Hey, Carrie... What did you make this time?
Just a giant mess in my living room. That's all. ;)
Hey, guys. I'm linking up again with
Fourth Grade Frolics for today's Monday Made It. I also have big plans of actually updating my blog today. As well as cleaning up my apartment. My living room seriously looks like Michael's threw up all over it.
I got this frame from one of those garage sale Facebook groups. The lady gave me several because she learned that I was a teacher and I was looking for frames to make a few things for my classroom. Well, she gave me a few 11x14" frames and this giant one! Sorry, I don't know the dimensions. I'm sicking with giant!
So, I painted it green. I went to Michael's to pick up some letters. Those are painted sort of a sky blue, but it doesn't really look that way in the glare of the sun. Anyway. I then just hot glued it all together. Thanks to a comment from another first grade teacher, I might pop that "1st" star off and reattach it with Velcro. That way, I can make another star for "100th" and another for other days during the year so I can use the same frame. That was a genius idea, and I wish it was mine. Sadly, it was not.
The colors in my classroom are various hues of greens and blues. This works out well. I want to add more yellow in my classroom library, but the accents of the stars here go along with the yellow accents in my classroom. It is what it is for now.
So then there's this little gem - that has absolutely nothing to do with school. Parents' Day is, I believe, July 26? Whatever that Sunday is. When Leila and Dylan were younger, I would take them for several days before Mother's day, and we would knock out a Mother's Day and a Father's Day gift. Well, I don't live close anymore, so that doesn't happen. So a Parents' Day gift happened instead. (My sister doesn't read my blog, so I'm fairly certain this is safe. Unless the kids already told her what it is. They stink at secrets. Ha!)
The frame was seriously discounted at Michael's. This was great because I'm pretty parsimonious. I found the one gold frame that had a blemish on it (bottom is scratched), and made sure there were no other frames like it in the store. Got a $40 frame for $16! The paint was done directly on the back of the glass, the letters are stickers stuck directly to the front of the glass. The photo was glued on to the back of the glass after the paint dried. (Lesson learned from this one: Mod Podge is good for a lot of projects. This is not one of them.) And finally, the glass was hot glued into the frame so I could trash the cardboard backing.
So now, back to school.
Jaymee Laymance posted a cute gift tag for bubbles. (You can get it from
her TPT Store.) Well, I originally planned to pick up several bottles of bubbles from the Dollar Tree while I was in the Lower 48. I did not. Fail for me. But, I got a better deal in the party favors aisle at Target! Twenty-four mini bottles for like $4! Yes, please. I'll take it.
But then I had a dilemma. The tags in Jaymee's store are larger than the mini-bubbles. They are more appropriately sized for standard-sized bottles. No big deal. I decided to shrink the .pdf and print 24 tags on the page!
I planned to use some fancy ribbon and tie those tags to the bottles. But, look. By the time I cut all of them out, I didn't want to look at them anymore! Seriously! So, I remembered I had these glue dots in with my scrapbooking stuff!
And voila! "I'm bubbling with excitement that you're in my class this year!" And all but one fit back in the little box they came in. I'll pass these out as I meet my students at the back-to-school block party the night before school begins.
Just some simple felt pieces cut into 3x3" squares. This way, the kids can keep their "whiteboard eraser" in their pencil boxes with the marker. Listening to them argue over the whiteboard erasers that I only have about 10 of is enough to make you want to rip out your hair! I thought about hot glueing these to thick pieces of foam or maybe even some 1/4" plywood for durability, but I think this is fine.
I'm hoping that my sister-in-law doesn't read my blog because that would ruin this since I haven't mailed it yet. She isn't a teacher, so she might not. However, she read it last Monday. Hmm... I don't know. I won't post the link. Then she won't know where to find this. #winning I already know my brother won't read it. Ha!
I finally finished my nephew's scrapbook. (He was born in January. Haha!) I won't can't show you much of it because my SIL might see this post even after my attempts to avoid that.
Here are just a couple of examples of what this book includes:
I have to admit, this isn't my best work. Living in this teeny, tiny apartment is definitely taking it's toll on my creative bursts. All of my scrapbooking and craft stuff was in storage. I went to pick up a few things to get these projects done, but I didn't have full use of my materials. I miss the house that I paid a mortgage for when I lived in Louisiana. I had a craft room there, so I could do these types of things all of the time! And everything had it's place! That craft room is definitely on my list of must-haves for the house I buy here in Alaska!
The other issue making this task a little difficult was that I wasn't able to take my own photos. My brother is in the Air Force, and he is currently stationed in Guam. That's not exactly an easy trip to take, especially when this girl has to go to work.
Well, there you have it. I won't be doing anything else until August. I'll hopefully get back into my classroom at the start of the month and have some time to get my room set up. But next week, I'll be out in the middle of nowhere (i.e., the
Katmai, my boyfriend's concession land) with a raft and a tent.
[Click this link] to see a live video feed of part of the Katmai! I'm not sure if I'm nervous or excited, but I certainly do love living in Alaska!
Don't forget to link up with
Tara and check out what everyone's been up to! Leave me your link in the comments so I can come see what you've been making!
Side note: My brother, his wife, and my nephew, Liam:
