Finnishing Touches

 I love old books.  I have an old book obsession.  These two pictures have some of my books but not the "old" ones.  When my Dad's Aunt Deedee passed away he was able to inherit some of her amazing things.  My favorites are the 110 year old wicker furniture set (that now sits on my back porch) and her book collection.  I love these old books and have tried to use as many as I can throughout the house.  Sadly I don't have room for them all and half of the collection is up in the attic. 

Yes, I know "the work and the glory" isn't old but it's colorful and I love color.

 Tom got me this clock for my birthday this year.  

I have several throughout the house (most don't work) but this one is perfect for over the piano.♥

 These are some of my favorite pictures in the whole house.  

The frames I got at Kirkland Home for $11., took the art out that they had in them, spray painted them and added our family pictures. 

 My Dad had an apple collection that my brother got.  So I started my own apple collection.  I haven't added to it because I think more than three would be a little much. (wink) The red apple was my Great Grandma's and has a hidden surprise inside.  I'll do a post on that later.

 I remember my Mom making these frames when I was in Jr. High.  She searched for just the right picture of my brothers and I for each frame.  When she passed away I just has to have them.  Whenever I see these it reminds me of her and how much she loved each one of us.

 Here's a great idea!  Bronze a child's shoe with.....bronze spray paint!  This is Cassidy's 3 yr old shoe that her pre-school teacher "bronzed" for a Mother's Day gift.  She then had the kids plant a flower in a plastic cup and stick in the shoe.  So Cute!  I have this on the little white desk as a memento.

I have to have a "spot" for the "stuff".  Backpacks, shoes, jackets, random toys I find on the floor.  I fully believe in corralling the "stuff" in one spot so it can be easily picked up and put away by the small ones (kids).
Plus, it's a lot easier to say to the small ones "GO LOOK ON THE HOOK!"when they say "where is my backpack/jacket/shoes/purse?"

Questions:
Do you have a "spot" for all the STUFF?
What's your favorite heirloom thing to collect?
Have you ever really bronzed a child's shoe?

One More Day........

Until schools out for the summer!

Today was another crazy day.  I had high hopes of getting my teacher gift ideas posted but it's not going to happen.  Sorry about that.  Hopefully most of my blog readers have another week or more of school left.  I'll post ideas and pictures tomorrow.  For now here's a link to a cute blog that featured me and has tons of Teacher Gift Ideas:
It's A Girl Thing
A Very Blessed Nest
Mary The Kay The Blog
and here's some free Graduation Gift Tags:
Restorative Living


Check back this week and I will post my:
Teacher gift ideas/projects
Disneyland Secret Tips and Tricks
How To Make Liquid Laundry Soap for $.03 - yes three CENTS a load which = $13 for a whole year!!!
and possibly.....Disneyland pictures which I'm sure you are holding your breath for!

Another crazy day, another late night....I'm off to bed.
Night
xoxo

Teacher Gift Ideas

Right now I am in the middle of planning a going away party for Amberly's amazing teacher's aide and planning my end-of-the-year teacher gifts for Cassidy and Amberly's teachers.

I am the room Mom for Amberly's class and next week we are having a party for the aide, pizza, drinks and cookies.  Each child is bringing in a new or used book for her soon-to-be-classroom-library and $5 for the pizza and gift.  I'm going to go and get gift cards for her to use next year when (and if) she has her own classroom.
I'm hoping it will look something like this:  From HERE

The girls over at 2 Clever Blog always have something amazing going on and they are cute and funny too!  I have gotten a lot of great ideas from them and I promise - I always give them the credit!

Anyway, I thought I would share what I have done in the past and which I hope to do again this year.
I already have in the works for Amberly's teacher the 101 Things We Love And Will Miss About You gift.  You can read all about it HERE.  It's the best teacher gift I have ever seen! (1st photo-Cassidy's 2nd grade teacher gift - 2nd photo Amberly's kindergarten teacher gift)

We also make a t-shirt for the girls to wear to school on the last day.  They love having their friends sign it and then they get to wear it to bed at night and feel the love of their friends and remember what a fun year they had.  You can read about that post HERE  (I wish I knew how to re-post a post so you didn't have to keep clicking off this page!)  And yes...that IS a picture of Cassidy surfing on a surfboard!

Here's what I did last year for the girls in the front office at school, the school nurse, the cutest bus driver ever and all the aides, helpers and Principal.  

Cassidy's teacher this year is such a DOLL I want to do something extra special for her.  I'm not the room Mom so I'm not even going to attempt to to the $$$ idea.  She loves gum so I'm trying to come up with some cute gift that has TONS of gum in it.  And not gumballs, real minty gum!  Any ideas for me friends?

Here's a link with cute sayings and gift ideas: skip to my lou

I guess that's it for now.  After trying to find all my old posts I have realized that I need to organize my labels really, really badly.  Seriously, I almost gave up on this post.  And I'm sure there are more ideas but...I can't find them.  Sorry about that. 

For now - I'm going to bed!  I'm so tired♥

101 Things We Love - Teacher Gift

O.K. I did it. 
I made Kristy's unbelievable teacher gift.

101 Things we love and will miss about Mrs. Workman

From the class of 2007

Spectrum Elementary

And I must say Cassidy's teacher did say, "unbelievable!" It was so easy to make with Kristy's detailed instructions and I had a lot of fun as well. It was definitely a labor of love for which I enjoyed.

When I got into the classroom to give her the gift she was calling each child up and telling the whole class what she loves and will miss about them. Is that not perfect? Some of the Mom's came and we all had a good cry. The kids probably thought we were nuts but it was a nice moment! This was such a wonderful year. It's going to be hard to top. So thank you Kristy, once again you saved the day!


**A little FYI on the brand new dollar bills. If you want them you have to order them a few days in advance. I did not know this. I thought you could just go to the bank and get brand new bills. Nope. Well, not "nope" but I did have to go to 5 different banks before I hit the jackpot!

Step By Step How To:

1) So I started by getting every Mom's e-mail address and e-mailing them the questions to ask their children plus asking for $5.


The questions were:
1. What will I miss most about being in Mrs. Workman's class.
2. What I love most about Mrs. Workman is.......
3. Mrs. Workman loves me because........
4. My favorite thing Mrs. Workman taught me this year was.......
5. What I hope to never forget about this year:


2) Then I compiled all the questions and printed them out on paper the size of dollar bills.After cutting them I put one paper with a question then one dollar bill, one question, one dollar bill etc......



3) I then went to Paper Plus - a wholesale paper co. in town and got Padding Compound. This is the glue that they put onto notebooks so you can tear the paper off without ripping.  This is a very important part of the process.  If you can't find it in your area, order it.  It will last you many years and make many projects!



4) I then clamped all 101 things and 101 dollars together with a backer board on the back and a cute cover page on the front:




5) I did two coats of the padding compound to make sure that all the paper was glued together. The glue only takes about 20 min. to dry. This was the coolest by the way! I have already thought of a ton of cute things I could make with this glue stuff! Oh and it was only $11.95 for the quart!






6) TA-DA! I was smiling the whole time I was making this. Tom thought I was nuts!~ He,He! I could hardly contain my excitement! And her reaction did not disappoint!

And here she is with Cassidy!
The most amazing teacher I have ever known.

She will be missed!

I went to the ribbon store and found the perfect ribbon for my cute paper. I thought of you Kristy at the ribbon store. You would LOVE it! A WHOLE store floor to ceiling - wall to wall of ribbon! So much fun!
This was not a hard project. The hardest part was getting the questions from the kids/Moms. If you are going to do this for a family member or a wedding present that wouldn't matter and it would be so cute!

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.  I am always willing to help you make your favorite teacher smile!