Monday Made It 7/7/14

Are you still standing after the holiday weekend?? After a few BBQ's, birthday parties, parades, fireworks, and a wedding I'm barely making it.  Can I tell you that I'm proud of myself for finishing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR projects!!! I decided to give myself a personal challenge the past few weeks of just using supplies I already had...no purchasing of crafing candy allowed. :(

I just might end that streak for next week, but who knows! I do like using some of the stuff that's been hanging out in my drawers!

 

Okay, first thing's first...will you forgive me for using my handwriting and not typing up a pretty label? Will you? Please? Pretty please??

I have a large collection of paper straws....like I should be ashamed by how many I have. Don't you know that if Michael's puts paper straws in their dollar section I HAVE to get them? Well, I do.

It's a fact.

 

 

I used my circle cutter from Fiskers, left over scrapbook paper, paper straws, and some ribbon scraps to create these little lollipop labels!

 

I like the idea of using these to label some of my student supply bins.  You can read more about my classroom supplies HERE on For The Love of Teaching's blog. :)

 

 

 

 

My second made-it was made with left over cardstock in my classroom colors (magenta, orange, lime, teal, and purple) as well as some leftover glitter paper, one spool of ribbon, and my Fisker's circle cutter!

 

 

I've been all about making buntings this past year. They're SUPER simple and SUPER affordable. I usally make mine with left over scraps of paper or fabric. Put on an episode of Real Housewives and I'm good to go!

 

 

Just punch two holes on either side of your piece of paper or fabric, string the ribbon through the back and wha-la!

 

This particular bunting was inspired by Eric Carle's dots on the inside covers of The Hungry Caterpillar...LOVE!

 

 

This next Made It I meant to make last year...and boy was I regretting it! I bought this glitter photo album from Michael's with the intent of filling it up with my students' usernames and passwords for the variety of sites and apps we use throughout the year.

 

 

Do you see some left over glitter paper that made it onto there??

Anyway, between school log-ins, Acellerated Reader, Show Me, Edmodo, our math on-line series, our reading on-line series, Google Drive, and who knows what else I cannot keep everything straight!

 

My tech director and I try to keep the same username for as many places as we can for the kids sanity (and mine) but inevitably something almost always has to change.

 

I printed off this simple little organizer and will be filling it in with pencil. I KNOW that at some point the log-ins will have to change. Ugh!

Hopefully this will help me stay organized...

 

 

My last made-it was something just for me.  I know what you're probably thinking...Erin..girlfriend...it looks like your necklaces are all in a mess!

 

Well, folks I did that on purpose!

 

When I first spotted Amanda Seyfried in this Tom Binns Design necklace I thought it was to die for. I fell in love with the messy, unstyling look of the jumbled jewlery box necklace.  I immediately started collecting my own vintage and vintage inspired necklaces to combine together.

 

 

I know it's not for everyone, but I'm loving it!

 

I can't wait to see what everyone else has been busy making and to start getting inspired for next week!

 

XO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday Made It 6/30/14

Helloooooo All!!!
I can't believe summer break is flying by so quickly, today marks Day 19 for me! Yikes! I haven't been blogging much lately, because I've been enjoying my break and don't have too many exciting things to report. BUT I was able to put together something I've been wanting to make for a while for Tara's Monday Made It Party.  A magnetic organization board using an oil drip pan! You can find the original pin HERE.

My oil drip pan came from Auto Zone and cost me $10.  All of the other supplies I used were odds and ends that I already had in my giant stock pile of craft supplies! YAY! 

I decided to decorate only one corner of the board and leave the rest plain for now.  I might tape things off later, but I was worried about getting too far ahead of myself. 

I'm love, love, loving how the fabric and ribbon knots turned out.  They remind me of my ribbon swag that hangs in my classroom! :) 

I also was able to whip up some new glitter magnets for my board.  Does it surprise you that I had all of this supplies already? Surely not. 

I posted how to make these last year...for my very first Monday Made It! Aww, sweet memories! 

Mother's Day Project...Better Late Then Never!

I know I'm completely late with sharing the Mother's Day gifts my third graders made this year, but I figure it's better late than never! My team has made these gifts for two years now and have received a lot of compliments from grateful mammas! 

The idea came from Pinterest of course! One of my talented teammates cut out a letter 'm' and an 'o' from foam poster board.  I grabbed the letters and my kids to take some pictures outside. 

After getting all of the pictures printed we were able to assemble our gifts! All I needed to purchase was some ribbon and card-stock. 

We mounted our photos on the the card-stock and attached the ribbon with Tacky Glue.  This was a bit stronger than our regular Elmer's glue. 

We made a loop out of ribbon and attached that to the top of our photos, so our mom's could hang up our beautiful masterpieces. 

I recommend having your students glue their ribbon pieces on first, then add the photos.  This prevents the extra gloopy-gloppy glue from getting onto our gorgeous photos (try saying that three times fast)!!! 

Another tip I've found is to just give my students a small piece of ribbon to connect each photo to one another.  This cut down the amount of ribbon I needed down immensely and made the gift that much more affordable for my class of 26! 

I printed my photos at Wal-Greens with a coupon, I also noticed that a lot of printers have deals on pictures around Mother's Day. Score! The project cost me less than a dollar for each kid...a dollar makes me holler Honey Boo-Boo child! 

Of course you need to have some cute wrappings for gifts for mom! I loved the ease of using the brown paper bags and tissue paper flowers.  Aren't they darling?? The gift tag was made with leftover paper sitting in the bottom of my drawer and my gift tag puncher.  :) You can learn how to make these flowers HERE.  

This gift is really easy to modify, some teachers on my team have created a letter 'd' and 'a' for DAD, as well as a Grandma sign, for some individual students.  We even has some sets of twins that took their pictures together, how precious!!! 

I simply adore creating this project with my students, the kids love to give it to their mom's, and I think mom's enjoy receiving it!  

What sort of gifts are a big hit with your families? 

 XOXO

Five for Friday January Wrap-Up

January is wrapping up, so I thought this would be the last perfect opportunity to share some of the things going on with me and my classroom.  Since I'm ALWAYS late to the 5 for Friday party, I decided this week, I'll arrive early!

Here in Chicagoland we are on our fourth Snow/Cold Day! This really is unheard of for our area, I think I could count on one hand how many snow days I had as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Chicago.  It truly has been bitterly cold and not safe for little ones to be out and about, especially when some of them need to ride on a bus for 40 minutes to get to and from school.  

On the plus side, this gave me a lot of time to work on some projects (I can't wait for Monday Made-It) and I even finished up my valentines! You can check those out HERE

A friend of mine got me a totally awesome Christmas gift! A three-month subscription to 

Beauty Box 5, here is a little peak into the goodies I got in January.  The theme was relaxation and renewal and included a pair of exfoliation gloves, body moisturizer, compact mirror, cuticle massage oil, and some yummy coconut lip balm! I can't wait for the next package to arrive!

  

Wine +Whitey's Ice-Cream + (quite possibly the best in the mid-west) mustaches = awesome girly weekend in rural Illinois with some college friends!

My third graders love to read about Martin Luther King Jr. and enjoyed coming up with adjectives and admirable qualities about him.

The Thirdsters have been loving playing this Area Array game with graphing paper and dice.  Each student takes a turn rolling two dice and draws an array matching the product with their designated color.  When the sheet is filled, the student with the most unit squares colored wins!

I'm adding on a bonus number six...just because...well...I have one more thing I want to share!

Last week my class did a small novel study on Judy Blume's Freckle Juice.  At the end of the week we created these secret recipes for freckle juice, where I had my students using unit fractions to make up 

1 cup.  We then added freckles onto our faces by using my dot markers.  Reading/Writing/Math connection?? I'm sold!

I can't wait to see what February will bring! Hopefully a full 5 day week!

First Monday Made It of 2014!

Is this really happening...is this real life??? It's Monday and I SHOULD be back at school, but am instead chillaxing in my sweats, watching The View, and catching up on reading many blog posts.  Yes, my friend, this short and sassy teacher has a SNOW DAY!!!

Well, really it's a Cold Day, it's FUH-REEEEEZ-ING here in Chicago area.  Being in the suburbs of Chicago, with nicely paved roads getting a snow day is pretty rare.  Let me tell you, Snow Days as an adult are even better than when I was a kid. :)

This break took a break from technology and a break from school....it was WONDERFUL. I needed some Me Time, as well as quality time with loved ones, you know?

Anyways, with this unexpected day at home, I'm actually able to link up with sweet Tara for her Monday Made It.  I was pretty excellent at linking up with her during the summer...but this school year has been down right shameful.

You may or may not have noticed that I adore crafting and making new things.  Friends have encouraged me to get a booth at a craft show and this year I've decided to do it! I've been busy making these amazing elastic ribbon hair ties and headbands.  Have you seen these? I love how gentle they are on my fine hair, no tearing, and they don't leave the dreaded pony tail dent.

I've also been picking up things to decorate my booth...because of course it HAS to look cute!
I updated this old mini chalkboard with some paint and burlap daisies!

Can you tell I've got a thing about burlap, kraft paper, and polka-dots right now???

I'm off to fill up my cup of tea again and check out all of the other Monday Made It's! 

Thanks for reading and happy new year bug-a-boos!