Teacher craft in process

I saw this cute birthday countdown calender (on Pinterest I think) but the sign holder- although very cute- is like 8 bucks at office depot.

Kinda blowing my cheapie budget considering I was thinking of making at least 6 of these, maybe more like a dozen.

But then I looked up and saw this

Remember I had made it awhile back? So I had hubby drill the holes and I made this:

(sorry for the blurry photo – too lazy busy to take another one). I used the binder rings and lots of stickers and scrapbooking leftovers. The numbers are these big black old stickers I have had fovever. I used the cropadile to punch the holes and computer printed a bunch of holidays so the teachers can just change out the holiday bit. The hard part (because math and logic is hard for me) was figuring out what number to go on the back so that once the cards are flipped to the back, they can be turned around on the rings as needed. (Boy, that makes no sense- I mean I wanted to use both sides of the cards as effectively as possible)

Then I got the bright idea that since this would be in a class there would be lots of grubby paws on it so I laminated each number card. But that created some issues. Since I had not originally calculated the laminated edging into the size, each card was too long now and I had to trim each card before laminating and then trim and round the corners with scissors because no one has made a frigging corner rounder that work on lamination (I wish to heck I could patent that idea and make a fortune!). And rounding the corners always makes me grumpy because they never look identical. ugh (ok, just me, right?) I also used the cropadile once again to re-punch the holes.

And it seems that in a fit of purging I let go all my clear acrylic frames and none of the thriftstores have ANY all of a sudden. I got one from Dollar General but it is kinda flimsy. Will try it and let ya know how it goes.

My plan is to pound these out over thanksgiving weekend and gift them to the teachers on the 12th day before the end of school before winter break when I start my 12 days of gifting. (other gifts I have set aside: bacon chocolate bars, chalkboard spraypainted mugs, chalk pens, chalkboard thought bubbles- still have to make those- fleece blankets with names on them, our annual xmas music cd and more).

Making some Glue Dots

These are great! They are like the little glue booger that hold samples on in the mail. They work for scrapbooking- holding on a crushed penny or baby hospital id bracelet. But also for regular crafting. I use them to tack 8x10 photos on the wall’s of my 4 yr old’s bedroom. It is great that they stay repositionable (because she like to move them around) and do not harm the wall.

I save sticker sheets and the paper backing from my mini xyron and mailing labels.

The Aleene’s Tack It Over & Over I get at Michael’s (using my 40% off coupon of course!).

I lay out all the paper, making sure I have a matching cover piece for each piece, and just start squeezing the dots- some are big, some are small, some are lines or dashes. Once they turn clear you can cover with the matching cover piece.

I have tried covering when wet - didn’t work. I store mine in a couple of snack or sandwich size baggies- keep some in my scrapbooking tote and some in the craft cabinet. They are pretty handy.

Awesome Party decoration!

My mother in law’s big birthday bash.

I am huge into photos, scrapbooking, preserving the past etc.

So, how did I contribute to the decorating?

I printed a ton of photos and taped them to a wall. Printed on my home printer on photo paper in various sizes, I tried to pick photos of her through the years with people I knew would be there (or who had passed on- like her mother- which made her tear up). I tried to keep it sorta like a timeline and just used folded over scotch tape. I tried to keep the tape off the walls because I didn’t wanna mess up the awesome paint finish at my in brother & sister in law’s place. And I passed the pictures along to whomever wanted them at the end of the evening.

It was a huge hit! (*whisper* and super easy!)

My pal Mari is a genius!!

I have a cricut – but it gets very little use. I did get SCAL (Mr Wonderful got it for me as a holiday gift!) and sold off almost all my cartridges. I have a friend named Mari and she is a scrapper extraordinaire! And she has a scraproom and a big cricut.

She’s the one without the hat.

Our pages are at the opposite ends of the spectrum- hers are gorgeous and lavish and she will do 2 at a 12 hr crop. Me- I pound out about 40 and they are simple.

Well, she saw this cool project to make a carrying case for your cartridges. And she made it! Here are her photos. It is so cool! It uses snap on containers and plastic canvas. She got the totes at Joann’s using a coupon – how thrifty! – and it was a cinch to make. And it is expandable. She wrote on each cartridge to be even more efficient.

how cool!

Semi FAIL!

Sooo, I got this shrinky dink printer plastic. And the thought I had was keychains or luggage tags. I already had some cell phone lanyards on hand (and now no ones phone has the little spot to attach them to anymore so I am looking for alternate uses for them! I got mine cheapy cheap off ebay).

I resized and printed the photos- took a little trail and error. You gotta use photoshop or something and reeeeeeally lighten them up.

 

Then I trimmed (using my scrapbook trimmer) and punched holes (used my cropadile) And shrank them in the toaster oven.

 

But the holes closed up too much so I gave them another punch with the cropadile.

I tried threading them on keyrings and broke a couple so I switched to small binder rings and just stacked them on, then clipped it to the cell phone lanyard and added these little keychain clippie thingies.

  

I had read about coating them and tried it- I used a clear spray paint I had on had. See the two photos below – at an angle you can really see the clear coat. It seemed like an unnecessary step with extra dry time.

 

I gave them away and they were well received. I clipped mine to my keys. Aaaaand then they started breaking. CRAFT FAIL! When I checked back in with the gift recipients they reported the same thing and no one was using them for anything now. Argh! 

I still think this has potential. Maybe earrings or a pendant – something with less handling that keychains. Also I am not talented enough but I do think a black pen carefully ran around the edges would class it up a but. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, I also had wanted the kidlets to write their names on the back but somehow forgot about that in the frenzy of the crafting. I make super tiny shrinky dinks (using a circle punch and #6 recyclable plastic because it comes out thicker) and have them write their names and date on them and I attach them to xmas ornaments (my hope is years and years from now it will help separate the collection so everyone can take “their” ornaments when they move out on their own).

Easy cheesy homemade gift idea! Post It holder!!

  

This is one of those crafts that is sooooo easy and doesn’t need a lot of directions.

Pick up a few of those clear acrylic angled frames. Cut scrapbook paper to fit.

Stick the post it pads to the outside of the frame (I used glue dots to do so) and stick small photos on the paper. Insert paper (play with photo placement if you are as spatially challenged as I am) and there you have a gift to brighten someone’s work cube!

This one was last father’s day I think.

Vintage Valentines

Sooo, I went a googlin’ and found some of these and then found this flicker group and this website.

I saved a bunch – here are some.

My plan is to print them out and use them in place of store bought cards for the kids. I also wanted to put a few on the mantle. They also help my autistic son learn about puns – something he has a hard time “getting”.

                

     

           

      

   

        

       

 

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