Incredible Idea.

I have this friend named Laura. She is very creative. She does not have a blog. She needs one. I need her to have one. She has an incredible gift of seeing something and figuring out a way to change it, make it better and personalize it.

I am so grateful that she sent me this idea and I just had to brag about her and share it with you.

This was the email that she sent to me describing what she did. Be prepared to be amazed.

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Last night my daughter and I were walking around Walmart looking for the perfect birthday present for her friend, and were coming up with absolutely nothing. Then when we saw this old favorite game we thought of personalizing it by changing out the goofy cartoon type faces for pictures of Meredith's school friends taken from the yearbook they just got. We just color copied their pictures the right size, then used the Zyron machine to sticky the back of each, and attached it to the picture the game came with for extra sturdiness. Quick, easy, and will hopefully be a memory as well as a fun game. The game is traditionally played by asking each other questions such as "Does your person wear a hat?" "Does your person wear glasses?" etc. Primarily being about the way they look. With these fun school pictures you could ask, "Does your person ride the bus?" "Does your person sit at your lunch table?" "Is your person's locker close to mine?" etc...

We even changed the box cover to be classmates

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Is this not the most clever thing you have ever seen. Laura also made one using different characters from the scriptures. Way to go Laura you have out done yourself with this one! Thanks for sharing. Some luscious ribbon coming your way for sharing this great idea! Thanks.

This is just one of her many ideas - feel free to leave a comment also pressuring my friend to start a blog!

teacher gifts

But with end of the year teacher gifts coming up soon I thought I would show this idea that I have done three years in a row. Original post may 2006

I am also hoping to gets some comments on some ideas others have done.

So here are the instructions on the money book.


the last week of school I send out a secret paper to all the kids to take home and fill out. It has a list of questions that they fill in the blank. Here are the list from this year.

• Why Mrs. Thorp will make a great mom to Anna (her teacher is pregnant)
• Where does Mrs. Thorp live?
• What I love most about Mrs. Thorp
  My favorite thing Mrs. Thorp taught me this year
• What is Mrs. Thorp's favorite color?
• What doe she love to eat for lunch?
• Mrs. Thorp loves me because...
• What I will miss most about being in Mrs. Thorp's class
• What I hope to never forget about this year.

Then I compile these questions and answers and print them out on sheets of paper the size of dollar bills. I go to the bank and get 100 brand new bills. It will only work with brand new ones.
Then I make a cover for the front and a piece of chip board for the back.
I put a dollar then a slip of paper over and over.
I use a compound glue (this is where I bought it in Tennessee, but you should be able to find this at Paper Mills in your town)
I paint the glue at the top of each sheet, clamp down with clamps. In a few hours you have a pad of paper, that does not come apart.


The cover says,
"100 things we love and will miss about Mrs. Thorp. From the class of 2006"
The answers are priceless.

The younger the children the funnier the answers to the "where does she live" most say at the school or with her mother. This year one boy wrote" she lives in a kitchen with grapes and green wall paper on the wall"

One boy wrote, she loves me because I have red hair.

Gumball Jars

The other idea is if you have lots of teachers to give to, PE, Art, the bus driver, music teacher, office staff.

You can buy these gumballs at Sams club (if you don't have a membership, you should be able to ask for a one day) they are about $16.00 a box.Get some glass canning jars. I buy the printed lids now but in the past have spray painted the gold lids. I seem to find these often at Walmart, here is a place to order them online
I think the gingham lids are awesome and less time consuming.
Here is a sample of the label. I print these and then laminate them with my xyron machine. (amanda:) sorry I have never answered your question about this great machine)

I tie with fun polka dot ribbon. before my ribbon outlet day, I could find great, cheap polka dot ribbon at wal-mart or hobby lobby.

Last year we brought these to school in our red wagon and dropped them off at the office and her speciality classes.

I used a multi color for these jars but you can also do a theme too.Halloween jar, lid spray painted black and top has a piece of orange and white gingham check fabric

lid spray painted white, with a piece of blue and White toille on the lid.

Growing up as a kid I can remember each one of my 4 younger brothers being born. My Dad will go all out in announcing the births of his babies. We made big posters down at his office and would have them hanging when my mom got home. I remember one brother who weighted 10 pounds 4 ounces and this sign said, "10-4 good buddy"
He would also make handouts of sort with the babies name and weight on it. For one brother he wrapped little slips of paper on Tootsie pops and one brother taped little slips of paper like it was coming out of the Hershey kiss. He would then pass them out at work and we would at school.
This was also a tradition I carried on with my family and babies.
For my first daughter we made announcements for the "Newest member of the Tulane graduating class of 2025"for all of Jeff class mates in medical school. I remember how grateful I was that I was friends with the post guy at school as he slipped them all in their school mailboxes for me.
My second daughter we gave out little tins of m&m's at the hospital, had them at home for when friends stopped by and sent some with Annie Kate to school. These were made by the talented Stacy. These were from my shower but Stacy had ones that were all pink with Caroline's name on them. went to see the "She She Shower my friends gave me, oh my! it had a circle theme representing the circle of friends around me who love and support me.

For Sally Jane, I did bags of large gumballs that were pink and green tied with ribbon. The theme of her birth announcement was "New Chick in Town" and don't ask me why I didn't think us using chick peeps, it would have been perfect. I can't believe I don't have photos of them. But we gave them to all the nurses, people that visited us at home and sent some also to Annie Kate's school.

So, the whole point of this post is that these little handouts make great baby gifts. I made some for the new Scarlett Kate and sent them along with her gift. Most new moms are not printing, tying, gluing and embroidering the night before they go to the hospital (my poor husband) so it is a fun thing to bring them little "happies" announcing the baby.
thanks dad for the great ideas.of note, I always wanted to name a daughter Mary Jane. And these would have been the perfect little treat to go along with the birth announcement. So, if you ever use the name don't forget about these.

Easy Kid Craft

the other night I was in my sewing room on the computer and Annie Kate came in and said, "I want to sew something!" As fast as she finished saying it a thought came to my mind to make carrots.
I had some orange fabric forever waiting for the perfect craft and this was it! It almost looks like chenille. (if you have old orange chenille, this would be perfect)
We put right sides together and just cut triangles all sizes.
She sewed them together, leaving the top of the carrot open. Stuffed it with batting. Then she gathered it together and sewed it shut. tie with some cool two toned ribbon.
They were the perfect item to put in my most recent thrifted item at a great thrift store in Rockville. (it was only $2.00!)
It was a great easy kid project because the results are fast! and so perfect for Easter
Edit*** thanks to Michelle's comment it made me think of this great book. these fabric carrots are so easy and fast to make you could give these to YW for a lesson on faith, and using this book! Of course i always endorse following up with any scripture story as well, but these are a great reminder of the lesson learned.

Easter Tree

I just finished our Easter tree. This is so easy and so incredibly "cheep"

I didn't do a photo play by play, because I did this over a series of days. Anytime I needed an egg I would blow it and then sit the shell aside. But here are my tips if you want to make one for yourself. This is a great center piece to do anytime of year for a baby shower. You can tie all sorts of bows on the branches.

1. pick branches that have blossoms just getting ready to bloom
2. i found my container at Goodwill, you will be amazed at what you could find a thrift store to make your tree in. You could also just use a metal bucket
3. when blowing eggs don't be afraid to make a bigger hole than you would think. I actually used a small screw. You will place a bead over the hole. this will keep you from getting a head ache when blowing out the egg. (Mindy I know this part will be tough for you, ask a neighbor... she gets grossed out by eggs) run a lot of water through the hollow egg before drying, get all that stinky egg out! I even sprayed with bleach to get it to run down in the egg.
   
4. when dying eggs i use the egg dying kit PAAS that can be found in any grocery store. I double the water and add a tea bag to each color. I also dye a few with just tea and no color. The make the color more vibrant add a few teaspoons of vinegar.
5. The eggs will be hollow when you dye them which means they will float. The get them to submerge place an ice cream scoop over the egg.
6. last year I used a flat stretchy yarn to tie the eggs on to the branches and then tie a bow on top of each egg to cover the hole. This year I used a pink heavy thread 50g weight.
7. I bought some flowered beads at the craft store and placed on at the bottom with a knot and one at the top. You can also tie a bow at the bottom to keep it from slipping through if you use ribbon.
8. I taped two needles together to string the thread through because my needles were not long enough to get through the egg.
9. I placed a another flower bead at the top to cover the blown hole. You could use all kinds of beads and even shapes of wool felt would be great.

Great project. My oldest daughter loves to blow out the eggs and I love seeing the tea dyed eggs, each one comes out so different.
Enjoy.

Last years Valentines Card

This was my Valentines card last year. I know there are a lot of you who use Scrapbook Factory Deluxe program (you can get this at Costco) and you could make this in that. I made this in my Printmaster Program but you could use any graphics program.

A clicked draw an object and drew a circle. I then changed the shape to a starburst and filled it in dark brown. I made 8 of them. I then drew another circle, changed the shape into the lighter chocolate shapes and layered them on top of the dark brown wrapper. With the last shape being the heart. I drew a text box and placed it to the right bottom of the card. The font is from 2 peas in a bucket called Gift Box.

I printed these on Presentation paper and then xyroned (Amanda more to come) them onto chip board just a hair bigger than the printed card. It was like a post card. I put them in a clear cellophane envelopes (Michael's now sells these).

They really turned out great and just wanted to share. Or I guess you could just right click the image and paste into your program. I have been trying to get my Valentines out this week and just like my Christmas cards I have 3 different ones because I could not decide.

Happy Valentines Making!