enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

slowly but surely.

One of my goals for this year is to expand the frame wall over our living room couch. Why is this such a hard task? I HAVE NO IDEA. But it is taking forever and then some. I am quite concerned we will be moving out of this apartment (March 2010) before I am happy with it. (Which, truth be told, I am excited about. I cannot wait to start over and redecorate a new place. Ideally a new house/apartment back in California.)

This week I added a gallery wrapped canvas from ColorInc. I love it. The photo is an older one that I took of our coffees when we were out to breakfast one morning. It's represents us without our faces and was an instant fave. The folks at ColorInc. did an amazing job keeping the colors of the photo bright and true. AND one more plug : if you are looking for printing services (or you are a photographer who needs printing services) you get 50% off your first order and 20% off all orders after that. Steal of a deal.

I can't wait until the day when I have a whole wall covered with mis-matched frames and art. I also can't wait until I can add e+p wedding photos into the mix.

mini lovin', happened so faaaaast.

Somehow I ended up with 3 in-process mini books this summer. The 24 to do book, the summer book & the wedding planning book. I love trying to keep up  It means I need to take lots of photos. But more importantly, it means I need to PRINT MY PHOTOS. I have this great theory that some time in the future, I will be so excited to page through photos instead of click through them. (Though maybe I should focus on making these books Kindle compatible?)

Here is documentation of our May date night. (Star Trek was fabulous, BTW.)
A reminder about the book contents : There are 24 pages that each represent one thing I am planning to do before my 25th birthday. One of those items is "plan a date night once a month." At the end of the year, 12 dates will be filed behind the a main page. In theory, this book will be much thicker by next February. You can read more about it and see some finished pages here.
Also, I have decided to make more SUMMER MINI KITS. I have all the supplies en route now and I hope to have them sorted and ready for ordering by the end of next week. Thank you for your interest - I'll keep you posted.

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And also! Thanks for the sweet words about the wedding planning. I have to say, I am enjoying this process a lot. Organizing and scheming and dreaming and planning and budgeting are right up my alley. And Paul is quite wonderful too.

number 4 : part 2 of 12.

I am still working on and thinking about my 24 to do list. Though I wish I could go back and add "GET ENGAGED. PLAN A WEDDING." to the list. If only so I could cross something off.

Our April date (one per month is the goal) was to go down to see the cherry blossoms. So romantic it even included sitting on a bench and resting our heads on each others' shoulders. It also involved one million people and accidently stepping on each others' shoes because there was no space to walk.

The heart stamp went on the back of last month's photo. The calendar page is from the eggpress offset calendar. I stamped an "O" around the the date. On the back of the calendar page is a little section to write in "Dates to Remember." I used this to detail what we did for our second date.

number 4 : part 1 of 12.

Number four on my list is to plan a date night once a month. We started March out right and went to see Slumdog Millionaire and eat sushi. Slumdog was great - though I had to hide my eyes for a large portion. We had been to the restaurant before. It's good sushi, but not the excellent stuff that every hole in the wall sushi place seems to make in California.

Here are the pages from last night. I imagine each month I will follow a similar patterned with one photo + odds and ends I am able to bring home from the restaurant.
Page one is a letterpress postcard that I embellished with the inside of a security envelope. Page two is a thin transparency that I stamped with a heart stamp and stapled the ticket/business card to. Page three is a photo that I printed at home, date stamped and trimmed with scalloped scissors.

i will do better this time.

Last year, I made a list of 23 things to accomplish at 23. And I accomplished 17 out of 23. But I did nothing to chronicle the adventure aside from a few blog posts. This year, I thought I would just GET STARTED right at the beginning. I put together a 4x6 book of assorted papers and a few photos as a blank canvas for my 24th year.

The list is displayed a few pages in and it is followed by 24 additional pages. Each page will represent one item on the list. Each page is not yet numbered - I will move them around and embellish them as I work on the goals.

I invision this book as a little bit Ali Edwards December Daily and a little bit my Kauai Album on the Road. I hope it gets stuffed with photos and text and menus and receipts and plane tickets and all the memorabilia I will collect as I accomplish 24 different things this year.