Teacher Appreciation

This week at E's preschool we had teacher appreciation week.  Two moms organized a huge "garden" display in the front lobby using the kids handprints (with their pictures on the front) cut from colored paper overlaid, on a heart, with a flower stem and leaves.  There is green grass too!  And the cutest poem.  I'll have to take pictures tomorrow to post.
Each day this week parents provided treats for the teachers, flowers, chocolate, balloons and pastries.  Tomorrow is my day to give them a treat!  I've been wanting to do this project for a while-

It was not super simple, but was  definitely worth the effort!  E goes to the absolute best preschool in the whole world (I'm not biased at all!), so I didn't mind the extra work and patience needed to make nine of these.  Here are all nine, packaged and ready to go.

Here's what you need:

• Canvas bag (I used the Medium size-14"w x 13"h x 3"d)
• Doilies (I used 10")
• Fabric paint
• Spray adhesive

Here's what you do:

• Spray the back of the doily with the spray adhesive and follow the instrustions for a TEMPORARY bond.  I waited 4 mins before adhering.
• Put a couple of sheets of newspaper in the bag to prevent the paint from bleeding through.
• Position the doily on the corner of the bag and firmly press in place.

• Now the tricky part...I used a foam brush to paint over the doily and I tried to gently dab, or else it just bleeds through and under the doily, making a big, globby mess!
• After you paint all the way around, remove the doily, mine came up very easily.  Let dry.
• For the initial, decide what size and font you want and print out the intial or cut freezer paper with a Cricut.  I didn't do the whole freezer paper thing this time like I did here for the snowmen shirts, but I went old school and rubbed a pencil on the back of the printed letter, then positioned it on the bag and traced over the front of the letter, leaving a pencil line drawing of the letter on the bag. 

• Then I painted in the letter, let it dry and I was finished!

This cool idea was not mine!  I found it a long time ago here at under the sycamore. 

Can't wait to give them away tomorrow!

Here are some other neat things for teacher appreciation:

Burlap bagged mum at The Blackberry Vine

A bunch of cool stuff compiled by c.r.a.f.t.

Bread in a can at Chasing Fireflies

S'mores at Tip Junkie

Hope you find something that you can use to thank the teachers in your lives!

D



Mermaids!

Our annual trip to Great Wolf Lodge was last weekend, so I think waterpark...water...mermaids?  Right, don't you?  Another Christmas present that I made for E were these super cute mermaids...

I assembled a Mermaid Lagoon in a Box for her four clothespin mermaids.  Most of the lagoon contents and critters came from the dollar store-small stone gravel, shells, plastic sea animals and of course pretty glass gems-mermaids love pretty things! 

And here's a close up of the four bathing beauties

I love that it's self contained in the plastic bin and stores away so easily.

I found the idea here at Pink And Green Mama and just went from there.  I'll post a detailed tutorial soon!

And here are my super cute mermaids at Great Wolf Lodge...

Have a great weeked!

D

Gnomes!

Can't wait until Gnomeo and Juliet comes out!  Have you seen the trailer?  We've been getting into the gnome thing a little bit over here (even before the movie trailer) after I discovered this awesome tutorial on wee folk art.  She has beautiful stuff!  So for this past Christmas, I made E a set of math gnomes (with their good friend pink gnome).

I gave her two bags of glass "gems," from the dollar store, so that the gnomes can find the gems in the forest and we can tell math stories!  (Yellow gnome has a multiplication sign on the front)  I learned to make their hats "bendy" (okay-bendable) here at Wabi-Sabi Wanderings another beautiful blog!  Gnomes love mushroom I'm told, so I painted two wooden knobs and then coated them with this great version of Mod Podge!  I think we should make a proper forest like here at Frugal Family Fun Blog for them to explore and hide in. E loves playing with her gnomes!  I can't wait to see her perform Shakespeare with them after we see Gnomeo and Juliet!
Happy Thursday,
D

Valentine Ideas

There are soooo many cool Valentine ideas out there right now.  I'd love to hear what you're doing for your kids' Valentines and any Valentine decorating that you have going on in your house.
Here are some some inspirations around blogworld.
Last year we made these for E's class after being inspired by Skip to my Lou!

Another cute one with a pencil (love the candy alternative) at Skip to my Lou!

And from Family Fun Magazine, another candy alternative!

Jac o' lyn Murphy was brilliant with these rulers (I think we'll do this for M's class) and also wiffle balls!

Pittypat Paperie has a really cool s'mores Valentine.  This would be great for a teacher gift!

Teach Mama (one of my favorite blogs!) has a super easy one the older kids could do all by themselves!

These handprint hearts at Roots And Wings Co would be perfect for Valentines for grandparents.  They are also really cute in a simple black frame.

Hope those gave you some good inspiration!

D

Paper stuff

Today is yet ANOTHER snow/ice day!  What to do, what to do?

After seeing this SMASH video that my friends Kim and Steph, The Scrapper Bees shared, I was inspired to help my girls create a journal of their own.  A trip to the dollar store for the composition books was completed before "The Big Storm."  And I have just a few paper scraps from scrapbooking.  So off we went!

And the finished products-

Then they were off to write in them!  "We found a good writing spot, Mommy!"

Now maybe I won't find tiny scraps of paper with "really important" things written on them all around my house.  They can all be glued in their book!  I'll let you know how that fantasy pans out.

We also used paper (and tons of stickers) to make the Zhu Zhu Pets comfy little houses.  A K-cup box was just the right size.  I covered it with printer paper.

Then M (E made one a while ago) got out their sticker stash and did some decorating.

And the finished products-

The critters nestled all snug in their houses-

Hope you are staying as snug as the Zhu Zhus!

D

Flaky, flakes.

What a family!  I love the snowkid, standing on his head!

The girls worked on these guys yesterday with Aunt Nanci and Uncle Tim!



Yesterday I got to stay in and do some much needed house cleaning to get ready for my bookclub to come over last night.  We had another awesome "meeting."  With lots of munchies, drinks and laughs, and oh yeah, the book we discussed was Ella Minnow Pea  by Mark Dunn.  I thought it was pretty creative and thought provoking, but feelings were mixed in the group.  Next month is Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls, March is Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and April is Room by Emma Donoghue.

Now it's snowing again as I write this, although all the weather people say "Don't Panic!" and "Only a Dusting!" Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it from now on! And next week they promise another storm.  Sigh.  

Well, in case you and the kids are going crazy with all of this time off from school, here's a super simple snow flake craft.  

Here's what you need:  round paper coffee filters and scissors-phew, long list huh? 

Fold the coffee filters in half, then in half again, then in half again.

Give the kids the scissors and let them go to town!  (Just tell them not to cut the fold all the way off, and not to run)

Unfold and voila!

I hung them on the windows (just used a bunch of dabs of the glue stick)

and

taped them on a long piece of dental floss (I have a bunch of those little round containers from the dentist), we use the Reach Flossers so we don't need them,

and hung them on the wall.

Super easy and very festive!  If you wanted to be very fancy you could get out the water colors and let them paint rainbow flakes.

Hope you enjoy!

Happy Friday,

D



More snow stuff

Okay, the reveal of the freezer paper tease!  Tada!

Snowmen shirts.  Yup, we made them for the whole family and good friends for an upcoming trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  Here  is where I found the awesome idea!  She put white highlights on her snowman eyes, what do you think, should I?  Here is where I learned the freezer paper stenciling technique.  So easy, so rewarding!  Some shots along the way-

This is a super craft for kids!  Can't mess it up!

She didn't need much encouragement to model!  Scary.

Let me know if you try this!

D

Let it snow...

Another snowy day in Delaware.  "M" made it off to school but will be back early, but "E" is home for the day.  And since she's home, I of course hear, "can we do crafts today?"  She's a crafting/arting/crayoning machine!  She's working on her own masterpiece now, but earlier she helped make the Valentine crayons for her class.

Aren't they pretty?  You gotta go to the dollar store and get crayons for this, it's so cool!





Then go to Target and get these cute little ice cube trays (in the dollar spot).  We ripped all the papers off (very, very tedious my friends!), broke them into pieces (very satisfying!), and grouped the pieces according to color in the ice cube trays.  Like so...

Put the trays on a cookie tray and in the oven at 200 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Take them out, let them cool, and pop em out!



Now we just have to bag em and tag em!  I can't believe we're finished those!  I'm usually a procrastinator on this kind of thing. (Okay, on MOST things!)

UPDATE:  Here is the finished product bagged up and with the cards attached:

I downloaded the cute little cards here at the long thread!

Happy crayoning!

D