A Garden Center Wedding Shower



Matt's cousin is getting married at the end of August. I made these matching pillow shams out of linen for her gift. I wrote on them with sharpie marker. Write carefully but make quick strokes because the pen did have a tendency to bleed a tiny bit. 

My sister-in-law and I got flowers from the Farmer's Market

 These cupcakes were chocolate, filled with raspberry cream cheese and frosted with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Valentine's Project



After 1st Trial

After 2nd Trial

When I saw the sharpie and mug decorating idea on pinterest I was very excited! We have 3 sets of Corelle dishes with plain green mugs. Since we're not coffee drinkers that's 12 mugs that never really get used. Why not have some fun? I looked into the craft a little more before trying it but we still had a little trial and error ourselves.  I read on one blog that it's best to use super cheap mugs from Walmart because the sharpie bonds with the cheaper glaze. But for me the point was to craft by using up stuff around the house. I dug out some Bic permanent markers I got as a student teaching gift - I never found a use for them in the classroom. First graders with permanent marker? Yikes! Matt and I got to decorating. Since it was Valentine's Day we decorated mugs for each other. We let them sit for a day before baking them in the oven. I read many ideas about different temperatures and amounts of time. Many say 350 for 20 or 30 minutes. Another person said 425 for 30 minutes. Well, I was concerned that with the Corelle mugs the marker would have a hard time bonding with the glaze. I thought we'd try 475 for 45 minutes? Why not! I put the mugs in the oven and set it to 475, when the oven was preheated I set the timer for 45 minutes. When the timer went off I turned off the oven and left the mugs in the oven until they cooled. The colors black and pink had faded some after the first run, but the red was fine. The blogs I read had said that the Sharpies faded for them but not the Bic.  I'm not sure if the fading was because I used a higher temperature, I left them in longer or because the markers had been sitting in an unopened package for 4 years.  I do know that the marker could not be scrubbed from the mug. Success! We reapplied the marker a second time, followed the same process as before and now have beautifully done personalized mugs!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, my first graders were pumped up about Valentine's Day! The other day I asked them why we celebrate Valentine's Day in 1st grade. (I love asking 6 and 7 year-olds questions like this, you never know what you will get!) One student said, "We celebrate Valentine's Day because we love each other like friends and we want to show other people by giving them nice cards."


Surprisingly enough the kids were most excited about how some had small eyes and some had big ones.

Good thing I have pinterest to help me out with creative ideas for my students. Check out these super cute robots I made. I had them sitting on the counter when the student's walked in the classroom. They immediately had 20 questions about them. Are those for us? When do we get to pick one? Are they robots? Do we get to eat them? Can I take mine home? Etc. Etc.

I got a lot of sweet gifts, cards and even beautiful flowers from my students. I love to see their faces when they walk into the classroom with a gift for me. Most of them look like they are receiving a gift themselves.

 

 

 

Cheap Crafting

My father and mother-in-law in Juneau, Alaska

I love canvas artwork but it is really expensive. Although this doesn't have the same texture to the photo it's kind of the same idea. I mod podged this photo onto a 5x7 canvas but it was a 4x6 photo so it didn't reach the edges. I added twine to the outside to fill in the blank space.