Teacher Appreciation Week

Teacher Appreciation Week is May 2nd-6th and National Teacher Appreciation Day is May 3rd.

What are you doing to tell the teachers in your life "Thanks"?

Personally, I feel quite indebted to the remarkable educators who spend so much time with my daughter each day helping her to reach those milestones and develop into the little smarty pants she has become!

Although she is a little behind other children her age, I see the improvement that they are making almost daily. For instance, today she sang me a little song about her vowels. I didn't know she knew what they were, let alone memorized a cute little ditty about them!

We have several wonderful people on our "team". Of course her classroom teacher is high on my list, but there are other specialists that play a huge role in her education, like the speech-language pathologist, occupational therapist, special education teacher (also called the resource teacher), and the nurse. She also has a very nice and helpful bus attendant and bus driver, since she rides the "special" bus.

Needless to say, I will be giving them all a great big "Thank You" this week! I have something pretty cute in mind for her classroom teacher, which I'll share with you in a few days. But for everyone else, I'll be giving them these adorable Candy Pencil Thank You's!

They are for sale in my ETSY shop for a limited time! So why not click on over there and get some to show appreciation to the educators in your life?!! At only $3.00 a piece, it's a very inexpensive way to say "Thanks"! Plus they're just so dang cute! I had to have a little photo shoot to show off their cuteness!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Valentines Day!

Today is EmmaLee's last day at her old school. I figured it would be nice for her to attend the Valentines Day Party that they are having with the kids she has gotten to know there, rather than throw her into a brand new school with lots of unfamiliar faces on this holiday.

I really wanted to make her teachers some kind of appreciation gifts, but with the packing and moving and all our stuff being in boxes, I ran out of time. So when I saw these adorable pencil valentines I thought that would be a perfect "teacher" gift to give to all the staff that has helped her this year.

 Coming up with some catchy sayings for them was harder than you would think! I only came up with 4, and out of them I really only like the two that have "write" and "No. 2" on them.

 I made up these Valentine Cards to tie onto the pencils in Photoshop. Love that program.

 On the back of the card is a place for EmmaLee to write her name.

Thanks for looking! I know Valentines Day is now over but these would be great teacher gifts anytime of year so if you want the file for the Cards, leave me a comment with your email and I will send the PDF file to you. Or feel free to save the pictures below for your own PERSONAL use. Thanks!

Picture Spinners

It's Christmas!!

Well, not really... but for some of our family in Utah it is, because they just received their Christmas package that we sent Dec. 19th. So, for almost two months the Post Office has been sitting on our package, they claim they had no idea where it was but from what I was told it looked like something had been spilled onto the box and had a huge HAZMAT sticker on it so that's probably why it was being held. We better be able to get our money back! We paid $50 to get it there in 2-4 days (Priority Mail) and they obviously didn't do what we paid for, so we want a refund!!

Anyways, now I'm super excited to show you what we made for our Christmas Gifts this year!!! We're calling them Picture Spinners....

  

The blocks are threaded onto a dowel and spaced by wooden beads. You can spin them individually, which is pretty cool! Giving proper credit: My husband came up with this design totally on his own. Pretty creative guy I've got myself huh!

So what do you think? They weren't that hard to make, it's just a 4x4 cut into blocks. We drilled through the blocks, and beads (that part was tough!), bought a wooden plaque and dowel, painted it all and assembled it with our pictures mod podged onto it. 

But you know how the first time you make something you always seem to do things the hard way and then you figure out some trick that would have made your life easier after you've already spent hours doing it?? That was us.

We didn't make one for ourselves or one other grandparent, so I am definitely going to make more. And this time it will be much easier. Actually, a friend of mine has talked me into teaching a craft night once we are all settled into our new home and showing some gals how to make them. It will be fun!

Little Lamb Baby Shower

I think this theme is so sweet! Can you just picture how cute a baby's nursery would be all decorated up like this!?!  Here's all the pics on my latest baby shower.

Well, I made these up in Photoshop but I couldn't decide which color combination I liked best..... so I printed up and sent out some of all three!

BTW, the lamb image is actually from the Cricut Cartridge- Paper Doll Dress Up. It's an accessory to the nativity paper dolls. It's so darn cute though right?!!

This is the "Little Lamb" Diaper Cake I made. I put fences and tufts of grass throughout it and lambs sticking up here and there.

There are borders of grass around the fabric of each layer then wrapped with coordinating ribbon. I also have little silk rosettes tucked in by the fences.

I made a spring for the Large Lamb on top to sway back and forth on. It looks like he's jumping over the fence! It turned out so cute! I was really happy with it! The trees are a nice touch too I think.

I threw this baby shower for my friend Janean who was there with me when I tackled my first Diaper Cake and Carriages, so I thought she would really appreciate it if I made them for her too! Here I have the lambs all tucked in with their hands/feet sticking out! Okay- obviously they aren't hands and feet, what are they called? Hoofs? Hooves? I mistakenly called them paws on one occasion! :-) Hee Hee!

I made some ruffled crepe paper streamers with my cool new ruffle foot attachment for my sewing machine! It also made making the ruffle bum onesies I have done a few of SO EASY!!!

The Baby's Name Banner and "Its A Girl" Banner.

This is the table set up in the entryway at the baby shower. Has Guest Book, Guessing Game, and Party Favors displayed on it.

I made the Guest Book like a mini scrapbook. Each guest wrote a note on a small scrapbook page that I inserted into the album.

 Guest Book Front Cover. Back cover is an extra Invitation (not shown).

 I set up a little guessing game on the front table. It wasn't really planned out, I just ended up with a lot of extra marshmallows after filling the party favor bags, and had an extra tree and grass pieces left over from the Diaper Cake, so the idea was born.

How many do you think is in there? Someone at the Baby Shower actually guessed one number away from it!

 These little guys are note/picture holders. They each have two clothespins glued onto the back of them.

These were the party favor bags. Honestly, I don't know who eats marshmallows plain for a little snack, but I couldn't resist the fluffy sheep-like texture so I did it anyway. Wait- what am I talking about?!! Aren't Marshmallow Pops all the rage now?!!  :-)  I started with white marshmallows, but they just weren't as cute as I pictured in my head, I think the pastel ones turned out really nice.

The little bags are cut out from my Tags, Bags, Boxes, and More Cricut cartridge. They ended up being about 3 1/2 inches tall after cutting the zig-zag top and folding down. That's the same lamb from PPDU Cartridge again, and the "Thank You" is a stamp.

The Fuzzy Sock Cupcakes I made to give as game prizes. They have a little red button on top, which is hard to see...

There was a pretty clever game I had never heard of before, which was surprisingly difficult! What they did was hand out a blank sheet of paper to each person and you had one minute to rip out some kind of shape that has to do with babies....BUT you had to do it behind your back! Seriously it was hard! You know me, as perfect as I always try to make things, mine was BY FAR the WORST!! Some people did really great little tear out babies and dolls, binkis, etc. I was trying to make a rattle, and ended up with something resembling a bra! Melissa was pretty clever and left it a rectangle as a baby wipe! Ha!

Okay back to the party, so Janean has Celiac's which is a gluten allergy, and we made sure that everything at the party she could eat. That meant a lot of fresh fruit and veggies, some cheeses and gluten-free crackers, and a few gluten-free desserts (from box mixes). My friend Ashleen (from Alaskan Baby Shower) made all the food for the shower, it was delicious and so pretty!

She made some yummy little cakes that she decorated with pink sparkling sugar and a stencil I cut for her on my Cricut to match everything with the same lamb design.

I made some napkin rings and decorated some cups...

And of course, I made her a mobile with cute little lambs and 3-D flowers.

I love the view from below!

Lastly, I decorated a clear box from Michaels to match all the Baby Shower decor and filled it with the Ruffle Bum Onesie, and two Stretchy Headbands with Flower Clips.

And here's me. Hope you liked my all my fun Party Ideas! Thanks for stopping by!

Oh- I also set up a facebook page for my Party Planning stuff. Check it out and "Like" me for lots of updates on parties and ideas and such!