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. ©

Book Nerd!

Let's get something clear... I love books. Heart them. Adore. Obsess. So needless to say, I am constantly adding to my classroom library, updating and sorting. After purchasing and sharing these books with my students, but I was struggling with books being taken and never returned. Plus many of my students haven't the foggiest idea how to locate books in an actual library.  In order to resolve both of these issues, I decided to make my classroom a little more official.  I purchased small labels and packing tape to use as my book-labeling system.  Then I printed the first three letters of the author's last name.  

Of course each book was labeled with care, and once organized by author, I ordered the titles too.  

Can you tell I'm a Gary Paulsen fan?! All of his books aren't even on the shelf yet! I only made about twenty labels for him. And used them all! 

I worked through author's who had multiple books on my shelf. This allowed me to create a bulk set of labels and organize books within authors as well.  Then I went through and pulled neighboring letters of author's names that were still undone.  I simply tucked books into place as I went from that point on.  

In the end, my shelves are beautifully organized and hopefully a bit more deterring from sticky fingers. 

'Tis the Season (Part Five, Final Installment)

Welcome to the final installment of my Christmas themed blog posts! This post features just a couple projects and decorating ideas that I used around the house this year. Enjoy!

After creating the large pallet sign for church, I got the harebrained idea to create more signs! The first sign I created was small dark green piece with white printing, MERRY CHRISTMAS. After painting the sign and lettering, I used a piece of sandpaper to rough the piece up just slightly on the edges and across the words, just slightly.  

The second small sign I created was for a family white elephant gift exchange that has a rule about being self crafted or created.  I got this idea from Pinterest (Go figure!), and simply downsized the piece. Although I would still LOVE to create a full size sign! 

The green sign became part of my alternative wreath project, featuring a family heirloom sled from Germany and a greenery arrangement tied with a plaid ribbon. So if you come a-caroling, you will be greeted by this cheery Christmas sled! 

I believe that all parts of the home are fair game for decorating, so in order to make my room look and smell extra Christmas-y I made a very simple display on the top of a bookshelf.  I took a medium sized vase and filled it with cedar greens. Using the same green and red plaid ribbon from the sled display, I tied a simple bow around the top of the vase to add a hint of color. To finish the look, I used a piece of the vintage sheet music paper chain. I did not do anything fancy with it, choosing to just drape it casually around and over my picture frames.   

I love the simple look, and the yummy evergreen aroma that now fills the space.  Plus I just LOVE Christmas, so the decorations bring me all sorts of holiday joy!

Being this is the final installment of my 'Tis the Season blog series, and Christmas is just days, hours, moments away, let me close with a heartfelt thank you for following my blog! 

May you and your loved ones enjoy a Merry Christmas and holiday season filled with peace and blessings! 

'Tis the Season (Part Four)

Is it strange that one of my absolute favorite parts of the Christmas season is wrapping presents??? I love giving gifts to people, but they have to be wrapped just so. Go figure. Every year I coordinate all of my gifts and make them match. 

This year I found the cutest item at my favorite store, Vintage Hardware. For ten cents, I acquired an old printing press metal stamp featuring a reindeer and tree! Not meant to be a craft stamp, but it works!

I used chocolate brown or bright red ink to add the stamp to each name tag. The color of stamp determined the color of string that I used to tie up the gifts. Red stamp = red string, brown stamp = brown string. 

Of course I had to have a theme! In good holiday spirit, I chose "Brown paper packages tied up with string," a lyric from the song "Favorite Things" sung by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Initially I planned on stamping the words in place, but after completing the first present, I realized that I just didn't have the time! Note to self: Find a stamp or order a custom one with the phrase as a whole. 

I chose to use a bright red pen to simply ink the phrase onto each package.  It is a good thing that I teach cursive, my practiced penmanship held up to the test!

The final product is a group of simple yet festive holiday packages for joyous gift giving!

'Tis the Season (Part Three)

As if I didn't have enough projects on my plate, I suggested making a pallet sign for church! Silly me! Though it was challenging, it was still a fun and rewarding project.  My Uncle Larry was so kind to collect and deliver a couple pallets from which to take slats, and my dad was nice enough to dismantle them for me while I was doing other projects! (I wouldn't get a thing done if it wasn't for the people in my life.) Once they were separated, my Aunt Kathy and I selected the best boards to use and got them sanded down, to make them both smoother and cleaner in color. We used a lower grit because our goal was not too have paper soft wood, but rather get rid of larger marks and damage to the wood. 

We then arranged them in the order that we wanted, and my dad attached the support beams.  The beams are not too thick, only about a half inch, but they are long so they can secure all of the slats. 

He attached the beams to the back of the sign with screws so the bracketing would be invisible. The holes that are visible below are from the pallet nails, but I think they add character. 

Once assembly was taken care of, I mixed a forest green craft paint with a large quantity of water.  This mixture became the base wash for the sign.  I got a bit nervous once it was all washed because while it was wet it seemed to have a mossy, mildew look. Fortunately it dried much nicer, or else it would have been back to the sander!

My paint was named "Evergreen" which was most appropriate considering our country Christmas theme called for traditional Christmas greens!

At this point, I laid out the text in the format in which it would go on the sign.  I used to generic fonts that come pre-installed on Microsoft Word, Bodoni MT and Monotype Corsiva. The font size varied depending on the text, but I chose to emphasize key words with size and make lesser words a bit smaller.  This can be totally up to your own discretion and relies heavily on the space and board width available. 

Because I am quite possibly crazy, and probably because I had limited resources, I hand traced all of the words onto the wood pallets.  This involved me outlining the words while the paper was still in place, but pressing hard enough that the pencil made a dent in the wood below.  Then I carefully and lightly outlined those indentations using the pencil for a more visible line within which to paint.  When everything was indented and traced, I took my white Sharpie Medium Point Paint Pens and began outlining! The paint required three to four coats because the wood was so dry, the first coat basically just absorbed. The picture below shows words at various levels of painting.  The words at the bottom had received three coats, the center lines had two coats and the top, faint areas only had the first coat.  

I did choose to free hand the Bible reference at the bottom, for two reasons, I forgot to print the reference with the rest of the verse, and I was running out of patience for tracing! I decided that my daily cursive lessons for my students needed to come in handy in the real world! 

The sign was hung (more generous and mostly patient help from my dad!) in the sanctuary above the main doors for all to see! He used two anchors and two 3 inch screws to attach it to the wall.  He was actually able to attach through one of the gaps between the boards so it did not require a hanger or wire on the back. Fortunately the screw were a good color to blend in with the green tint! 

I am so proud of how well it turned out, especially because I was a bit nervous that it would be too rough in appearance to be hung in a church.  I received a few compliments even from people who then asked if they could bring me pallets to make them a sign! Um... first I need to finish the mini sign for myself! 

That mini sign and my Christmas present wrapping paper theme are next on the docket for the Christmas series so stay tuned! And happy crafting!

'Tis the Season (Part Two)

Well hello! Welcome to the part two of my Christmas crafting series! On Friday we had a decorating party at church in order to get the church ready for Christmas. Many hands make light work!

Using the same vintage sheet music that was used for the Adore Him banner, I printed the music onto cream colored paper. I then cut the paper along the long sides, so I got 11 strips out of each piece of paper.  Then it was time to get gluing! I'm quite certain that I made at least 100 feet of chain!

Paper chain went everywhere! Including on the ledges that surround the piano areas.  The printed burlap was picked up on sale at Joann's and the candles are battery powered finds from Costco! My goal was to make the placement look natural and not too symmetrical.  

And more garland! With beautiful glass jar candles from Fred Meyer, on sale for only $1.20!

The Advent wreath this year is also quite simple in nature.  My cousin Brittany did a beautiful job of weaving in greenery and adding the single white poinsettia for accent.  So simple, yet so pretty!

My Aunt Kathy had the great idea to hang white ornaments from the balcony railing with white ribbon.  They are hung at varying levels to give more dimension! 

When in doubt add more burlap! Tree skirt in natural burlap!

Still doubting? Add more paper chain! The tree features the paper chain, white pine cones, and white poinsettias.  The tree was then topped with a white tulle bow (not placed as of the picture).

The altar features white lighted garland and a greenery arrangement with white roses. The altar railing has lighted green garland, the vintage music paper chain, and tulle bows that match the tree. 

Overall our goal was to keep the decorating simple. I think we did a beautiful job of capturing the simple country charm inspired by the vintage sheet music. ENJOY!

'Tis the Season (Part One)

This is the first of at least four blogs entries focusing on Christmas projects! The first blog is about a Christmas banner for church, the second features the overall decorating scheme for the church, the third will showcase a pallet sign, and lastly my Christmas wrapping theme for this year! And perhaps one or two more! Oh such a busy time of year! 

This one is about a simple and classy looking banner that my Aunt Kathy, Mom, and I created. The banner base was made of natural burlap and creamy colored thread.  My mom was the sewing superstar and took care of the hemming and stitching the top loop from which the banner would hang.  

I took on tracing 6 inch monogram letters on to vintage sheet music that I copied on to card stock. Then my Aunt Kathy and I cut out all the letters so they would be ready to attach to our newly minted banner.   

Vintage sheet music featuring Christmas carols! 

Using a straight edge and tape measure so we made sure to stay aligned, we laid out our letters! Then we used a caulking-like all-purpose adhesive to attach the letters to the burlap (fortunately for us, it dries clear!) We made sure all the edges had a small fringe to add detail to the banner. 

I promise we ironed the burlap, but of course, the picture below looks like we didn't do a thing! Oh brother! I promise it looks great in person! 'Tis the season for "Adoring Him!" 

Stay tuned for more Christmas Merry Making! Coming up next: Christmas decorations in the church!