Fabric Quiet Book

This is a very simple flower quiet book. It isn't an activity book, just one to look at. It is all based on flowers.

Hot Wheel car roll

These cuties are similar to the crayon rolls that have been so popular. There are pockets for car, and a road along the top. The roll up and close with velcro. We have a girl and a boy one. And yes---car---COOL cars--Tyler even approves of my car choices.

 This is a My Little Pony farmyard. There are pockets for the horses to go in--which we are still working on getting. It folds up similar to the car rolls--with a barn on the front.

Auction Items

So, we have been working on the items for our family reunion auction. Everyone brings items to sell at an auction. The money is used to help people out in our family when they need it. It is always fun to see what everyone brings to the auction....but it is always to hard to decide what to bring. I am happy to say we did NOT wait until the last minute this year, we've had most of this done for several week---that is like a miracle. So, each day this week I will share something we've done.

Day 1: Girls' Aprons

This one is BRIGHT and colorful.

 I love this one--it is sooo cute. Love the ruffles. Love the fabric. This girl--loved the apron.

Christmas Hats

I am feeling really ahead of schedule with this one. For the past couple years, Mom has crocheted these hats for me to give my students for Christmas. Can you believe they are finished??? Usually she is up to the last day getting them done, but with a little extra free time this summer...they are completed..more than I need. It is getting harder to do them because I feel like we've just done the same thing over and over, but as I took them out of the box to take a picture, I like them more.She did 33 of them. Thankfully---I will NOT be having that many students:)

Picture Frames

I got all my frames hung up--which I didn't end up having to hand them with fishing line---I can't tell you how HAPPY that made me. I really wish I had taken a picture of this before..but I didn't. Off the entryway in the school there is a huge display case. It drives me NUTS!!! There is rarely anything in it, unless the PTO is showing off prizes. It is sponged blue and yellow (school colors). I think it is so tacky and ugly. Well, I asked my principal if she would mind if I did something with it. Yeah--she didn't hesitate AT ALL. So, I bought some black cotton and hung up inside the cases--serious pain because I had to IRON it.  Then, I took all the frames I sprayed and hung them up. Our school theme this year is I AM.... The idea is that you can fill in the blank. So, my vision is that we will get pictures, which I am hoping to change every 4-6 weeks of kids in the school doing different things. I will put the word that going along with what they are doing on the picture--then tack them up in all those frames--36 of them. Well, the bigger ones I am going to put an inspirational thought or quote, so I won't have to print big pictures. I can't wait to get it full of pictures. So--here are the really bad pictures. Just remember---it's glass, it was dark, and it's in the school.

 Pretend that the big frame in the middle is mounted higher--I'm having a hard time getting it to stay up--it's going to take more than pushpins.

I am trying really hard to be okay with the placement. They aren't spaced evenly and it's not symmetrical. But, I know I don't want to start moving them around..because that just leads to moving even more around. Besides--I hardly ever walk by it..so it shouldn't bother me too much.

Wooden Family Letters

It has been years since we made these wooden Family letters. I can't even tell you how many I have done. I sold some in The Book Store, my sister-in-law's brother sold a lot of them in his flower shop, and we made them for a family craft night. I'm thinking they are at least 7-8 years old. Well, the paper had pretty much fallen off of them, so I decided to redo them, put a little more color. (I didn't take a before picture). I actually had a hard time finding some paper that I liked to cover them with...but I really like how they turned out.

Washi Tape Notebooks

I have quite a few rolls of washi tape left over from a previous project, so when my mom was looking for an idea for Activity Day, I thought it would be cute if the girls covered a composition book to use as a journal. We modpodged a piece of white construction paper on the front (so the black marbley stuff wouldn't show through). Then, the girls put the washi tape on, and topped it off with their name. I thought they did such a cute job.

Texture Block

When we were at The Wood Connection, we decided to buy the texture cream that they sell there. The projects they have done with it are really cool...however, it is a little pricey. But, we needed a craft idea for a family reunion and we thought this would be a great idea (we didn't end up doing the craft). It was really, really easy. So, I found  a quote that I liked, and made it cute in PhotoShop. It had you glue the picture on the wood block. Then, you put this texture cream on, which must be toxic because I had to wear gloves, and it tells you  not to get in contact with your skin. So, you roll it out on your picture, then it creates a texture like canvas, which you can kind of tell in the picture. It makes it look really nice. Notice the weird little flecks in it? That is where I put the cream on..it took me a few seconds to figure out how to roll it out right and I think it ate through the picture. Cool project though!! Pictures would look awesome, especially done in a vintage look.

Classroom Birthdays

I always like to do something for my students' birthdays. At their age...they don't really want to have treats and play games..but they LOVE to have their birthday acknowledged, usually as long as it doesn't involve singing to them. Sidenote: Our principals loves to sing happy birthday to kids in the lunchroom...It really is kind of cute when the whole lunchroom is singing happy birthday to you (as long as it's not me---which has happened). However, I am not very good at remembering to acknowledge their birthdays. I always post it on the calendar and I like to have something I can put on their desk--which I usually do the night before--so then I know I at least remembered. I am going to put my cute wooden balloon on their desk the day of their birthday--that way everyone will remember---I'm just hoping I don't have multiple birthdays on the same day.

I'm hoping these pop rocks will stay good all year (do they go bad?) My starbursts I used last year were rock hard by May.

Wood Crafts

So, today I decided to tackle the wood projects I've had sitting around, some for a while, some not very long.
This..I've had for a while.Not sure what I'm going to do with it. Maybe keep it for myself??

 This one is not quite finished, it needs something more. I am going to use it in my classroom for birthdays this year. I want to get more curling ribbon and tie it around. Then, I want to be able to clip a card or treat to it. Then I will sit it on a student's desk the morning of their birthday.

This..is Merlynn's. We bought it when we were in Salt Lake a few weeks ago. I thought it turned out pretty cute. I would've like to use more primary colors, but I didn't have any paper that I loved.

Spray Painted Frames

I told you had I spent a lot of time spray painting. Here it is...I didn't even use quite 5 cans. I remember why I hate Gloss spray paint--really--the stuff is a pain. You are looking at 37 frames in varying sizes. Now....I just hope that my vision for these works out as well as it looks in my mind. I'm going to be spending a lot of time with fishing line the next few days. Please..please work out like I want you to!!!!!

I have a problem...

I have a problem...I have a slight obsession with spray paint. It is true. I didn't even pull all the cans out of the cupboard to take this picture. I am thinking that I really need a can of every color they make though. Seriously...this is the greatest stuff ever. I love to spray paint things. Why this random post? I have been spray painting all day today. (Not quite all of these colors, but my favorite 5 colors). And I REALLY, REALLY want to find a piece of furniture I could spray turquoise because I LOVE that color.

...and I ran out of orange, so I have to go buy more...maybe I will throw in a new color too!!

4th of July

These are a couple of 4th of July projects I have done this year.

 This is the little craft project I did at my Mother/Daughter Relief Society. It was REALLY easy!!! All I did was cut a piece of cardboard to fit my frame and then used washi tape (from Target) to create a design.

This next one, I really like. I had canvas that didn't work out from a Christmas project I tried to do. So, I sprayed it cream, then cut my words out of vinyl (I used some vinyl that I didn't like --maybe not such a good idea.) Then I sprayed the canvas, with the vinyl on it, red. Once it had dried, I peeled the letters off and I had a finished project. Because my vinyl was some cheap, old stuff I had, the spray paint seeped under the letters, but it kind of gives it a rustic feel.

Merlynn bought this Uncle Sam hat at the Wood Connection a couple weeks ago when we were there. I've struggled with it because they didn't have the exact paper as the store, so I was sure I had something that would work--NO. I've had it sitting on my table, trying to decide which paper to use--I decided ot finally just get it done.

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July tomorrow!

Pentax Camera

This past week I took a Science class. The class was sponsored mostly by the INL...encouraging teachers to incorporate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math into their daily instruction. I chose the class I was going to take (which was nothing like the class description). Each class was led by a different instructor and we each received supplies to use in our classroom, which the instructor chose. It was kind of crazy because the class was titled Enhanced Project Based Learning. Well, when we got to the class, the instructor starts talking about taking pictures, going into depth about aperture. I was sitting there thinking..."Did I come to the wrong class?" I pretty much knew everything he told us, but he had some cool older cameras, including a pinhole camera. So, then he says...well, you're going to need a camera to do your work this week, so I will pass out your cameras now. ....What? Did you say we each get a camera? To keep? I think we were all in shock. But, yep, we each got a camera. This is it.

I just looked it up on Amazon $198.00

Funny thing...then he goes on to tell us that we need to read the manual. That is the first thing he does when he gets a camera is read the entire manual. See below....yeah whatever, it's almost and inch thick.

So, I really don't need another camera, but we didn't do much else in the class, so I played with it quite a bit and I'm impressed. It has some cool features. It is pretty rugged...says it is shockproof. However, I didn't drop it to test that. But, it is waterproof..and I did test that. There was a small pond on campus, so I put completely in the water and took a pictures (I had to talk myself into that because...well, I just didn't feel comfortable plunging a camera into the water.) It took a perfectly fine picture, dried off, and still worked.
Now...I think this is the coolest thing about the camera, it has a magnifying setting..and this weird little lense thing on the front. Well, you sit it on something, then zoom in and it magnifies the object. See my examples below. I think this is totally awesome.

This is the webbling on my flip flo.

Bark on a tree.

Grass. I love this one.

Inside of a rose.

The shirt I was wearing.

Now...I can't say the class was on my list of top professional development...but the freebies were AWESOME. I will share my animation, and music making abilities another day.