enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

rainbow birthday crown.

Kid crafting is my favorite crafting.

Especially projects like this, that come together in 30 minutes with supplies I already own. I really wanted to make some sort of a birthday crown for Ellerie to wear at her rainbow party this coming weekend. Originally I thought I would go with felt (but since that involved driving to the store to buy felt) I went with fabric and poster board.

The "process" was simple. I wrapped poster board around Ellerie's head to see how long of a piece I would need to use and then cut it down so it was about 7 inches tall. This gave me a rectangle of poster board that was 19x7 inches.

And then I used my machine to stitch on stripes of fabric. (I folded them in half lengthwise to get that clean edge.) I went with simple patterns from my stash and just attached them right to the poster board (I used a regular needle, but you could use a denim needle if you're worried about the thickness).

I started at the bottom with the blue and worked my way up to the red. The "2" I added last, not sure if it would add or take away from the crown. I'm glad I went with it. It's just freehand cut and them machine stitched into place.

To make the all important "points" up top, I machine stitched "triangles" through the fabric and the poster board and then just cut along the line, leaving a small hem (seen in the photo above). It worked out great.

I used a zig-zag stitch on the edges to finish it off and then stapled it into place to hold it into a crown shape.

Seriously, if you can work you sewing machine, you can do this project and the results are too fun. When I first stuck it on Ellerie her response was "no, no, no." but it's been a week and now she asks for her "bir-day crown?" I'm cautiously optimistic that we might get her to wear it for a few minutes next Sunday.

new favorite.

Stop me if I've said this before (just kidding, I have said it 600 times) but I've got a new favorite family keepsake.

Remember the E&e photo project?!

Somehow a year has passed since I started that.

Somehow twelve months have gone by and each one is captured in five side-by-side photos of mama & toddler favorites.

This was a fun and easy project and something I never worried too much about. Usually, I was in need of a blog post and glad to see that I hadn't yet documented E&e. I usually ran a quick mental checklist of what we'd been doing the past week and that was what made the photos.

I took the photos on white poster board. And when Ellerie colored on my poster board, I used white cardboard.

It was far from scientific, but it was simple.

I had planned all along to make a book of the images and so each month, I was sure to save high-res, edited images. (I even got fancy and had a whole file devoted to this on my computer.) I am so grateful that I had this bit of foresight. If not, amidst all my "real work" projects right now this never would have made the top of the to-do list.

I decided to print with Artifact Uprising because they were running a 10% off Father's Day sale (Happy Father's Day, Paul!) and because I have loved them in the past. I went with their vertical hardcover photobook in goldenrod yellow. I wasn't concerned at all with the cover and so I picked the half wrap which (let's be honest) most likely will get discarded in the decades that follow.

Whenever I share a photobook project like this I get questions about why I go with one brand over the other and the answer is ... it doesn't matter to me. I don't worry about it, I don't compare and contrast, I just pick one based on the book size I am looking for and get to work. 100% of the time, no matter what the brand, I am pleased.

AND MAN AM I PLEASED.

This book exceeded my expectations. To keep things simple, I left out all words, aside from a few at the beginning. (Which in classic Elise fashion I screwed up and wrote the wrong dates. To fix this error, I crossed out and hand wrote and then added "The E&e Project" to make it look deliberate.) I included every single "item" photo but I left out the photos of Ellerie and I because those were not really the point.

The result is a super visual, time capsule of our lives. This is the sort of thing I will page through decades from now. This is the sort of thing I hope Ellerie will page through decades from now. This is the sort of thing that I really hope my grand babies will page through a century from now.

Like I said, I've got a new favorite.

this post is not sponsored (either in cash or product), but links throughout are affiliate which means if you order something through Artifact Uprising after clicking through this post I will receive a small commission.

june book report.

Here we go...sort of a mixed bag this month...

Girl Underwater by Claire Kells / I don't think anyone recommended this to me, I just picked it off the "new book" shelf at the library. It was fine and a cool plot idea but it was also Young Adult which is a genre that tends to bug me. With this book I finally figured out why ... I am sick of YA novels where the main female character is awesome but she won't admit it and fights it and hides in herself until a guy pulls her out of it. I mean really. We need more Hermione Grangers. Where's that spin-off franchise?

Before I Go by Colleen Oakley / not the hugest fan of this one either. It was about a woman who's re-diagnosed with cancer and knows she won't get through it (that's not a spoiler, that's the book). The story is how she spends those last few months (and it drove me insane). Personally, I enjoyed PS I Love You (which I read YEARS ago) more than this one.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon / when I posted by stack of books on Instagram the majority of the comments were something along the lines of "OUTLANDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I felt very out of the loop as I didn't realize that this was a whole series that has been written for 25 years and that it has such a huge following. (Now I know.) I tore through this first book and really enjoyed it (though I didn't expect it to be quite so sex-scene heavy). I'm currently listening to the second book (as an audio book loan from the library) and I think I'll (slowly) work my way through the rest of the series.

What You Left Behind by Samantha Hayes / this was an odd sort of medium thriller. It was sort of young adult. Sort of murder mystery. Sort of strange. I was intrigued enough to finish but not blown-away.

...like I said, mixed bag. Please tell me you've got some good recommendations for me! I'm currently reading The History of Love by Nicole Krauss and I've got Girl on a Train up next.

ps...more book reports and when I read.

weekend links / 69.

hooray! Kal is coming to San Diego! Join us for a pop-up custom script shop!

we love this book and it's super appropriate today on Ellerie's birthday.

I was so interested to hear about Fund, a new crowd-sourcing program from Etsy, from Elyse of Prim Society.

hoping to work some magic with this in the new kiddo room.

our gender announcement won't be quite this epic, but I'm still so excited!

Hillvetica.

staycations are for everyone. (makes me want to get out my big camera and wander downtown.)

Paul's shifts have been nutty this month and I relate to this parenthood post on all the levels.

the power of setting a 10 year vision.

this tee made me laugh.

cool crayons!

& wow! knits!

dear ellerie / year two.

Dear Ellerie,

Tomorrow, you'll be two. In preparation for this monumental event and before I could sit down to write this letter, I went back and read what I said last year. What words of wisdom did Mama have when you turned one? Not much, it would seem. Mama was a living, breathing metaphor. Mama was still working to get her head on straight. Mama was still fighting a bit for normal.

And oh, my sweet girl, have we found it.

The second year of your life was...great. So encouraging and humbling and inspiring and funny and yes, hard. But normal hard. "I don't understand this sleep regression" hard. "Why won't my kid just eat?" hard. "Do we really have to take this much crap on vacation?" hard. "My kid has had the daycare sniffles for three months" hard. It was not "painfully" hard or "cry in the shower" hard. It was regular old "raising a human" hard.

And for that, I am so grateful.

Because Ellerie! You're amazing. And since I was no longer drowning, I was able to really watch and see you develop your personality.

You are empathetic. Which, I admit, is a strange word to use to describe a two year old. But you feel bad for the little monkeys in your book who have bumped their head. You worry about Anna when Elsa can't get that snow tower built fast enough. You feel genuinely upset when Daniel Tiger loses his watch. Once, Grandpa Frank was singing Les Miserables and you went over to pat his shoulder, concerned he was crying. (He wasn't.) This week I was yelling at the ikea step stool I was building and you came over to give me a hug. As if to say "Mama, we've gotten through worse stuff than this."

It's so heart-warming and heart-breaking to see you making these connections. You acknowledging the feelings of others and reacting to things outside of yourself is sort of what life is all about. I can imagine the years ahead of us as the problems and struggles grow. I cannot imagine how much you will learn and how much you will teach me about what it means to care.

You are also adventurous. If there was a cement staircase to the moon you'd have climbed it by now. I'm sort of glad we don't watch the news so you are, as of yet, unaware about the Mars Mission because no doubt you'd have signed up. When we were in Hawaii you learned how to go down the big slide. On the first day, it took three people to facilitate your play: one to help you up, one to meet you at the top, one to catch you at the bottom. By the end of the week you could handle the whole thing by yourself. Up the ladder, down the slide, again and again and again. Seeing you grow and tackle new tasks is the best part of this whole adventure. I feel myself relaxing as you learn how to do each new trick.

You know much more than I think you do. Almost daily, I am shocked by something new, some antic or word you've picked up. Part of this is you're a sponge and part of this is you go to daycare three days a week and learn from other adults and kiddos that are not me and Papa. I LOVE THIS. When I pick you up at the end of the day it's with a mixture of excitement and anticipation. "What will she know now?!" "What did she learn today?!" I admit I glow with pride as I listen to your teachers tell me about your day. Then into the car we go, you with paint covered clothes and a bag of snacks and me with smile on my face.

Because it's all so "normal." We've found it. We've got it.

Being your mama is the greatest joy of my life, Ellerie. You are kind, brave, smart and beautiful. You are a light in our family and it's been a privilege to witness your life and help you along this past year. I cannot wait to see what you'll do next.

I love you, Ellerie Eve. Happy Birthday.

Yours forever,

Mama.