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"Canvas" Wall

I found this idea on (of course) Pinterest, the original post is from here.  There are no directions on the web page, but pretty much duh when you think about it.

You will need:

Fabric

Hot Glue Gun

Scissors

White Paint

Paint Brush

Boxes

You may or may not need the paint.  Most of my boxes were different colors and my fabric background was white and see through,  so if you need to paint the boxes do that first.  

I had pieces of fabric scraps left over from a quilt (place mates/table runner and hot pot pad) my grandma made for us.  I decided to use these because I like having the fabric follow through the house.  I also purchased a large (1/4 of a yard) for the bigger box.  In the photos below you will notice that all the boxes are one fabric, I (okay, my grandma) is going to sew some of the pieces together to fit the boxes.  

You will need show box tops of different sizes, or I used boxes that were about the height of a show box to (such as a jello box, sports candy can box VS gift box to) If you want large art you can use pizza boxes.

After painting the boxes (if needed) fit the fabric to each box.  Cut the fabric so it hangs into the box lid and glue. 

The corners were a little tricky, I did them different on each box. 

Once you are done arrange them on the floor in the way you want them on the wall.  I used thumb tacks to put them in.  I had one that got a little warped from the paint and wouldn't stay on the thumb tack.  I put 'glue dots' onto the thumb tacks and attached the box top on the tacks.

I didn't finish, but I really don't like things laying around so figured I would start it.

Kitchen

The kitchen renovation will (hopefully) be done during Spring Break....this week, right now YEEEES.  It's about time.  We worked on painting the upper cabinets last night when we realized we painted a door that really needed to be stained....oops.  Looks like that is going to be the LAST one done.

Cool Down Bottle

This bottle works miracles.  I have 3 students I can use this for, but have only had to use it with one of them.  This student was upset about something, my aid just handed it to him and it was like someone switched a flip.  The student was so calm they were able to join the group within 5 minutes.  The only problem is this child became obsessed with it.  So we turned it from being a "Cool Down Bottle" to a "Reward Bottle" for this child.  This student knows that they have to be a big kindergartner and if so when we come back from breakfast the student gets 2 shakes.  If the student completes all their work and walks in line and eats like a big kindergartner with no meltdowns.  The student gets it after eating lunch.  The same applies for going home.  We also use it during assemblies to keep this student still and quiet.  This works for us because the student needs to be doing something in order to be paying attention.  This bottle has worked so well we have one in almost all the rooms of the school and the Emergency Backpack.  In the classroom we have a big one, everywhere else is a mini version.  The point of this bottle is it is very calming (for adults to) the glitter takes about 2-5 min to drop from the top to the bottom; it clears your mind.  I keep one on my desk for "those kinda days."

What you need:

~A bottle

~Glitter Glue

~Water

~Food coloring

~Craft Glitter

~Elmer's Glue Gel

I didn't use the mixture I found because....it didn't work.  It is a trial and error thing.  First fill the bottle with water, not to the top you need room to shake.  Next squeeze in the glitter glue, you want enough to make the water "thicker" so the glitter drops slowly.  I closed it and would shake it to see what happened.  Also, when you put the glitter glue in the bottle it will clump together, after a lot of shakes it will break apart.  Next, put in a little food coloring, you still want to be able to see in it!  Last put in the craft glitter, this just depends on how glittery you want it.  Once you do this put the top on and see how slowly it drops, if it is fast add some Elmer's Glue Gel (the blue stuff) if you use the white glue it will get cloudy.  Most people used peanut butter jars, I decided to use a Pepsi bottle.  Not the 2 litter but not the small ones, I am not sure the size because I don't drink it....it's Jordan.  The Pepsi bottle is water tight nothing will leak out.  I have also hot glued the tops on the little ones, but was able to get the big bottle tops on so tight I can't get them off.  The student that uses it has never tried to remove the top either.

Our school is on a 4 day work week, so we are off Fri, Sat, and Sun.  When the glitter and glitter glue sits for a while it sticks to the bottom.  I would suggest giving it a shake at the beginning and/or end of the day if it wasn't used.  Obviously over weekends and breaks you can't, I am hoping that after some time the glue won't make the glitter stick to the bottom!

Crayons

I found this idea on Pinterest (of course) to make crayons with pieces of old crayons and LOVED the idea.  But, I don't have any kids and I would have to make a lot for my classroom so I thought what a great thing to put at the kids table for the wedding.  I will just have the venue put a paper table "cloth" down and the kids can color all over it like in some restaurants.  I was thinking of also putting aquarium themed, since we are getting married at the aquarium, coloring pages for the kids.  I had to use tips from a bunch of different websites and do a lot of trial and error.  So I am just going to tell you what worked for me.  As a teacher I have TONS of little pieces of crayons in my classroom and I have asked the other teachers for help.  If you don't have access to crayons like I do, you can ask local restaurants to save you broken pieces of crayons.  Make sure all the paper is off, I peeled almost all of mine with the help of some eager kindergartners, but there is a much easier way.  Put all the crayons in water and after a few minutes the paper will just start unraveling.  Make sure they are in small pieces, most people said under an inch, but lets be honest, I have a life I refuse to spend my day slicing up crayons and chasing after the pieces that fly across the kitchen.  I used a silicone mold that I got in the dollar section of target and put cooking spray on the inside of the molds.  I am not sure if that is 100% necessary but used it because some sites said to do it and others didn't say if they used it.  I just sprayed the bottom not the sides so it is probably not a big deal.  I cooked it at 300 for 15 minutes.  I did check mine half way through because I filled the molds but after they crayons melted down they were only about half way full.  At that time I added more crayon pieces and kept cooking it.  The time just depends on when the crayons are melted, it could take longer it could take less them.

It takes about an hour for them to cool, but me being the inpatient person I am, that was tooooooo long.  So I decided to put them in the fridge, once they set up, about 20 min, just turn the mold inside out and they are done.  Once mine were out of the mold they were still warm and a little soft so I put them back in the fridge.  I like having them all one color, like crayons are, but I did do a few that were multi colored.  And some of my solid ones are semi multi colored.  When doing the multi colored ones you want to make sure there aren't to many of the same color together.  What I did was put all my colors in a row and took one from each pile till it was filled.  I also put the small pieces of crayon where I thought they would show best.  I only had 2 light blue so I made sure they were on the edge of the mold so it could be seen and used.  When doing the multi colored ones you will also want to make sure you have smaller pieces.  When you cut them do it on cardboard so you don't have crayon in your cutting board.

Another thing I did in the second batch was put tinfoil under the mold, that way if some spills it will be easy clean up.

This was my December/January bulletin board.  I don't ever leave these up for 2 months but it takes A LOT of work by teacher/student/aid.  Also, we are not is school for most of December so it wasn't enjoyed for very long. 

 I use dark blue for the background and white cut to look like snow drifts.  I had a parent use her Cricket! to make the snowflakes and words (and laminate so they will last for now 3 years).  The tree is made with the students hand prints, I have 35 kids and each made 3 handprints.  I wish I had more because it was a short tree, but it still looked good.  I also used different shades of green to give it depth, pick one shade to use for most of it and the rest just here and there.  I added little red bows for December ONLY.  The snowman is rolled white strips of paper, like a paper chain but NOT connected.  Last I decorated the snowman accordingly. 

 For December we had Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer handprints.  The face is their palm and they draw eyes and a mouth, we used glitter glue for the nose.  I added a bow for the girls to wear in their antlers which were stapled onto the board so they stayed tied.  

For December and January the kids used their feet to make snowmen.  I wish I had a close-up of these, but I will do my best to explain.  I used light blue because it reminds me of ice and white paint on the bottom of their feet.  Have them sit in a chair paint their foot and have a bucket of water for them to turn and dip their foot in and clean off.  We had them do the cleaning on their own from 3-6 year olds, remember they can take a bath at home....it doesn't need to be perfectly clean.  They dry their foot with a towel on the carpet while you start the next kid.  I cut out my snowman feet because I wanted it done my way, with blue showing around the edge.  The students put on 3 black dots (hole punch) for buttons.  5 black dots for the mouth and 2 for the eyes (small hole punch) and a carrot nose.  All of these things I had ready for them, I also traced a hat and they cut it out.  I didn't add arms or a scarf because that would have been a lot of extra work and to be honest they looked really cute without it.  The kids made these snowmen on shirts which have arms and a scarf.

When January came I took off the red bows off the tree and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.  In the writing center the kids made their own snowflakes and then wrote a story about snow.  They loved making snowflakes; most of them have never done it before.  Surprisingly for never doing it before none of them cut the fold off!!  I don't have a photo of January, but you just put the snowflakes where the reindeer were.

The Cat in the Hat Self-portrait

This was going to be my ONLY Dr. Seuss activity, and we ended up having a Seuss FILLED day....which I love.  I wanted to do something with The Cat in the Hat's hat but wasn't sure what.  I wanted it to be fun for the kids and also relevent, I thought word families, but wasn't in love with the idea.  The pre-school teacher at our school has her class do self-portraits about once a month and this was around the time she completed hers.  I was in the room when she was putting them away and it hit me....they can do a self-portrait of Cat in the Hat.  I am sorry, I don't remember where I got the hat templet from but with a little searching (and I mean little) you will be able to find one.  They did their hat a few days  ago at the end of another activity and today we watched the Green Eggs and Ham sing along movie and did our self-portrait.  I put a school picture of them in the corner to get the compairisen of how they really look to how they drew what they looked like.  The kids also were supposed to draw a bow tie.

There's a Wocket in my Pocket

I found this idea on Pinterest from another blogger. (Original post ) On here you can get the funky text with a templet.  

I changed mine a little, I only had the large blue paper and I didn't want to cut it down to fit in the copy machine.  My kids wrote their own words from a list off the board, then cut and glued it to their pocket.  The kids also cut their pocket out from the stencil I traced.  I also put on the black 'stich' marks around the edges.  The next day I cut out some white butcher paper and the kids made a class 'Zocket' that I drew.  This showed them all of the ways they can be creative to make their creature.  They were really into this idea and it took most of them up to 45 minutes the complete theirs and they could have went longer but we had to get the bus.  When they left I cut them all out leaving a little white around the edge.  I stapled it to another piece of white butcher paper and left an opening to stuff it with.  Using the scraps I cut off I stuffer their creation and finished stapling it closed.  I opted not to put the dowels in because with the amount of students I have I probably would have spent my paycheck on dowels.  Also, I don't really see the need for it.  I stapled it onto different color paper and stapled there creation into the pocket.

Sorry that the photos are crooked, I put their name on the bottom and didn't want to included in a picture online. 

To finish this activity, from cutting out to putting it on the board took about 2 1/2 hours.  This again will depend on the amount of students you have. 

Life Cycle of a Butter Fly

This is by far my favorite bulletin board....and I came up with it all by my-self which makes me even prouder of it.  I do this with my kindergarten kids....all 35 of them and they just LOVE it.  I started doing it last year and all....almost all....the teachers just loved it.  I had people coming into my room all day to tell me how much they love it, so of course I HAD to do it again.  I don't like the whole 'you can't do the same thing every year' if it works then why not. 

This board is a full butterfly life cycle.  I also include descriptions of each section with arrows.

First we start with the egg (white pom-pom) on a green leaf.  I have to come up with something to make this stage stand out like the others but just haven't thought about it yet.

I have students bring in cardboard egg cartons.  You will, of course, get both so instead of throwing the Styrofoam ones out I cut them individually and used them as disposable paint cups.  Clean up took no time, which I like with a project that takes no time.  I have the kids write there name on the inside, it is a little awkward for them but they can do it.  Next give them scratch paper to put under their egg carton, this ensures clean tables after painting.  The kids paint the egg carton and when they dry I put on eyes and cut short black antennas fold in half and glue on.  Now, you can't just staple these on because you cut all the 'left over' crap off so they stand evenly.  Solution....hot glue them to the board. 

I did this a little different this year.  The painting process is the same as the egg cartons, except they put their name on the white paper.  When they dry I, again, hot glue them onto a cut up file folder.  Next year before they are put on the board I will cut off the extra folder pieces.  I again hot glue these to the board.  (I have one of those staplers that staple like butter so the 'head' of it wouldn't fit next to the noodle and I didn't want to see all the staples)  I use Jumbo noodles for the chrysalis, there are about 45 in the box....more then they say.  This year I added a 'tree' for the chrysalis to 'hang' from.  I will do this with the eggs next year also. 

Last, my favorite part, the butterfly.  Give each student a sandwich sized Ziploc bag.  Inside is feathers, beads, pom-poms, cut up pipe cleaners, dried balls of play-doh, and ripped tissue paper.  You could also use glitter inside, but I have a thing against glitter....I despise it and never let my kids use it.  It just gets EVERYWHERE and it doesn't clean up.  When they are done, put there name on the zip area.  The next part is done by the teacher, you blow a SLIGHT amount of air into the bag and clasp it in half.  Finish it off with a green or black pipe cleaner for antennas and you are done.  When I hang it I folded the zip back and stapled on the zip that way you can't see the name or that it is a Ziploc bag. 

When you do this board leave a lot of time.  I had to change my background paper, I didn't have enough because of the snowman board with the blue.  The first day, putting paper and boarder up and glueing egg cartons and noodles on the board took up to 3 hours.  The activities take about 20 min from handing out to clean up.  The butterfly takes a little longer, I hand out one material at a time because I don't want them to stuff it too much.  If there is to much it doesn't look good.  This could take 30-40 min depending on how much stuff you have.  Finishing the butterflies will also depend on the amount of students I have 35 so it took me about 20 min.  It is about 30 sec per butterfly, but hanging these and the eggs are simple.

Day 8

So I have had an EXTREMELY busy week and will admit that I have not even picked up let alone glanced at my 40 bags in 40 days list.  I am only 5 days behind so hopefully the motivation train will slow down enough for me to jump on and ride all weekend.  Jordan bought a new over the range microwave for us last weekend and will be delivered on Sat, I CAN'T WAIT!!!!  On my list I forgot what one of the things was....not a good description do I am going to change that one to install microwave....that's OK right??  We haven't 100% picked a grout yet for the tile so that will have to be pushed a little lower on the list.  I am thinking this weekend (starting tomorrow) it is upper upper cabinet painting time!!

Shrimp Scampi

Well, Jordan is at the PHX/MN basketball game in the 2nd row tonight.  Not gonna lie kinda jelly that I am not sitting 2nd row....but I don't like either one of those teams.  Jordan being gone has given me the rare chance to eat dinner alone which means I got to eat SHRIMP (and a bunch of girl scoot cookies oops)!!!!  I made my moms yummmmm shrimp scampi and I am putting on here so I don't lose it for when ext years game rolls around.  I buy my shrimp when it is suuuuuper marked down so I got about 20 shrimp for about $2.00.  I used about half for dinner and in a small bowl used a half, yes half, stick of butter.  A few tbsp of white wine, half a fresh squeezed lemon, a few cloves of garlic (or garlic powder) and some dried parsley.  Put it in the microwave for 30 sec at a time to melt, in between every 30 sec take it out and stir.  Line the bottom of the baking dish with shrimp and pour the mix onto.  After a few min sprinkle Italian flavored breadcrumbs and cook at 375 for 30 min, oh so amazing.  While it cooks start the rice, it is the perfect thing for the shrimp and juice to sit on.  We usually make cooked broccoli on the side. 

40 Bags in 40 days

I found this idea on Pinterest a few weeks ago.  The point is to do it for lent.  It is called 40 bags in 40 days (obvi, that is the name of the post).  You make a list of 40 places you want to go through and theoretically throw out 40 bags of stuff in 40 days.  Well I took a new spin on it because I live in a smaller house and have no kids....I wouldn't own anything if I did 40 garbage bags and honestly I don't hold on to things I am ALWAYS putting stuff into the yard sale bins.  I pulled out my list (because today is the start of lent) and realized I had already completed 3 things on my list....yay me.  So needless to say I didn't do anything on my list today :(  Looks like tomorrow is done also so maybe I will be able to start on Friday!! 

I am also giving up fast food for lent.  When I lived in NY the closest fast food place was like 30 min away so I NEVER went....EVER.  When I was in college I used my meal plan and never got fast food because it wasn't as good as what they had with the meal plan.  Now that I moved up to Dewey and they have every fast food place you could think of (even ones I never heard of) I find that me and Jordan find a lot of convenience in going there.  When you get home at 6 the last thing I want to do is cook dinner.  But I am getting tired of draining my bank account of fast food and eating food that isn't good for you (as much as Jordan argues that it is fine to eat).  

Etsy Shop

My Etsy Shop: Sun Kissed Shells

In August I opened an Etsy shop called Sun Kissed Shells.  I had been making items for my cousin (who is also a beach lover) and have been getting feed back from her.  First I made her a letter as part of her Christmas gift.  When I went out to NY in May she told me all of her friends at UNC Wilmington kept asking where she got it, and told them I got it and would ask me.  This is when I told her I made it, everyone was blown away and said I need to start selling them. 

 For her b-day I made her a jewelry box that matched the letter and has a sand dollar and starfish on top.  I again got the same reaction as I did with the letter, they couldn't believe I made it.

The pictures are a little hard to see since I photographed them at the beach :) 

After that I just ran with it and kept coming up with things that fit in the set, like a picture frame:

Next came hair accessories:

 

I also made a really cute starfish headband that I have not posted on the shop yet.

A few months ago we got a letter from the HOA saying that they can't see our house numbers and we are going to get fined if it doesn't get fixed (I am not sure why with their monthly checks they decided after a year this was a problem but w/e I played there game....and won).  We took off the old numbers and got a decorative piece of wood to paint and this is what I came up with:

Lastly I have been looking for ceramic personalized pet treat jars, but just couldn't find any that weren't SCREAMING "I am a pet jar" I wanted it to fit into the house.  Solution: make your own:

I also have a matching cat jar that is a little smaller.

So that is a quick overview of my Etsy shop.  I have a lot of fun doing it.  My idea behind my Etsy shop: if you can't find it....make it.

Follow me on: 

Over the door shelf

OK, I know "we are going to work on the rest of the cabinets" was stated all of 12 hrs ago....change of plans.  Yesterday before I started 'blogging' I was painting a shelf.  I found this idea on Pinterest (which I am obsessed with BTW) you get 2 shelf brackets and a piece of wood and hang it above the door.  Simple and a great was to store things decoratively.  I put a little twist to this idea and purchased some decorative brackets and got a 12 ft piece of wood cut into three equal pieces.  On top of the brackets I put the 3 pieces of wood, it makes it look a little more shabby chic (which I love).  It is a great place to put those nick knacks that just make the room look a little over crowded.  Also on mine I put a basket and inside I have office supplies that aren't used very much.

Here is a picture of some of the items I put on the shelf.  I am not in love with it yet, but I will play with it for awhile and find what looks perfect!

Here is a photo of what the bottom looks like.

I am in love with these new shelves and am planning on eventually having them in EVERY room!  In the bathroom it is a great place to decoratively fold towels and they are right there when you need to use them.

Well this is my first blog I have never done anything like this before.  I thought maybe it would be a good idea; I have a lot of different things going on in my life that I would like to document.  A little over a year ago we (Jordan and I) bought our first house.  Now, where we live are A LOT of "cookie cutter" homes (as Jordan put it last night) and we don't want ours to be put in the category.  Will it always have the same layout as 10 other houses on our street....well....duh we can't rip the thing down.  But we can make (the inside) stand out from the rest, and that is what we have been doing for the past year.  I have done a lot of documenting the "change" through pics and a scrapbook but thought to share some ideas online.  I always like seeing what people have done in their homes, why not share my house.  Now unfortunately we can’t do much to the outside (front) of the house, that involves putting in what we want to the board, and paying $, once a year for them to say yes or no.  Sorry board, not playing that game so the outside stays as it is....BORING.  But the inside is another story.  We bought our house as a foreclosure, the people who owned it before didn't make a payment on the house and TRASHED the place.  OK I shouldn't be so dramatic, it wasn't like you didn't want to come in, the place was cleaned by the listing agent but it didn't mean I would walk around barefoot (or touch the walls....EWWWY).  So after the obviously scrubbing the walls and replacing the (new) GROSSSS carpet we put in a hardwood floor in the entry way (which was builder special tile) and kitchen (which was builder special linoleum) and dining room (which was tomato sauce stained carpet; seriously who does that? It's like carpet in the bathroom).  Next came the bathroom floor....the tile we want is REALLY expensive so while we save we got super cheap peel and stick (which I really like!) to replace the....you guessed it....builder special while linoleum with weird pink stains on it?  Well anyway it's gone (covered) and that is all that matters.  Now after painting (no need to get into that....you know how it goes) we took a LOOOOOOONG home renovation break mostly because of $....or lack thereof it (we both work in a school and Jordan is in school and I am in school working on my masters....what do you expect).  This Christmas my (wonderful) mom got us a kitchen renovation.  We got unfinished cabinets from Home Depot at 20% off (you will learn this about me....I 'trip' over sale items and great deals; I don't even look for them).  Well after that we got right to work....we (I) stained the cabinets a DARK brown while Jordan sanded the original cabinets to be stained.  The top went a creamy white, which was then slightly sanded and stained over top.  Now the cabinets’ aren’t quiet finished.  We worked on them over break....in between traveling all over the state to visit family, and then school started back up.  Not just school but basketball and cheerleading season, Jordan coaches’ bball and I cheer, so most of our nights we didn’t get home till 7ish, and away games was almost 10.  But, tomorrow is another day, this weekend we finished the cabinets put in a tile backsplash and tomorrow we will finish the cabinets....I promise....OK OK deff work on them.  Along with the tile backsplash went the tile around the fireplace to match!  Oh, and by the way the tile was (of course) on sale, I wasn’t even looking to buy any.  Ok back to the cabinets, we aren't making out kitchen bigger; the new cabinets my mom got are going above the upper row that is currently there.  It will be to the ceiling but I figured holiday stuff, thing we only use once in a blue moon, stuff like that.  We need all the storage we can get, we have a lot of stuff (not hoarder status) and I NEED to be organized.  And now that we are getting married we will be getting more stuff, so this will just give us room to grow.  We also had a awkward bar type thing in the kitchen (too high to put stools at and eat).  Under that we but another row of the new cabinets and took the awkward bar thing off.

This is a before (we even moved in) pic....please don't make fun of my builder special stove....we are working on getting rid of it. 

This is the view from where the frige now is....you can really see that nice floor.

Here is the floor we (Jordan) put in....a house warming gift from my mom.  Not really sure why the picture is all distorted.

This is now the moment I am sure you have all been waiting for....the new tile backsplash!!  This was before we did the whole kitchen so is just a little piece.  It has not been grouted yet....mostly because we can pick a color.  I am thinking a light gray?
I will try and post some pics tomorrow of what the cabinets look like.