L.O.V.E.

Oh my goodness! I LOVE the holiday of Love, Valentine's Day! Not that you shouldn't show, give, share love throughout the year, I just appreciate a day focused solely on love. What a great reason to give my students awesome Valentine's!

 It wouldn't be appropriate to create Valentine's projects without a plethora of pink and red supplies. Pink scissors? Check. Pink ribbon? Check. Red and white baker's twine? Check. Pink and red stamping ink (in a variety of shades)? Check. Pink and red pens? Check. Stamps and punches full of hearts? Check. I think I'm ready to start!

Using the stamp seen in the picture above, I used two ink colors in order to create more play on the tags. 

Twenty-five tags later!

As usual, I packed the gifts in brown, paper lunch sacks. What can I say, they are inexpensive. Cheap version of craft wrap, but in a more convenient, mass-gifting, sort of way. 

I used the same two ink colors from the tags to stamp the heart pairs on each bag.  One color at a time to increase speed by not having to keep rewashing the stamp. 

I also own the most perfect Valentine themed punch, the one that I purchased for the bookmark and card projects from last year! I picked it up at JoAnn Fabrics with a 50% off coupon and my 15% off teachers' discount card. 

So it only made sense that when I punch the hole for tying the bags shut, the hole should be heart shaped. 

 When I finished packing the bags with novels, pencils, and Tootsie Pops, I sealed them by folding the top down once. The heart shaped punch allowed me to thread baker's twine through the tags and bag and finish with a small bow.  

All lined up and ready for anxious little (I suppose not really that little) hands to open them and create big, beaming smiles. 

How can you not LOVE Valentine's Day? For me it is a great excuse to spoil my students (They actually outdid me in that category, my desk was out of control with wonderful treasures) and remind them in a tangible way of how much I care about them.

It's not a day to think about the love you don't have, or wish for. It's about giving and sharing love with ones who are in your life at that time. And perhaps people you loved have come and gone, which exactly why you have to embrace the day and love people while they are with you. Don't let a single day pass without telling, showing, sharing, love to someone.  Your love may make all the difference. ©

Give Thanks!

This November my family hosted some of our extended family for Thanksgiving. It was especially wonderful this year because my brother and his girlfriend were able to be with us for the week from Minneapolis.  I was put in charge of decorating the dining room for the event.  I chose to cut brown shipping paper into 8.5 by 11 inch sections so I could run it through the printer.  I selected two different fonts with two different sayings.   The fonts were downloaded from the Internet, Kunstler Script and Mailart Rubberstamp.  I then cut them into strips by hand, not being bright enough to use my paper cutter. It went pretty quickly though, and they didn't need to be perfect.  

I then simply created loops and opted to tape the edges together for time and efficiency purposes.  The chain became the table runner instead of a traditional cloth one. 

I also created my own place cards out of colored card stock and more brown mail wrap paper.  I created a stencil of a maple leaf from my school's Ellison punches then took the stencil home to trace and cut out.  My wonderful father helped in the process by being the tracer and scissor man.  I greatly appreciated his help! I then glued the leaf centers, but not the edges, to the card stock.  Each leaf went on slightly differently allowing each place card to be unique.  I added the names using dark brown ink and small alphabet stamps in haphazard patterns.  

The final piece of decorating utilized our old upright piano and a handful of brown paper lunch bags.  I had read a blog about how to print on paper bags and decided to give it a try.  It was quite simple and worked perfectly.  I used the same Rubberstamp font from the paper chain so they were connected, and printed one letter per bag.  I spelled out the word THANKFUL.

I then cuffed each bag by rolling the top down twice which made it easier to light the votives that were inside.  

Each votive lived in a glass holder so they were fire safe and used a clicking lighter with the long bendable nozzle to light them safely.  We ate earlier in the day before it was dark out, but after the sunset, the effect was beautiful.  

This year was so full of blessings and I had so many things to be thankful for, especially the wonderful time with my family and getting to see my brother. I hope your Thanksgiving was full of blessings too.  

What's Love Got to Do With It?

My class is my pride and joy, and I absolutely love making and giving them presents. Their smiles make me so happy, and I can't wait for tomorrow!

Wrapped and ready to go! 

Simplicity! And LOVE!

The goodie bag has a major award winning novel, Once Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia. There are also heart-shaped crazy straws, Valentine's pencils, and Hershey's Hugs! Plus the bookmarks!