My new toy

Okay--this is my newest little "toy," and I'm pretty sure I would be labeled as a total dork because of how happy this little thing has made me. Here it is...

It basically makes a can of spray paint into a little paint gun. Greatest Invention. Ever.

I have been having a lot of fun with it the last day. It keeps a steady spray of paint, my fingers don't have paint all over them, and my finger isn't cramping from holding the nozzle down. I'm in the processes of changing my classroom theme---so I've  been spraying lots for that.

 This is a little suicase that had a Mary Englebreit drawing and saying on it. It was pink (probably why I bought it in the first place.) Well, there isn't going to be much pink in my new decor, so I sprayed it turquoise (love this color). I use it to give a little decoration--and I store class pictures, cards kids have written me, stuff I want to keep in it.

Washington D.C.

 It's been a year about this week or next, that very last minute I had the chance to go on my dream trip to Washington D.C. with Merlynn, Steve, & Megan. It is somewhere I had always wanted to go. To make it even better we were able to go to Philadelphia. We saw so many historical places and learned so many new things. I loved every minute of it. We took a lot of pictures. I finally got around to making up a scrapbook---I knew it would take quite a bit of time--so I had to wait until summer. Well, for about four days I have worked on this thing. It is done. And I am glad for that. It is fourty pages long, an 8x8 book. It was very hard to narrow down the pictures, but it's written down now. I do wish I had written things down during the trip or right after we got back so I could remember more.

 On the pages about the monuments, I types up a 4x6 card that tells about the monument and then if there was something else I remembered from it. I had to get creative with the journaling because I needed lots of space for pictures.

Now...for Merlynn's book. Hopefully I'll have time to get it done before school starts :)

Busy- Busy

This last week has been so busy. I forgot to write about going to Lagoon last week but we went and it was a lot of fun. Austin and Jared went with us and that was pretty cool. I rode all the big rides and love it. My dad also let me play a game in the middle of Lagoon. I kept winning and finally we got a medium size smurf. We went swimming there and that was a lot of fun.

A really scary thing happened to me this week. One night I was out walking my sheep and we had went as far as we usually go and we turned around. Well my sheep was pretty excited to get home so he took off running. I was trying to keep up but couldn't so he dragged me a little ways until my dad told me to let go of the rope. The funny part of the story is my mom was behind us and she had to reach out and catch him. I am a little scared of my sheep because I am afraid he is going to run after me know. Only one more week until the fair.

Lois' Colors of Summer

Here are a "few" of the pictures Lois took for this "color" of summer challenge. She has quite a few more on her blog, so head on over to look at them. I LOVE all the colors here!!!
http://flwblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/color-of-summer-photography-challenge.html

Color of Summer

Swimming suits and water toys. I think that this really speaks well for our summer. The girls love going out and swimming when it is so hot.

Red White and Blue
Pink Bubble gum ice cream. Besided being a cool color it is really good.

The yellow squash, and all the things in the garden represent summer is finally here and it is so hot.

Colors of Summer

Classroom Birthdays

When I saw these cute little tags here, http://www.nothingbutcountry.com/2011/06/youre-the-star-of-our-gift-tag/  I thought maybe I would do something different for my students' birthdays this year. I've done a can of pop for the last couple of years with a cute tag. I've been feeling the need to change a few things, and I thought this was cute. I decided to just bag the starbursts because I forgot to buy the packages when they were on sale. I just put about 12 in a little bag (which I already had) and tied them up. This cost me $8 for 26 of them---31 cents a piece--not bad. And---I won't  be tempted to eat them throughout the year.

Wooden Letters--Read

This is kind of an old project. One of the teachers I teach with loves all the wooden letters we do--we had done the READ for the Caring & Sharing tree we had done with the school and she loved them. She is one of the hardest people ot buy gifts for so, I decided to give her a set for Christmas. She totally loves glitter so, the first round I glittered every single letter. They were very bright and sparkly. She liked them---me--I didn't really and I was having a really hard time with that R being green. Well, at the end of the year I could tell that she wasn't so crazy about them any more, so I offered to redo them with paper. Well---here they are---I still don't love that the first letter is green--I think it's because it is the lightest color--but I really didn't want to paint the sides again (lazy).  I still have one set for myself, but I can't decide how I want mine done yet.

Scrapbook Pages

In one of my drawers, I have a basket that I toss things in I want to keep, (meaning I want to scrapbook). I decided it was time to clean it out and get some pages done.  So...

It's only been 3 years since we went to CKU...

 This page is pretty pitiful, but I was looking through my scrapbook and I read what I had written after my first year of teaching...so I thought it would be kind of cool to add a page after receiving teacher of the year with all the letters people wrote about me and my feelings. Not the greatest page, but it's recorded.

Dessert Stand

I needed a really quick centerpiece for Relief Society last night that wouldn't cost me a fortune. Because I think it is fun to color coordinate everything, I had used yellow and black. I have seen the dessert stands people make on blogs for months, but never had the time to make any, or a reason. So, I swung by the dollar store, picked up the candle sticks, and white salad plates (they weren't what I really wanted, but when you wait until the last minute, you take what you can find.) I primed the candlesticks, then sprayed them turquoise. I used E600 glue to glue the candlestick to the plate. EASY!!!!! and I really, really like them.
I didn't need to put desert on these, but I was planning on using daisies, so I just put a little water in the plates, then snipped some blooms off and laid them on the plates. It was really cute (of course I forgot my camera--so I recreated it here for you.) I am really glad I got around to do this one, because I think they turned out really cute.

Junk Chair---to Cute Chair

I purchased this little stool at the "junk" sale. We were looking for little stools to use when taking pictures. Isn't it beautiful?  NOT---yeah I was having a hard time touching it---GROSS---I definitely used hand sanitizer after the "junk" sale.

I removed the seat (threw that gross thing away!!) Recovered the seat with some pretty black damask fabric. Then I sanded down the metal legs, just to make sure there weren't any loose pieces of paint. Then I spray painted it with the new Krylon primer + paint. It took pretty much the whole can, but I think it turned out pretty good. It is slightly crooked, which I didn't notice until I got it home, but it will work for we need it for.

I Scrapbooked

I have a confession---I never scrapbook anymore. I don't know why---I just don't---I can't even begin to remember the last time I did something. I honestly can't remember---I've done some digital things, but as far as actual paper and glue----it's been a LONG time. But--I have a few projects I need to get done this summer. I have to say it was really hard to sit there and do it too----I am way out of practice and a little outdated!!! But, I made it through this 6x6 mini album with pictures of my niece Annelise and her Jr. Miss pictures. I'm happy with how it turned out. I hope that she will appreciate it and write her thoughts and feelings from the experience down so she will remember it.

 

 

Lois' Sounds of Summer Photos

Head on over to her blog and you can read about her pictures. Great pictures and great ideas for sounds of summer.
http://flwblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/sounds-of-summer-photos.html

Sounds of Summer

Here are three pictures that represent the sound of summer to me.

Family gathering seem to be a constant thing during the summer. I thought that it would have been cool to take a picture at the family birthday dinner but I really wasn't thinking about taking my camera. That I would say is a missed shot that certainly represents summer.

Fireworks. What more can I say. I did have to really work at getting these pictures to turn out and you definitely need a tripod.

And last what would summer be with out kids crying because they fell and hurt there knee.

Sounds of Summer

Wow--that two weeks flew by.
This challenge was a little more difficult--Sounds of Summer. I didn't get too many pictures this time around. I have a few other ideas that I might try.

First--Bees Buzzing this was a fun one to try and get---those bees move a lot. I should have gone out into the bee yard and gotten a whole bunch.

The sound of the jets flying over to start the 4th of July parade is definitely a sound that is unique to summer.

The next challenge is Colors of Summer--

We will post on July 24 (two weeks)

Old Window

So, mom decided to paint her living room---I kept telling her that if she painted, she needed to a little redecorating. In her mind--that meant that I would decorate. Decorating isn't something I'm very good at and and I don't really enjoy it. I think I get too much anxiety that it might not look good. She decided to paint a brown color (if you know her---this was a big step). A while ago Merlynn convinced us to go to this "junk" sale with her. We bought a couple of old windows, picking out a really big one to use on the big wall in mom's front room. This is what is looked like.

We needed a wreath to put on it. I found this cute wreath on the the Internet. It was taking old books, and rolling them to make roses. It looked really cool. But---this was a PAIN to make. It took me hours to get all the flowers made. I took about 130-140 flowers. I am happy with how it turned out (even if I wasn't, it was going to get hung up just because it took so long.)

 This is the little shelf we made and hung up net to the window. We're going to hang one more above it. I really like how it turned out.