Missing Work...Is This Real Life!??!

I never thought I would say this, but....I actually miss working! I quit my job as a Pre-K teacher in December because I went back to school, and the full-time employee + full-time grad student thing was proving to be way too much for me. I have LOVED mooching off of my parents and not having a job (lol), but next week is spring break for both my school and my practicum site, so I guess I'm just feeling too lazy and like I'm not a valuable member of society...lol! Plus, I miss my co-workers and the kiddos I taught SO much! Am I going back to work? No way! I just wanted to make a crafty tribute to my old job and needed to explain why! ;) So, here are some of the bulletin boards my class and I made at work!


October 2013. The kids painted bowls and drew faces on them. Then, I told the kids we would work as a team to make as many pom pom spiders as we could! They loved it, and it was super easy! They just glued wiggle eyes on different sized pom poms. Then I glued them to the bulletin board and used Tulip Paint to add some legs!



August 2013. Right before they went off to Kindergarten, I had the kids make little books (the kiddo who made the little yellow one at the end was absent on the last day, so I didn't staple it to the board yet). I made the little "bookshelf" out of construction paper...It was a lot of trial and error!! And I attached strings to their books and stapled the string so the books could be looked at but not taken!   



Front of the books

First page of the books

2nd and 3rd pages of the books



My favorite part of the kids' books! I asked them to tell me about themselves. While they talked, I typed up exactly what they said (pretty hilarious!!).



June 2013. For Summer, my class combined with the other Pre-K class, and we became "Pre-K Explorers!" The Kindergarten teacher and I co-taught the class, and she came up with the cute snakes and lizards I think, so I don't really remember exactly how they were made! I made the cactus (paper towel and toilet tube rolls painted green, then stabbed toothpicks into them). The kids loved making the sunset (I just put sky blue bulletin board paper across the table and let the kids finger paint)! And you can't tell from the picture, but the bottom is sandpaper! 



May 2013. The kids got to pick which farm animal they wanted to make and the colors/decorations. It took us forever to get all of them done since they were all different, but I thought it turned out very cute! The bird and chickens were made from toilet paper tubes, feathers, pipe cleaners, and construction paper; the cows were made from paper plates, yarn (for tails), and construction paper; horses were made from plates, paper and yarn; pigs were made from plates, paper, pipe cleaners (for the curly tails), and cut up egg cartons for the noses!



This was November 2012...Ah, these are in no particular order by the way! lol! The kiddos made their squirrels with paper towel tubes, pom poms, pipe cleaner arms, cotton ball tails (which didn't turn out too great!), and I think air drying clay for the heads...Then they each picked one thing they were thankful for, and I wrote them on the little acorns that I made from paper.



Ugh, this picture is so blurry! But I think this was our hallway bulletin board in March 2013. We made the earth with their hand prints (and I let them add some white clouds with their fingers), they decorated paper versions of themselves, then they each wrote down one way they like to help the Earth.



I think this was March 2013? I'm not too sure. I think the kids were supposed to be working on patterns though...lol, but everyone forgets directions when they see chalk and wiggle eyes! ;)



I was pretty proud of these cuties! We had an Easter bonnet parade in 2013, so the kids and I made these chick bonnets with a paper plate (I cut the middle out), a bowl pushed up through the plate, a Styrofoam head, paper grass and beak, and wiggle eyes! They looked even cuter when the kids were wearing them! 



April 2013! I LOVE Easter. It is my absolute favorite holiday, and I LOVED this board!! The kids decorated paper eggs with crayons and/or glitter, and I put brads on them so the top opened up and showed pictures of them! I made the basket by weaving strips of construction paper, free-handed the bunny (with a cotton ball and pipe cleaners for the nose and whiskers), and the kids decorated cupcake liners/clothespins for the butterflies!



February 2013! One of my absolute favorites!! I got the idea off of Pinterest I think. The little frogs held the kids' valentines! The only part I didn't think through was 1.some of them had too many valentines to fit in the frogs, and 2. I took the frogs off of the board on Valentine's Day...so then I had to staple them BACK up so I didn't have an empty board!

One of the frogs before the valentines were added. They're made from tissue boxes, paper plate legs, and popsicle sticks (with paper circles) for toes!



Can you tell I was a little lazy in January 2013? ;) paper plate cars and paper wheels with brads so they could spin.



This was our hallway Xmas 2012 board! The picture cut off the snowmen on the end, but it said, "Pre-K 1 is 'snow' excited for this holiday season!" They were made from tri-folded paper (cut three different lengths), button eyes, pom pom buttons (lol, we used buttons for eyes and didn't use buttons for buttons...hmmm), pipe cleaner arms, popsicle stick noses, and paper hats!



This was our classroom X-mas 2012 board (yes, I had two bulletin boards to do every other month)...I got this idea off of Pinterest I think! I changed a couple things about them (don't even remember what now!), and they were supposed to be Christmas card holders, but we used them as wish list holders instead! (see next picture ;) ) We used paper plates for the body and head, paper legs, pom pom noses, and spork ears!



Don't know why this is sideways, but it is TOO cute!!

This was in our "back to school board" in 2013...you can't tell from this picture, but you could move the owls' wings, and the kids' pictures and names were on their tummies! they're just made with toilet paper tubes and paper (cardstock for the wings!).




So, needless to say, I'm really missing the kiddos and my old job right about now! But! I will be so happy I quit as soon as school starts back up! ;)

'Till next time!
-Sarah 

SICK of the Cold

Here in Texas we have been iced in going on 4 days now. Wow, I am so sick of the cold. Also, I'm sick of the cold/stomach bug I'm assuming I got from Heather over Thanksgiving (thanks a lot, sister!). After over 2 days of literally lying in bed all day every day, only getting up for the occasional bathroom break, I decided to be productive today! SO since I haven't updated in way too long, here's an update! :)

Things have been..........crazy. And that's putting it lightly. There hasn't been a lot of time for crafting, BUT the crafting we have done has been put to good use! Here are pictures! I'll start with the oldest :)

 Halloween 2012
Heather and I actually took the time to decorate our house in Halloween 2012 for a mini Halloween party! Here are some of the things we made for it...


Time consuming but easy, and I think it turned out pretty cute!



I LOVE this candy bucket Heather and I made. You can't see all of it too well in this picture, but it says "Witch's Brew" and it's written on top of a broom!

 Baby Shower 2013

Our cousin Jessica had a baby shower in spring of this year, so we made her sweet girl a few things! We will finally get to meet her this Christmas and I can't wait!!!


Our cousin's favorite princess growing up was Cinderella, so we made this for her daughter (Riley). The picture was taken with my phone and is horrible, and we did move the wired flowers around before actually giving it to her! lol!

          Heather made this bow, and I thought it was just so stinkin' precious!

What little girl doesn't want a tutu!?

Riley's daddy is in the military, so what better way to honor him than to add camo ribbon to a girly bow? ;)

Our aunt let us know the style Jessica wanted to decorate the nursery,
 so we made a memo board to match!

Heather's Wedding 2013

Heather got married to her long-time boyfriend in June! I have WAY more pictures of homemade things that we (and our mom!) did for the wedding/shower/bachelorette party, but the pictures are on my camera, and I don't have it with me :(

It's blurry, but I made these invitations for the shower!

And I made these invitations for the bachelorette party!

We made "sweating for the wedding" shirts to wear during our workouts in the months before the wedding! I don't have a picture of mine or my friend Brittany's, but all three of us made them!

Heather decided to do a broach bouquet, and she spent so much time on it! I think every minute was worth it--
it's beautiful!

Here is a picture of all of the bridesmaids and Heather and our broach bouquets!

Chase's 3rd Birthday

My favorite little boy had his 3rd birthday party in July!


Brittany and I made the banner, Brittany made the adorable little candy trains in the right corner, and her friend made the cute little cake and cupcakes!

Brittany's Wedding 2013

Three months after Heather's wedding, my BFF, Brittany got married! I have a few more pictures of things we did for her wedding too, but they're not with me! I think this was both of our most proud piece of art though...  

It's blurry, but isn't this card box absolutely gorgeous!? We painstakingly put tiny rhinestones, one by one, on the damask print. One of her friends said, "It's beautiful, but no one is going to realize that you did all of that! They'll think you bought it like that!" We said, "Oh well, it's beautiful!" lol!

And coming soon...Our cousin Christen is getting married, too! (all three of my best friends got married within 7 months of each other--how crazy is that!?! I LOVE it!) So, I'm sure I will have some more pictures to show after her wedding!

Since that is all I can find of the most recent homemade things, that's all I'm going to post! Hope you enjoyed it and.....

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

 -Sarah

A Peek Inside Our Craft Room!

A little over a year ago, Heather and I decided we wanted to live closer to her school and my work, so we moved out of our parents' house and into our own place. We both figured living together would be a pretty smart move because our work and school were close and let's be honest, aside from a few punches to the arm and kicks to the face (true story), the 22 years we've lived together have been pretty calm and free of serious violence or drama ;).

So when we started our search for a place, we were looking at very small (cheap) two bedroom apartments. Then, our mom told us that we would have to move all of our craft supplies out of her house...that changed everything. We knew we would have to have a third room to house all of our precious stuff (and believe me, I'm NOT complaining about that! ;) ). 

We completely lucked out. We found an awesome house for rent, in a perfect location, with the most flexible and understanding landlords. And the second we saw the third bedroom, we both knew it was meant to be. It looked like it was already set up for a craft room!

So here are some pictures of our craft room--my favorite room ever. 

This is what you see right when you walk in the door...our tutu lamp! My goal is for the entire lamp to be tutus! And you can see Scamper in her Barbie shirt at the bottom of the picture ;)

Right next to our tutu lamp we have shoe storage door hangers on each closet door. In those we conveniently have strips of tulle cut to the different lengths we make our tutus (Ah, this is confirming that we are official NERDS! lol!)

In between the doors, we have pegboard with the things we use most often at the top. And then we added some cute unopened knick knacks we didn't have any other place for...mainly to make us feel like we were shopping when picking things out ;)

These shelves were perfect for all of our scrapbooking/stamping/etc. supplies! Like I said, I think this room was meant to be a craft room!

This purple drawer set fits perfectly underneath our shelves...again, meant to be a craft room! It's probably one of my favorite things in our room because it holds all of my Cricut stuff...I take all of the booklets out of the Cricut cases because I think it makes it easier to look through them quickly for ideas!

When we first moved in, we thought this one badly painted purple wall (well, not even wall, just a section of the wall!) was totally weird and ugly...BUT then we realized it was the perfect length for ribbon holders! As you can see, we don't always roll the ribbons all the way up when we're finished...don't judge.

Heather had this idea of using magnet boards and magnetic canisters from Ikea to put all of our brads and other opened knick knacks in directly above our work space. This way, we can see little embellishments that we can add to projects that otherwise we probably would have forgotten we had!

This fits perfectly underneath the table we work at, which is great because it holds all the main things we need for anything, like cutting tools, adhesives, writing tools, glitter, and buttons!

This is my favorite of those drawers...no explanation needed ;)

One more of my favorite storage ideas that we came up with...

It's hard to see, but we used one of the under the bed long drawers and hot glued plastic in it to create drawer dividers for all of our pretty flowers!

And our craft room wouldn't be complete without...

 

Sister pictures!...and a ballerina pig! 

Sadly, we didn't make these cute frames...they came from Hobby Lobby!



So that is our craft room (or the majority of it anyway!)! I hope y'all enjoyed it!

Have a fun and happy Easter, and don't forget why we celebrate!

-Sarah



Chase Lee

I don't have much time to write, but I've been meaning to make this blog for almost two weeks now and have about 30 minutes of down time now, so no better time, right?

First, a mini back story...

In 2004, I started high school. I had a total of three friends at this time (I've always been Ms. Popular as you can see! ;) ). I became inseparable with two of these friends, talking with them on the phone when we weren't at school together, writing their break-up letters for them to send to soon-to-be ex-boyfriends (lol! Sad, but true), etc.

I'm still best friends with both of these girls and love them to death!! But, little did we know at the time, one of these friends and I would both move to the same town!

Then, on July 1, 2010, this friend (Brittany) had a tiny and adorable baby boy.

And his name was Chase Lee.

Almost two weeks ago, Chase had his second birthday party, and I was honored to make his choo choo birthday cake! And now, I've finally come to the whole point of this blog...lol, got a little sidetracked with my life story!

Here are some pictures of the cake I made! It was my first time carving a cake and covering it with fondant, so be forgiving, please! Click on the pictures to see the whole thing...as always!

Chase loved looking at it...or he just realllly wanted to play with the toy train I put on it!

So, here are some pictures of the big birthday boy!!! Love him soo much!

This is my favorite! He was making this face after his mommy lit the candles on his cake! He's a crack up even at two years old! ;)

Well, this short blog is not so short anymore, so I'll stop writing now!

'till next time,
Sarah