I'm a guest designer for We R Memory Keepers!

With the back to school routine in full swing, I was thrilled to have the chance to be a guest designer for We R Memory Keepers, using their fun new Hall Pass collection.  I was lucky enough to be a teaching assistant at CHA Chicago and got a sneak peak at this collection during the "Tool School" class.  The colors are so fun and fresh and are perfect for my boy pages!  I dug thru a stack of dusty photos and found these back to school pics from three years ago that were still waiting to be scrapped (yikes....I'm a little behind).  This collection was the perfect match for my photos!  The embossed tags and stickers have great texture and the papers are slightly distressed, adding lots of character!

 

In addition to my layout, I decided to get a jump start on the holidays and I created this altered clipboard that will be the perfect gift for my son's teacher. I simply cut out some of my favorite patterned papers and adhered them to a wooden clipboard with a thin layer of matte mod podge.  I added a die cut sticker across the seam, personalized it with some die cut letters, and sealed the whole project with another layer of mod podge.   It was super fun and super cute.  I think Mrs. Miller will love it!

 



Thanks to We R Memory Keepers for giving me the opportunity to be a guest designer and for letting me show off this wonderful collection!  Check out the rest of their great products and find out where to purchase them HERE!

If you're visiting my blog for the first time, I'd love for you to stick around and become a "follower" by clicking on the link in the sidebar.  I'm planning a blog giveaway next month to show my appreciation for my faithful followers.  Thanks for stopping by!

Back to School Teacher Gifts

It's that time again!  School starts for my kiddos in less than two weeks.  I love to start off the year by sending in a gift for the teacher.  For my son's second grade teacher, I decided to create a "survival kit" filled with fun goodies for his new teacher.  I started with a plastic hardware organizer with removable dividers. 

I filled the individual sections with a variety of school supplies and items the teacher might need throughout the year.  I raided the dollar section at Target for back to school goodies.  To make sure the items I was shopping for would fit in my box, I carried one of the extra divider pieces with me in my purse.  I was able to hold the divider piece up to items in the store to see if they would fit inside the space.  From top to bottom, left to right the box includes pencils, rubber bands, small post-it notes, glue sticks, wooden stamps, hand sanitizer, pencil top erasers, a roll of reward stickers, star shaped erasers, bookmarks, vitamin C drops, a variety of chocolates, and a bottle of Tylenol for good measure.

For the finishing touch, I decorated the top of the box using scrapbooking supplies and ribbon.  Now we're ready for 2nd grade!

I struggled with gift ideas for my 5th grader's male teacher, so we decided to recreate a gift we did last year for the 4th grade teacher.  There are lots of melted crayon art ideas on Pinterest, and this gift was a huge hit last year, so we figured we couldn't go wrong.  For this project, you'll need a blank canvas, some crayons with the paper wrappers removed, an old pencil or stick to use as a plunger, and a glue gun that you never want to put glue in again.  After tediously peeling tiny pieces of paper off of crayons last year, I learned that the quickest way to remove the wrapper is to slice down the length of the crayon with a craft knife, allowing the wrapper to be peeled off easily.

I propped up my canvas at a slight angle with scrap paper taped behind it and on the floor underneath.

I started with red, going in ROYGBIV order, shoving the crayon into the business end of a hot glue gun and letting it melt onto my canvas.  The "trigger" mechanism doesn't actually work to feed the crayon through the gun, so I push the crayon through by hand and use a pencil to push it through once the crayon gets shorter.  I tried to take photos of this process, but I just didn't have enough hands.  The melted crayon shoots out all over the place and is sometimes hard to control, so you may want to practice this technique ahead of time.  When switching colors, it is also necessary to squirt out the muddled mess of mixed colors on a scrap paper and wait until the new color is flowing out before going back to the canvas.   Thanks to some crazy lighting, the colors aren't coming out well in my photos, making the purple color at the end look more like black.  You'll just have to take my word for it and use your imagination.

I ended up using a pencil and the handle of a paint brush to push the colors through.  Lots of extra wax will drip out from the gun, so use caution with the hot wax.  This is why you'll need to use an old glue gun or one that you will dedicate to melted crayons from here on out.  Your gun will literally be a hot mess when you're finished, but some of the dried crayon drips can be peeled off.

To finish off this project, I personalized the canvas with die-cut letters spelling out the teacher's name.  Now we're officially ready for the start of school!

Thanks for stopping by!  I'd love to hear about more fun ideas for teacher gifts. 

Thank you for teachers!

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week.  If I were to pick another profession, I think I would probably pursue teaching (that is, if I actually had more patience!)  I've helped out in the classroom on my days off, and I have a whole new appreciation for what those teachers have to do each day.  It's a tough job made even tougher thanks to children who are becoming less respectful and more entitled.  I am also saddened by the lack of parental involvement and support for the schools.  Even though I work full time, I still find time to be "present" for school functions, special events, etc.   I truly appreciate teachers year round, but in honor of "their week" I decided to do something special for each of my kids' teachers. 

While I was tasked with baking 10 dozen cookies for the elementary school, I decided to make a few more to do individual gifts for my boys' teachers.  Inspired by something I saw on Pinterest, I started with glass jars that I picked up at Walmart for $3.50.  I decorated them with some fun school themed papers (by Simple Stories and Imaginisce) and added a cute little tag thanking the teacher for helping my son become "one smart COOKIE".  I used spray adhesive to attach the paper to the jar and tied the tag on with a ribbon.  Finally, I filled the jars with 2 dozen of my homemade chocolate chip cookies, ready to be delivered to the school.  Instead of risking a ride on the school bus, I think I'm going to drive my kids to school today just to make sure these make it in one piece.  Thanks for looking and don't forget to thank a teacher!

hello world!

This week the Koets family was blessed with it's first baby girl.  Mike and Tanya were blessed to be chosen as adoptive parents for this sweet little thing and they were able to participate and be included in her birth.  Lela Ray is now in her "forever home" and is such a wonderful addition to all of the boys that have traditionally ruled the Koets home.  I think it's high time to add some girly touches to our family and I decided to welcome her home with a scrapbook page.

My plan is to put it in a white shadowbox frame, but I gave it to her parents as is until I get a chance to get a frame.  We had so much fun snuggling and loving on our little blessing for the first time.  My hands smelled like "baby" for several hours after our visit and I caught myself sniffing them throughout the evening.  The boys think it's great to have another cousin. And they don't mind at all that she's a girl!

DIY Valentines

This year I decided to skip the cheesy little store bought Valentines we've always relied on.  Inspired by Pinterest, I set out to create some simple Valentines for my first grader.  I started by taking a photo of Caleb with his arm outstretched.  In order to avoid getting lots of other stuff in the background, I stood on his bed and took the photo looking down on him.

Then I used free photo editing software to add a red border, lots of hearts, and our personalized greeting.

Once I was happy with the design, I ordered 25 of these prints from Walmart.com and picked them up the next day.   I used a craft knife to make slits at the top and bottom of his outstretched fist and then threaded a sweet treat through his hand to complete the project.  We tried blow pops and pixy stix.

I liked the look of both of them, but ultimately settled on Pixy Stix because they were lighter and cheaper!  I especially loved that I didn't have to spend hours helping my first grader squeeze his classmates' names on those cheap little foldover cards.  And I'm even more excited to get these finished with a week to spare!  Thanks for looking!

Back to School

It's that time of year again!  Back to school means lots of organizing, scheduling, and planning.  I love to make back to school gifts for the kids' teachers.  They really do have an important job.  I know how difficult my own children can be sometimes and I can only imagine how difficult it is in a room with 20 of them.  I try to send in random tokens of appreciation throughout the year just so they know they are appreciated.   I'm a big fan of the altered paint cans, so I created a school themed can for my son's 1st grade teacher.  I filled it with goodies from Target's dollar bin: stickers, book marks, post its, stamps, ink, hand sanitizer, etc.  And this year my 4th grader has a male teacher.  I wasn't sure what to do for him so I searched Pinterest for something cool.  I found an image of crayons melted thru a glue gun.  And since I just happen to have an old glue gun, a slightly stained artist canvas, and a bucket full of random crayons sitting in my basement,  I decided to give it a try.  I put the "dirty" end of the canvas at the top so it would be covered by wax and no one would be the wiser.  Then I peeled crayons and shoved them into the business end of my glue gun.  The crayons weren't exactly the same size as glue sticks, so the trigger wouldn't feed them thru.  So I shoved them thru by hand and used a pencil as a plunger when I got down towards the end.  The project was messy, but I deemed it a success.  I added the teacher's name with Thickers and wrapped it all up in bubble wrap to keep it from breaking on the way to school.  Both presents were a huge success!