duh). We signed up for cable for the first time in two years (previously we watched all our TV on the Internet the next day) just to tune in. We'll be keeping it through college football season too. Our method is to DVR all the coverage and then speed through commercials & five of the six hours of bike racing. I so enjoy watching the best in the world complete on the greatest stage. I love the sappy three minute packages that make you fall in love with an athlete you've never heard of and will never hear of again. I love scooting to the end of my seat for the final 50m of any swim race. I love that when one of our guys fell off the high bar & I screamed and sloshed my full mug of coffee into the air and on to the couch, Paul didn't even bat an eye.

I'm in love with the idea that Paul will be home for the rest of the summer, all of the fall and through the holidays. The reward for having him miss this last year is that I get to sigh with relief every time I remember that he's here this time around. Next weekend we celebrate five years of living together. It feels like forever and it feels like just yesterday we dove head first (synchronized diving style) into this relationship. Going for it was by far the best choice I ever made. I'm so excited for what's next.

project life : week 30.

Week 30 and I still love this project.

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

Nothing special this week. Lots and lots of photos as usual.

I have been using the TimerCam app on my iPhone and like that a lot. Very easy to grab normal life "hand-shots" like the two in the page above.

Was moved by the quote from Sally Ride that I saw on twitter this week. Added some extra journaling on a bi-fold card from the Clementine kit and tucked that into a pocket. More journaling about the Olympics on the red Martha Stewart labels.

supplies / Paper Source circle label, Martha Stewart & Avery labels, teal flower pattern is from a calendar that I cut up, American Crafts patterned paper, Elle's Studio journaling tag, Ormolu Tuesday badge, Marcy Penner heart badge, American Crafts thickers, Design A page protectors (which are available in this variety pack),  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)? Check here. See all my Project Life posts here.

on our walls / framing photos.

To wrap up this week, I wanted to talk a bit about framing (family) photos and hanging them on the walls. A few years ago, I was all about plastering the house with photos of the two of us. I've pulled up a little bit since then and have worked to incorporate a lot more "art" into our space.

But I still love a good framed photo and decided to create a cluster of them on the wall in front of the garage entrance to our house.

We have been super blessed over the past few years to have really awesome photos taken by really great photographers (The Goodness & Driver Photo). I am so thankful for the photos we have from them and oodles of them have made it into our family albums (here, here & here).

I have also chosen to frame a few, but tend to favor the "less traditional" of the shots. For example, the only wedding photo that we currently have on our walls is a small 5x7 of our shoes (and flowers).

We have a similar shoe shot from our engagement photos framed on the mantle.

And a favorite from the photos we took in April.

Other than that though, I end up framing a lot of imperfect or random photos. Some are low quality - the one above was taken with an underwater disposable camera and others were taken with my phone or even computer camera.

A photo that makes me laugh is likely to make the wall. I've talked about the one above many times before; it was taken in a photobooth set up at our friends' wedding. I didn't see it at the wedding and months later, for a split second, I thought I had taken a photo with Russel Brand. It had to go on the wall (and it had to be our 2011 Christmas card). I wanted something big and fun (and cheap) so I had it blown up at Office Depot for under $4. It's printed on copy paper but because it's just black and white, the quality looks decent. That frame & mat was purchased at Ikea.

Photobooth strips are likely to make the wall. Something magic happens in photobooths and I am not quite sure what it is? Maybe it's the light that seems to blow out any skin imperfections? Or maybe it's just the small cramped space? Or maybe it's just the flurry of activity that comes with trying for four "great" shots? Either way - the results are usually good. I have two strips (both from the Ace Hotel about a year apart) and one collage of them (from a wedding we attended in fall 2010) on our walls.

One of my favorite framed photos is from the first morning of our honeymoon. We were at breakfast and I set the timer on my small point and shoot. It captured us eating (so the photo rests on the counter in our kitchen) but it also captured our new wedding rings. We were in the most picturesque honeymoon site and somehow this random photo of breakfast is still one of my favorites from the trip.

I love framed photos that show the passing of time. I found the two on the left (from 2009 & 2007) while sorting through old photos. When I went to buy a frame to put them next to each other, I could only find frames with three 4x6 holes. So back at home, I found another photo from last spring and ta-da... three similar photos, five years apart.

Most of our framed photos are super normal sizes - 4x4, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 or 11x14 - so they are very easy to frame. When I know I want to create a cluster of different photos, I tend to stick with frames that are all the same color (usually black). It's unifying without being limiting. (Everywhere sells black frames.) I have read many online tutorials about hanging gallery walls. Most recommend creating templates of each frame out of newspaper and playing around with them on the wall. I totally dig that idea and would go for it if I was worried about spacing, but usually, I just start hammering and adjust as needed.

When I have something that is a non-traditional size, like a photobooth strip that I want to frame, I buy heavy white paper (at an art or craft store), cut it to the size of the frame and mount the photo on the front and center with double stick tape. A large white mat in a black frame makes even small photos stand out and sets them apart as something special.

Recently, I have started to write (in pencil) the dates and locations on the white mats of the frames. This is partly for me, so I remember, but also for anyone who looks at our walls. It's funny - one of my favorite things to do at people's houses is look at their family photos. I think it's fascinating to see what people decide to frame.

on our walls / creating graphic & simple art.

Almost all of the art I have created for our current townhouse & past apartments has been of the simple and graphic variety. I have talked about this before, but while I love "abstract" art, all of my attempts to make something awesome and abstract have revealed it's so much harder than it looks. When I need to create something big for our space, I love playing with repeating shapes to get something fun and bold that is relatively easy to "get right."

I have tried a few different methods for simple graphic paintings. In the above painting (which I ended up recovering because the color wasn't quite right) I just used my finger to dab different colors of paint on a yellow canvas. Here's a full tutorial. A different, but similar effect could be created by "stamping" with a cotton ball, sponge or cork soaked in paint.

Earlier this summer, I shared a circle painting that was completed in a similar method to the finger painting. Again, I used repeating shapes, a limited color palette and many layers to fill a space.

Triangles are another graphic shape I use over and over. By joining large triangles I created a pinwheel piece. (Tutorial here.) For this one, I used painters tape to get clean lines. In a "non-traditional" move for me, I used many different colors for this pinwheel. I could totally see something like this on a much larger scale with metiallic spray paint.

To turn a simple clay pot into something that makes a statement, I painted black and white triangles freehand. The shapes are far from perfect here, but because it's only two colors is not distracting.

Sometimes, I play with graphic art on a much smaller scale because it's so much easier to experiment before jumping into a large (and more expensive) project. The triangle painting above is from a set I made last year. This was a fun brush control challenge to get a bit better at freehand creating straight lines. Filling in these small spaces was a fun exercise and I love that a small painting brings color (and breaks up all the books) on our room divider bookshelf.

One of my favorite graphic pieces is super simple. I used copper leafing to recover an old canvas that didn't really work in our space any more. I like that the leafing process gives it a bit more texture than if it was just painted and that because it's just one color makes it makes a great backdrop to whatever I put in front of it on our mantle.

My last graphic art method is to just paint (or collage or draw or color) a simple shape, icon or symbol. In our kitchen, I needed something to help fill the big mirrored wall and decided to paint over an existing canvas with white paint and then add a black wine bottle right on top. I used a pencil first to give me an idea of the shape I was going for. If freehand isn't your favorite method, it would be easy to cut a template out of newspaper for something like this (or a symbol, letter or word). To hang art in front of a mirror, I stapled white ribbon to the back of the canvas and ran it up to the celing where I used one more staple to hold the ribbon into the plaster ceiling.

One of the reasons I think I am drawn to such simple art is that these projects are graphic, but quick and inexpensive. There is no emotional tie in that means years from now I'll have a hard time throwing out or painting over these projects. We are looking at lots of moves over the next decade and many changes. I like the idea that our art can and will change with us.