Desk Calendar 2013-2014 School Year

This is the last week of summer for me and one of my goals was to post some products I made for STAAR Alt. Not knowing what the tasks are for this year yet I decided not to post them.
Today I organized my flash drive to free up some space and save some time at work looking for things. I found my desk calendar file I made 2 years ago for Christmas gifts due to Target not having the $1.00 desk calendar. I think after Christmas Target had them.
It was fun printing them out in different colors and seeing friends and family use them all year long.

Check out my desk calendar on TPT.

Make A 3D High Heel Shoe, Earn A Gift Card!

My favorite SVG site is up to it again by giving free gift card if you complete one of their products.
Here is my shoe I created. Even put a bow and button on the top of it using Zots.
I created the picture using the app PicCollege on the iPod Touch. I had to download this app for a training last year.

Glad I do not have to wear a shoe like this!

Maple Manor House

I have had this done since this file came out but been too lazy to take pictures of it. This house is all made out of just paper and glue. I had a blast making it and going to give it away to a Halloween loving person! Check out their house at Maple Manor from SVGCuts.

New Chair

I share my classroom with two of my best friends. I have appointed myself as the decorator in the room. I was tired at looking at this chair for the past 4 years and told the owner of it I was taking it home. She did not have any request so it was all up to me. Bought some gray paint and made myself use fabric I already had. Used some flannel I bought from Joann's Black Friday sale. It is durable but soft enough. There is a back pillow and an extra small pillow for it that I am still decided on what to do. The extra small pillow has seen its days and might be replaced with a new insides.

Make A Luxury Handbag, Earn A Gift Card!

My favorite (SVGCUTS.COM) and only site I pay for SVGs is having a cool promotion. If you download a free luxury handbag file and send them a picture of your bag they will send you a $6.99 gift card for your next purchase!

Here is my bag I made. I was very happy how the white flower on the quote part of the flap lined up.

Cards!

I have several family and friends birthdays this month. I used the Fruity Fiesta kit from SVGCuts. It was fun picking paper and putting the glitter on! Cannot wait to make more from this kit.

I have also made a board on Pinterest of all of the SVGCut files I have. It was a good way to organize what I have and use them this summer.

Market Bag Crochet Pin-along

http://pinterest.com/joannstores/cotton-ish-crochet-pin-along/

Now with summer starting I am free of teaching and time to craft! Saw this on Pinterest yesterday and was heading to Joann's for yarn. I am trying to not buy supplies and use the ones I have. They did not have this yarn so I decided to use some Sugar n' Cream yarn I already had. :( Today I decided to go to the other Joann's and they had the yarn and I only had 2 coupons so I bought Jade Jersey and Cotton Harvest. This yarn feels awesome and so much better than my typical cotton yarn. I always try to make something homemade for the holidays for everyone and this looks like a easy gift. 

Here is my Pinterest board for the event!

http://pinterest.com/craftwith2ks/cotton-ish-crochet-pin-along/

Recovered Office Chair

I was tired of looking at my husbands ugly computer chair. He says the cat is the one that made it look that way but his pants helped. I cut out a pattern out on pattern paper (that my husband dumpster dived at a closing tailor shop by his work) and then cut out the fabric. I used a home decor fabric that I had in my closet and stapled it on the bottom of the chair. It does not look pretty on the bottom but did the job. I ran out of staples and going to get some more to reinforce it some more.

Dark Chocolate Flourless Cookies

Dark Chocolate Flourless Cookies :)

Just made these Dark Chocolate Flourless Cookies this morning with my extra hour today. They are so yummy and easy to make. I used dark chocolate bars (cut up), dark chocolate cocoa powder, and added walnuts at the end. I think I could eat the whole tray of cookies. Use a small ice cream/cookie scoop to get the dough out of the pan. Going to make these again :)

Gumball behavior incentive

Trying to think of new ideas to motivate the students to work hard and saw similar ideas on Pinterest. I saw this gumball container in my Cricut "Just Because" cart and made it out of paper. Then I ran in the problem of how to put the gumballs inside and thought to make it out of felt so the Velcro would stick to it. I know it will not last long and become fluffy when I remove the gumballs at the end of the week. For storage I put the extras on the back. Everything was hot glued together.
If it does wear out I am going to make it out of paper and laminate it. Then hot glue strips of Velcro to hold the gumballs. I know I have seen sheets of Velcro to make the whole container the same material.
Maybe we can have a sugar free gum party for Fun Friday!

Rainbow Wool Tube Yarn Scarf

Tube scarf with matching nose warmer!

I made a tube scarf for a friends birthday. I knitted in a circle on double point needles. You close up the two sides to make it flat. Cast on as many stitches you want it wide.  Also made a matching nose warmer (pictured on the right). This project took 2 balls of Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee Sunset yarn. It will be nice and warm when she has morning bus duty in the winter with the two layers!

Hobby Lobby Yarn Bee Sunset yarn

Homemade cleaning wipes

Trying to find a faster way to upload my projects using my phone so hope the picture turns out good.

I wanted to find an alternative for Clorox wipes in the classroom and found this idea on Pinterest. I see parents use this system for baby wipes but knew I could use it for cleaning wipes. We use a lot of wipes in the classroom!

I bought some Seventh Generation disinfectant spray to use as the cleaner and using a Sterilite Ultra Latch 12.6 cup squared. If you cut the paper towel in half using a serrated knife it fits perfectly in this container. I put about 1 cup of cleaner and 1 1/2 cups of water to get all of the paper towel soaked. I am using the select a size generic paper towels. I am not fond of the scent but telling myself this is scent of saving money!

Now I am getting into digital scrapbooking and made the cleaning wipes tag using a kit I found free. I am always disappointed with the books I have done/not finished and this is might be the key for me to show off my photos and not just on Facebook. For my next cleaning wipes tag I will add a recipe and what product/ingredients I used.



After buying this cleaning spray I saw this great cleaning recipe that I will try. I already have the supplies to make it! Going to use this for the hedgehog cage because I know Clorox wipes are not the best option.

Book rose wreath

It is complete!

The back

The librarian at our school has been collecting all of the damaged books from the library and thought this would be a fun project for Earth Day. She had her librarian aides to cut out the circles out of the books. We did not have much time before school started but I ended up with around 10 roses on my wreath. I spent a lot of time in front of the TV to finish it. I ended up getting a book at Dollar Tree to finish it up. I am happy on how it turned out and now in my classroom. Might add some pearls or glitter on the wreath.

Fabric Haul

Car is full

 Last weekend my Aunt gave me a lot of her fabric. She is moving to a smaller place and knew I would enjoy all of it.

"The Haul" in game room

My craft room closet was not the best organized so I put all of the contents in the game room.
I have been trying to find a good way to organize my fabric and decided on using the foam board from this blog.

You can get 30 x 20 inch sheets at Dollar Tree My DH cut them out out to 10 x 5 inches. I was able to get 12 boards for only $1.00. It is going to be a pain to get them all loaded but worth it in the long time.
This is my new project for watching TV. DH is going to make more shelves on the wall for the fabric to be all lined up and perfect.
Now I will have no excuses to keeping my fabric organized and putting it back once I am done with it.

First group in closet

I am going to have to get more foam board and pins to connect the fabric. This was perfect to reuse all of my dull pins I have been saving.
After putting 60+ on the boards I am thinking I will need 2 more sizes for some of the pieces of fabric.

The date

Another Pinterest project that is finished! :)
I have had the numbers made for at least half a year. I decided to finish up the project this week but ended up finish it up tonight.
For all of the day, month, numbers I used the Designer Calendar cartridge for the Cricut. (dial was set to 2 1/2) The year I cut out 20 and 12 and cut the middle frame out and glued it together. I laminated just the numbers and double stick tape to a blank card. I have up to 2023 cut out. For the background I just cut the paper on my paper cutter. I laminated all of the pieces and hole punched in the middle. Still deciding how I will hang it on the board. Probably get some command hooks.
Now I do not have to write the date and can make this a morning station for my class. I will try to get a picture of it in action in the classroom.

Days until... calendar

Front

Back

Here is my version of the countdown calendar I found on Pinterest.
From another Pinterest project I kept the back of the picture frame. I spray glued the paper to cover up the back. Punched holes for the binder rings. The tags were in a set of 24 just enough to make the numbers go up to 399. I laminated the tags so the students can not rip them off. I laminated the days until tag and was going to just use dry erase but decided just to laminate Summer and other holidays for the school year. I used a binder clip to store those for future use. I used grommets to keep the days until sign on the frame so if I need to change the bottom I can in the future.

Valentine Cards

I wanted to make my own valentine cards this year for my students. I had several ideas on what I wanted to make and first thought of giving them a sucker with the card. I saw these pencils at Micheal's and thought perfect. We are always in need of pencils and they cannot get sick from them (well maybe if they chew on them long enough). Svgcuts.com just put these cute Owls and found some cute owl card sayings. I am very happy on how they turned out. The speech bubble is from the SCAL shape library.

Sugar/tea wallet

For Christmas I try to make at least one item to give family and friends. Last year I made fabric tissue covers. This year I had to think of a new idea that would be easy to make. While on vacation some of my family members love Splenda and would carry the packets in plastic baggies and that was too tacky! Now they will carry it in style!
I could not find a pattern that did not have a button/snap/Velcro but decided to make this. It is so easy and if I get motivated to make a tute for it.The other fabric on the front is where the flap goes. It holds the flap down and I have not had any sugar packets leave. It was originally just to hold sugar packets but it did fit a tea bag.

Harry Potter 7.2

With the LAST Harry Potter movie this week I had to make a new shirt. My DH and I are seeing part 1 before then at midnight seeing part 2. I have had so many fun memories going late night to see Harry!

I saw this logo on Pinterest and knew this is what I needed. Cut it out on my Cricut with freezer paper and painted it on with fabric paint and acrylic!
On the back I thought it was cute to have the HP7.

Front



Back- Glows in the dark!



Inspiration




I am very happy with my shirt and cannot wait to show it off tonight! DH said no for matching shirts! lol

quilts and more quilts

Lots of craft projects has been made since my last update. 

My first hedgehog, Ace, passed away from health reasons in December. 

Also in December we adopted another Manchester Terrier named Charlie. Ted and Charlie are about the same age and act like they are both brothers. Charlie has had some issues around the house with chewing. We are starting to train him and he is learning sit this week.

Finished my first quilt in November, I was glad I had it early because the baby came 6 weeks early. I do not think I will ever free quilt the top.

I have 99% of my New Wave quilt finished! I just have to hand stitch the binding around it. I just followed the small strips to quilt the top. Did not want to spend too much time on this quilt.

I have started a new quilt from the website P.S. I Quilt. They are having a quilt along and it is around the third week of it. I have all of my strips cut out and almost have them all sewed together. This weekend I will cut them out and sew them in the final block pattern. I know I am crazy to start this quilt but having a lot of fun making it.

Fabric is Seaglass by Fabric Cenral

Buttercup Yellow for the solid

 

I am also doing a Crafster swap of Alice in Wonderland. We get our partners tonight/tomorrow. I am excited to start crafting in that theme.