Chalkboard Labels

I made some chalkboard labels for my craft room and this is how I did it:

I bought these cheap little wooden frames at Michael's.  

 I spray painted them light blue to match my room.

 I took a scrap of fabric and tied it around the top of the frame.

Then I spray painted a piece of thin cardboard with black chalkboard paint and hot glued the painted cardboard behind the wooden frame.
 

 Finally, I hot glued the fabric ties to my baskets and I can write on the labels with chalk.

Done and done.

Maralyn's Quilt

My adorable friend Maralyn had a baby boy a few months ago named Rhett (isn't that a fabulous name?!?) and I finally finished the activity blanket that I had been making for him.  I bought the pattern at a quilt shop, so I can't post a tutorial for it, but I can say that the pattern was very simple and a lot of fun to make.  Here are some pics:

Spring Banner

I'm loving all the cute banners on pinterest lately and all the fun spring crafts!  I decided to update my mantle with a fresh look for spring, so I made this banner.

The first thing I did was cut out the circles and letters on my Silhouette.  I cut out 5.5 inch circles in a bunch of different shades of orange and blue.  I also cut out a scalloped circle in white from the stock library and letters to spell the word "spring." 

By the way, I love how you can see my bright pink old lady slipper socks in this picture.  I'm sure I was also wearing sweat pants and some old t-shirt that used to belong to my brothers while doing this.  Classy.  Anyway, what I did next was cut strips of brown butcher paper to make the backing.  The strips were 8 inches wide and 24 inches tall.  I folded the paper back and forth in one inch folds to make a little accordion strip.

Then I smushed the accordion together and wrapped a little twisty tie around the center.  It ended up looking like a bow tie.

I spread out the folds and taped the edges together with some clear tape so that it made one big circle.

I kind of had to fuss with it to make a nice, even circle.  There were some parts where my folding got a little wonky and so I also trimmed up the edges so that they would be nice and even.

Finally, I took a glue gun and glued the colored circle onto the butcher paper backing.  I only had to use a little glue to secure it.

And then I threaded some twine through the butcher paper and strung up the letters to make my banner.

I spray painted a few things that were already on my mantle a pretty robin's egg blue and covered a few ugly looking books with some spring-y paper to brighten things up a little.  I also took a branch of fake flowers and wove it into my fireplace grate, then tied a ribbon at the bottom to hold it all in place.  It still needs some work, but we are definitely on the way to a crafty little springtime cottage.

New Year's Resolutions

Here is an actual picture of one of my student's new years resolutions:

It would be even funnier if you knew this kid—he walks around with a black shirt around his neck, which, whenever I'm not looking, he pulls over his head so his eyes are peeking out the neck hole and ties the sleeves behind so he actually does look like a ninja. A ninja wearing an angry birds shirt who cannot stop giggling .

Create Banner Tutorial

So I am avoiding grading papers, once again.  It's the week after spring break and it has been much more difficult to get back into the swing of things after spending an amazing week in the Bahamas.  I feel guilty crafting, so instead I'm only blogging about crafting, which should take much less time away from actual work.  However, the process is going more slowly than I anticipated thanks to my cute little cat Brother who thinks it's helpful to sit on my hands while I type. 

Basically, here's the banner that I made.  I purchased some banner templates at the Silhouette store online and resized them to about 12 inches tall.  Then I cut out the different layers of cardstock with my machine and glued them together. 

 

I ran a piece of twine through the holes at the top.

 

I cut strips of scrap fabric about 1 inch by 4 inches long.

 I tied the fabric strips onto the twine--this held the paper in place so it didn't slide down the twine and overlap when it was hanging.

Finally, I hung up my banner in my craft studio.  (I just decided last week to start referring to this repurposed second bedroom as a "studio."  I think it sounds much more sophisticated.)

The most difficult part of this whole process was trying to figure out what word to write on my banner without sounding too cheesy.  I mean honestly, what would you put on the banner?  After deciding against expressions like "Inspire" and, my husband's personal favorite, "Dare to Dream," I went with the more simple verb, "Create."  

What I wouldn't give to be in that room right now, swooning over Damon while watching past seasons of The Vampire Diaries, sewing, and eating Jello instead of grading a million boring algebra papers.  Sigh.  Back to work. 

Birdhouses with Birds

I made these birdhouses to decorate my craft room.  First, I bought these yellow birdhouses at Ross for about $15 each.  Then I put some fake flowers and fake little vines that I got at Micheals for a huge discount. 

On my Cameo Silhouette, I cut out two birds (from the standard free library that comes with the software) and then also cut mirror images of them.

I glued them wrong sides together to make 2 birds.

I used some string to hang the birds from the top of the cages.  They will flutter around when the ac comes on.

Sewing Stuff

So, I'm taking this rather expensive class on how to make a bag with my friend.  It's a really complicated Amy Butler Weekender Bag and I have purchased over $100 worth of materials I have never heard of before (to be fair, some of these materials were actually repurchases of stuff that I messed up the first time, so the bag shouldn't actually be that expensive if you decide to make it yourself, since you are probably not too impatient to read patterns correctly, like I frequently am). 

Last Monday, I will admit, my friend and I were not the class superstars.  We didn't complete our sewing homework on time and the teacher had to repeat and re-model each step for me about seven times.  You might say that this caused me to gain a better sense of empathy for those students in my own classroom who also love to make me insane struggle to understand. 

Anyway, this week, I am going in strong and determined not to be the *cringe* "slow kid."  For starters, I have completed my sewing homework (fortunately, the teacher only trusted us to complete the very simplest task imaginable so I did it in, like, 5 minutes) and then organized everything into labeled plastic baggies.  But here's the real kicker--I went to a sewing class with my mom a couple of weeks ago and I noticed that the hardcore people all had these really awesome (and almost wholly unnecessary) handmade sewing accessories.  So I found some patterns from a few places and made my own things and you better believe I am going to look like da business when I come strolling in with, like, six bags of handmade sewing accessories.  "Yeah, check out this portable quilted thread catcher.  It's for catching threads.  This whole giant bag is only for catching threads.  You may think it's unnecessary, but that's only because you may not sew very much.  If you were a hardcore sewer seamstress like me, you would definitely need this thread catcher.  That's right, I am awesome."

Presidential Pictures

My kids did some reports on the presidents of the United States and I thought it is always a great idea for us to brush up on our American history, so here are some pics:

 

Valentine's Day Decor

Taylor got me a Cameo Silhouette for Christmas and I have been making stuff with it nonstop.  I have been spending way too much time looking at cute things more creative people have been doing on Pinterest, and I started to think that maybe I could do some of that, too.  So here are my latest attempts to decorate for Valentine's Day.

I made the "be mine" thing really easily.  I took an old frame I had and covered the picture inside with some scrap paper.  Then I cut out the letters using some yellowed pages from a book I bought at the thrift store.  Unfortunately, the book is all about renal physiology, so the words "excretion" and "urine" appear all over my final product, dampening the intended romantic effect.  Not my strongest work.  I made those little flowers using pages from that aforementioned gem of a book and the tutorial located here.

The hearts picture was made with hearts cut from pages of, you guessed it, good ol' Renal Physiology.  I folded them in half and hot glued them down the center to some old canvas I had so they looked kinda fluttery. 

I realize that Valentine's Day was a long time ago.  I had written this a few weeks ago, but couldn't figure out how to turn my pictures sideways so that this post didn't look so silly.  But I never did figure out how to do that and so now this post still looks silly AND is untimely.  But I worked semi-hard on it and we all know how terrible I am at posting things so I decided to just post it anyway.

Valentine's Art

Here's some more Valentine's "art."  I found some cool frames from various stores and the back of my closet and painted them silver a while ago.  I decided to switch out the pictures in them with some holiday-appropriate artwork.

I started with some pages of an old textbook entitled "Physical Education in the Elementary School" from 1951 that I found at the thrift store.  I used pages that had these great songs on them, like "Hot Cross Buns" and "Push the Business On" and "Gustaf's Skoal."  Don't you remember singing these in your PE class?  Classics.

I glued a stencil heart on the top of the music and popped it into a frame.  I mixed up these frames with ones filled with black and white pictures and put them on the wall.  Here's the finished look: