Primary Teacher Bookmark

Had a primary teacher inservice meeting. They are always so much fun. We asked for substitutes to sit in with their classes during sharing time while we pulled them into another room (all we have available in our building is the kitchen! so fun!) and talked about some training stuff. First we had some advice on how to deal with behavior issues and talked about WHY the kids might be having issues. It was a relief to see how much the teachers were already incorporating into their lessons and class time.

The behavior portion started with a short role playing where all the teachers were given a new name and a personality that they had to play out while we were trying to teach our lesson. We had 2 BFF's girls that were sitting in the back talking incessantly. We had the "Good Girl" that wanted to answer all the questions. We had a boy that liked another girl and kept poking her because he didn't know how else to show it. The girl was extremely shy and felt very uncomfortable from his advances. There was a boy with ADHD. There was a boy that was always trying to misbehave so he would get kicked out. It was a great way to start the class and to get the teachers talking and involved.

To transition from one topic to the next we showed this video.... Click here.

The second half of the class consisted of talking about spiritual preparation and making sure we love the kids we are teaching. Most of the information related to that part of the class came from the book "Teaching, No Greater Call." GREAT BOOK.

Made a bookmark with references to things that we talking about so they could refer themselves to the book as needed. There is a front and a back. I cut them about 2 1/2 inches wide by 8 inches long. I glued the paper onto colored cardstock & then laminated them. After they were laminated... I added a hole punch at the top, and a ribbon.

The front of the bookmark has a quote from President James E. Faust.

"The Lord has a great work for each of us to do. You may wonder how this can be. You may feel that there is nothing special or superior about you or our ability.... The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving hte Lord and seeks to improve themselves. This is because God is the ultimate source of power."

 

Here is the printable portion of the bookmark if you wanted to download it and make your own. 

And no church lesson is complete without a treat to go with it.... We think our teachers are DYNAMITE! We told them this... by giving them this little treat.



To make this... take a package of Rolo candy and wrap it up with a piece of red scrapbooking or construction paper. Before sealing the red paper, add a piece of brown embroidery floss or hemp to be the fuse of the dynamite. Then seal it up using some tape, glue or the best option would be the Sticky Strip. Finally add a word strip that says, "Thanks for being a DYNAMITE teacher!"

Click here for the tags to download and print.

This would be a great and simple gift to give to a school teacher as well. I was thinking about making a bunch of wrapped Rolos and putting them all together to make the gift a little more grandeur. Something like this.....

Easter Candy Gift Wrapping

Here are two different ways to dress up some Easter Candy so they can be given away as a gift. I made the little bowls to give out to some kids and the bigger "Sour Cream containers" were used for a teacher gift, but they both utilized the same tag.

The little cups were bought at the Dollar Store (specifically the Dollar Tree). It is a package of 8 or 10 little cups for only a dollar! Great deal. I've used these to organize paper clips and tacks and other small items in Pens/Pencil drawers.

After printing out the little flowers (found below), I punched them out using my Stampin' Up flower punch. Then using a little piece of Gumball Green 3/8" Stitched Satin Ribbon to make some "leaves" I glued them down with some mini glue dots. Finally the whole flower was glued down on the little container. I added a little rhinestone embellishment on there as well... cause we all like a little glitz and glamour. Fill it with candy and give it away!

Here is the second little treat container... this is the classic sour cream container. There is a tutorial over on Splitcoast, click here if you've never made one before. They are super simple to make and so fun to give away.

I started with orange patterned paper and cut it into 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inches. (You can make 4 of these for every 8.5x11 piece of paper.) After rolling up the paper into a tube, and then sealing the bottom edge with Sticky Strip, I took some strips of green paper and scored it using the Stampin' Up simple scored tool then folded it up. There are three strips at the top of each carrot. I filled the tube with candy and then sealed the top edge the opposite direction as the bottom so that it resembles those little sour cream containers.

Finally, a punched out tag, attached with some jute or twine and it is done! Ready to give away.

Here are the flower labels that can be printed and punched out for an easy Spring or Easter tag.

Stampin Up Items can be purchasd on line by clicking here.

Orange You Glad... Birthday Gift

I made this little gift to give away... I've seen tons of variations on Pinterest. I had to mail this gift so I opted for less chocolate and more mailable items.

Super easy and versatile gift that can be made to fit any person. Basically you just have to collect "orange" colored items.

Here's some orange suggestions:

• Orange notebook 
• Orange pen
• Orange tube of Mini M&M's
• Trident gum (Tropical Flavor- with an orange package)
• Orange Crystal Light
• Burt Bees Chapstick
• Orange Nail Polish
• Orange Slices Candy
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or Reese's Pieces
• Kit Kat Candy
• Soda/Drinks (Orange Crush)
• Orange Tic Tacs
• Goldfish
• Cheetos
• An actual real orange
• Orange cup
• Orange Ribbon
• Orange Stickers
• Anything Orange! Walk around and see what Orange things you find.

Then you add a little tag and it's done! Ta dah!

Here's a free printable of the orange tag for a Birthday gift.

And another tag for other gifts... Teacher Gift, Visiting Teacher gift, neighbor gift, just because gift! You can make the gift big or small depending on how much stuff you put into the collection.

 Right click on the image that you want and save it to your computer, then you can print out, cut out and attach it to your gift.

Here's another idea...

It's a plastic mason jar straw cup with a lid (and it even has an orange on the glass itself). I filled it up with a bunch of Orange candy, gum, Tic Tac's & Burt Bee's chapstick. I bought the cup at Wal-mart and after filling it with the orange treasures, I wrapped a ribbon and attached the tag.

Pumpkin Candle Gift

This super sweet gift is perfect for this time of year. Use as a visiting teaching gift and add a lesson to go with it. Teach about how important it is to be a Christian and how much our Heavenly Father loves us. Or give as a neighbor gift/teacher gift. Everyone loves to receive a sweet smelling candle. And any gift is better when there is a sweet thought behind it. One that makes us feel better about who we are.

Here's a close up of the quote.

Here's the printable... Click on the image and then save it. Print it out on a 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and cut it up. Embellish it with a pumpkin sticker or something. You can laminate it and add a magnet to the back so that the recipient of the gift can remember the saying by putting it on their fridge or magnet board.

Add the candle into a cellophane bag, add the magnet quote and tie up the gift with a ribbon.

Flying Monkeys- New Free Halloween Printable

Made another printable. Wanted to share. Halloween is getting close. We're counting down the days here til the candy festival begins.

I've had a bit of theme lately... they all seem to revolve around the Wicked Witch. I think she's adorable. These should be able to print out at 16x20... that's what I created them for or any related size down such as an 8x10 or 4x6.

Free Halloween Download- A Witch, Her Little Monsters, One Handsome Devil

Okay.... I've decided.  I'm coming back. I've been gone away for waaaay too long from my craft blog having babies and doing lots of other stuff... but there has been some thing missing from my life. I miss making things and sharing them up here on my blog. I guess I have still been making things, but I just haven't been able to find the time to document it up here on the blog. It's such a great way to remember all the fun things we do together as a family.

A new thing that I've been dabbling in, has been digital scrapbooking & art. I've made a few Halloween printables and thought it would be fun to share them up here. (free printable no longer available) They should be able to print out at 16x20, but I've only printed them at 8x10. You can also print them at 4x6 if you wanted... (Maybe make them into a card??? I might have to try that one.) Anyways....They're all the same ratio, so it should work.

I made three variations....

All orange.

One that is Gray & Purple.

One that has Orange and Purple.

Happy Halloween!

Edible Image on Cake

For my Grandpa's 80th Birthday we decided to celebrate with a birthday party. It's not every day that you turn 80. I was making a cake for the party and wanted to do something different. I had a picture of my Grandpa when he was younger and serving in the air force. He also worked his career and retired from Disney Studios. I took the picture, scanned it into Photoshop, added some balloons, a Mickey Mouse & some words. I took the picture to our local grocery store, Harmons and in their bakery section they printed the picture out on their edible printer (someday I want to get me one of these). On the left side you see the picture and the frosting edible image on the right. It is an 8x10 image.

You can tell the edible image is not as vivid as the printed picture and it ended up a bit smaller than the 8.5x11 inch image that was printed. 

However it is a great duplication... and went onto the cake nicely. (Check local grocery stores or bakeries for the option to have your image printed cause it makes for a super easy & personalized cake!)

Here is the cake right after I finished decorating. I made a simple chocolate layered cake, covered in a basic white buttercream (had to be a light color so the image would show up). Before I added the blue star border I peeled the image off the backer paper and applied it onto the white background. So easy! Peel & Stick! The edges were super noticeable at first but with time the image blended into the frosting more and more. I didn't really know what I was doing, but it turned out. When they printed the image, there was an ink blur at the bottom and it transferred as well... I should have cut that off. I could have trimmed around the image as well since the cake was bigger than the image and I didn't put the border next to the edge of the image.

I used a large wide open star in blue tinted buttercream for the border.

Grandpa (and Grandma) loved the cake! And that's all that matters. I had bought some camouflage material to use as a tablecloth for our party. The cake cut up nicely when it was time to eat it. I made sure I got a piece with the edible image and it tasted like sugar.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Polaroid Pictures

I found this website that converts any photo that you have into a Polaroid and gives it that old fashioned look including some of the developing imperfections. Click here to get the link to the website. There is a program available for both MAC and PC users.

Preview:
POLADROID generates images the same way that a Polaroid™ would do (Polaroid™-like).
It produces high-definition images (400 dpi) with the real aspect of a Polaroid™ and perfectly suitable for printing.
Using Poladroid is straightforward: just drag and drop any JPEG directly on the icon of Poladroid and wait until the image appears... slowly... very slowly.
POLADROID is an unusual software, completely crazy, which reproduces all the strange behaviors of a popular picture camera with its unique result but... so much copied: the Polaroid!
POLADROID is an addictive software (you’ve been warned!) because it is so easy to use and unexpected:
- square frame
- colour shift
- vignetting
- premature aging
Eventually, you’ll be surprised to discover pictures that were thought to know.

Instalation:
Drag and drop the application in the ‘Applications’ folder.

Usage:
1) Drag and drop one or more JPEG files on the icon of POLADROID.
2) Wait several minutes until the photo gets developed.
Hint: if you want to speed up the process, shake your image from right to left.
3) Once the image is ready, a bell rings and the image is marked up with a red cross.
4) The final file (in JPEG format) will be generated in the same folder than the original image or your ‘Images’ folder, depending on your settings in the pre- ferences. The resulting file name is the original file name with the suffix ‘-pola’ appended.

Specifications:
The resulting images reproduce all imperfections of a real POLAROID photo, such as:
- colour shifting and vignetting
- having to wait to get the result... can you believe this in a fast-running world?
- processing limitation of 10 images in a raw... yes, a Polaroid cardridge only contains 10 films! You’ll have to quit the application and relaunch iit to be able to process 10 more files.
Have fun!

When it is done a red X appears. You can right click on it and it will take you to the high resolution version that has been saved on to your computer! (these settings can be changed -read the manual to see how)

Since it is high resolution this means you can print it out or use it on a digital scrapbook page! How fun is that?

And one last funny Poladroid quirk...you can only "develop" 10 photos before you have to close the program and reopen it - just like a roll of Polaroid film!

Root Beer Reindeer

Here is the gift that the kids helped me make for their teachers as a Christmas present. These are root beer bottles and coke bottles turned into adorable little reindeers. The kids helped me put on the chenille stick (aka pipe cleaner) antlers. Plus they helped me put their collars and nametags on. We decided to make Rudolph special and gave him a bell on his collar. I covered the cardboard pack that the root beer comes in with paper and then printed out a pretty picture for the front and said Merry Christmas on it.

We hot glued on googly eyes and a red pompom for Rudolph and black or brown pompoms for the other 5 reindeer.
Here is a side shot of the reindeer pack. You can see here how there are root beer bottles in front and then we wanted the reindeer in the back to be seen so we took glass bottles of Coke and put them in the back.



Here is a printable so you can print it out and attach it to the front of the root beer bottle box. (click on the image until it is large then save the image and print it out.)

Plus if you click here you can see how to make that cute little red glittery ornament. It's super simple. All you need is a glass ornament, an ink refill and glitter. Another fun little gift idea.