Break!

It is so nice to have a break! I always thought teachers lived the good life...work 9 months out of the year and they got frequent breaks...must be nice. Well let me just say, we have to work HARD to get our breaks. I have never been more exhausted after a day's work until I started teaching. I definitely have a new respect for everything teachers do. Even though break has started, I feel like I have hardly gotten any time to truly enjoy a break. Yesterday we had a School of Faith meeting for half the day, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon organizing things around the house. Today, I spent most of the morning finishing up my Christmas shopping...so now I finally have some time to update the ole blog. I did a project with my class before break started. My intention was for the whole class to do their own project, but once I priced canvas I realized I didnt get paid enough to do that. So we did the project together. I got the idea from Pintrest. I saw this project ALL over the craft, DIY website and it seemed like everyone was doing it so I had no desire to try it myself. Once I thought through it some more, I decided...why not. First thing I had each student do was give me a crayon. I asked for everyone to give me their favorite color but I think a few of them saw that almost everyone was donating either blue or pink...so they started giving more of a variety. When a student brought his/her crayon up, I had them write their name on the crayon. Now I will have a little memory of my first class!

I also included a crayon for myself as well as a crayon that said "2011-2012 7th Grade" so I could especially remember. After I had all the crayons, I used a hot glue gun and attached all of the crayons.

The last full day before break started, I took the hair dryer to school and we melted the crayons. Below is the finished product! There was a little bit of crayon splatter, but as soon as it hit the table, it dried. It was easy to peel off after that. The crayons were well melted and running down the canvas within the first couple of minutes. (I took this picture with my camera phone so the quality isnt the best)

Secret Santa Update

I have attached a picture of the mason jar gift completed! I gave Marcy her first gift and from the reaction of the other teachers, it sounds like I was on the right track!

A much needed BREAK!

Well I made it!!! Made it through my FIRST semester as a teacher. I cant even believe I am at this point. This has been the best, worst, relaxing, and stressful semester of my life. Some days were good...some days were terrible but I have no regrets making this career change. It has been such a great experience and I really cannot wait until I can say "I have one year of teaching under my belt!" We will have a little more than two weeks for Christmas break. Since this is the last week of class before that break, there are a lot of things going on around the school. Tomorrow starts the first day of Spirit week. We all get to wear Pajamas tomorrow, Crazy socks on Tuesday, something green on Wednesday, something red on Thursday...and a free dress down on Friday! The teachers traditionally do a Secret Santa exchange the last week of school. The total spent throughout the whole week is $15 and they usually give a small gift every day of the week...saving the most "expensive" gift for the last day. The teacher I picked out of the Santa hat, will only be at school Monday through Wednesday, so I can spread the $15 over 3 days, instead of all 5. Below is a picture of the items I will be giving her.

Tomorrow I will be giving Marcy the little zipper bag with a Diet Coke and a bag of Pistachios. Her favorite beverage, and her favorite salty treat. Tuesday, I will give her the mason jar filled with dry ingredients to make Chocolate-Macadamia Nut Bars. Macadamia is her other favorite salty snack...along with chocolate...her favorite sweet snack. I made a gift tag for both of those gifts. I will also add a piece of Christmas fabric to the top of the mason jar to dress it up a bit. It was my first time mixing ingredients for a mason jar gift like this. Some of the flour fell through the chocolate chips more than I anticipated, but if I do this project again, I will know how to make it better. Finally, for the last day, I have made a card with a slot to put a gift card in it. The inside of the card says "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year -From your secret santa, Mary Beth." I was really at a loss as to what I could give as gifts for this secret santa business (I lack in creativity) but my mom really helped me decide on the zipper bag as well as the mason jar gift. What would I do without her?! I CANT WAIT for this week to be over and the break to start. Im nervous to begin next semester not only because I will be back to planning lesson plans, but I am also the new assistant soccer coach for the girls team at Harmon high school. Am I spreading myself too thin?! Maybe...but I figured I might as well dive in head first and see how it goes. MB

December

Bruce and I made the trip out to Colorado for Thanksgiving and the trip was GREAT!!!! Bruce got to spend a week there and I flew out a few days after Bruce made the drive. It was so nice to have a vacation away from teaching and away from KC. It was truly relaxing. Ah! Back to reality...blah! Bruce and I have been hard at work for the last week and we are both ready for Christmas break! I am working almost every night to prepare the condo for listing on the market. The date is set and we are listing on January 2nd. I am very anxious to get it listed and hopefully it can sell within a few months...but I am not holding my breath. Please hit the prayers hard for us. I tried making the snickerdoodle cupcakes a few weeks ago...epic failure. It was terrible. I mean I guess they were edible...but definitely not something I would put in the teachers lounge... I plan on trying another new recipe...maybe red velvet cupcakes?! Yum!

Look ma, no prepackaged mix!

In my mind, there is nothing better than a nice, fluffy cupcake. It is always easy to use a cake mix and just whip up some cupcakes, but I have been on the hunt to find a made-from-scratch cupcake that would knock my socks off. Lucky for me, I was introduced to this website. My next decision...which one of these cupcakes would I make... FIRST. Because at this point, I feel like I want to try every single cake she has posted. I scrolled through the last few months of posts and found a recipe I knew I would try first. Pumpkin cupcakes made my mouth instantly start watering...and the BEST part...I had almost ALL of the ingredients for the recipe minus the pumpkin puree. There is nothing worse than reading the title of some recipe and then I see what ingredients it calls for...and half of the items I have NEVER heard of. Lucky for me, I have heard of everything on this recipe. Thank goodness. Since Bruce was on his way to Colorado today, I had a lot of down time. The first batch I made was destined for the Queen of the Holy Rosary Queen's Ladies bake sale. I made the cupcakes, tried one, LOVED it, so I knew donating them for a good cause would be my best decision. I also love any excuse to bust out the BEST wedding gift ever...my Kitchen Aid mixer. Woot! Here is the cupcake batter getting mixed. Yum!

I am TERRIBLE at filling cupcake cups so today I decided to use a mixing cup to help pour the batter. Made my life so much easier. The recipe called to fill cups about 3/4 full...hell if I know exactly what 3/4 full is...so I made my best guess.

Not only does this recipe spell out the steps for the batter but also for a tasty eggnog buttercream frosting. Yea baby yea! Here are some of the cakes cooled and iced! Nothing fancy...but that is my next project...become a professional cupcake decorator.

I have my eye on snickerdoodle cupcakes to try next. To be continued... MB

Champagne cork monogram

Well I told you I would post on a champagne cork monogram...Im just surprised that I was motivated enough to get it all done in one evening. After a long day of teaching, I have next-to-no energy to do anything but lay on the couch. Not tonight! I started the monogram before my soccer game and polished it off after the game. Bruce's sister and husband are on a huge champagne kick lately. They have saved a lot of their corks and the last time we saw them, they handed us a plastic bag full of corks. I guess Bruce had a craft project of his own in mind?! Who knows. I was shocked when we brought this bag home. Anyway, about a month ago I saw this post from a friend and really liked the idea! The monogram was made with wine corks, but I figured it would be just as easy to substitute champagne corks as well. With the corks ready to go, and my hot glue gun close by, all I needed was a large wooden letter. I stopped by Michael's after work today and with a trusty 50% off coupon, I spent next to nothing on this project. Woot! I did a "dry run" with the corks and placed them on the wooden letter in the positions I wanted.

Once I had everything where I wanted it, I started gluing. This was a super easy project and I think it turned out pretty cool.

MB

Button monogram

Alright, so I have started "following" the Archivers blog. I enjoy looking for new ideas on what I can do to take my scrapbooking to the next level. The lady who writes the blogs recently talked about this website called Pintrest. I have heard about it from a few friends but I never gave it a second thought. After reading the latest Archivers post, I HAD to check out Pintrest for myself. O.M.G. This website is AUH-mazing. It has made me feel like I can be creative even with my basic knowledge of gluing and sewing. I have a few projects lined up but the button monogram was the first one I wanted to try. As soon as I saw this post I immediately thought of my niece, Simone. She doesnt have too much hanging on her walls and I know when I was her age, I LOVED having my name all over my room. Her favorite color is pink (and has been for a few years now) so I knew I needed to make this button monogram out of nothing but shades of pink. I went to Joann's one weekend and purchased all of the necessary materials.

The post where I got this idea used a fabric wrapped canvas but I wanted something a little cheaper. I went back to the wood craft department and picked a decent sized wood plaque. I knew I wanted to give this monogram a "soft" look so I wanted some batting to use between the wood and the fabric wrap. My biggest issue was going to be the fabric. Ugh. I HATE shopping for fabric. My mom has always talked about the remnants area of the fabric department so I went straight there. Sure enough...I spotted some fabric that I KNEW I wanted...without having a clue as to what I really wanted. Perfect. Pink satin fabric. SOLD! I picked up a few packs of buttons and I was on my way. I got home and got started right away. I simply glued the batting to the wood board and then did the same with the pink fabric. Piece of cake.

I knew the hardest step of this whole process would be button placement. I had to have done a dry run with the buttons at least 10 times before I finally got a result that I found acceptable...and then I started over and did it again. FINALLY! Done! I busted out the hot glue gun, stuck those puppies to the fabric, and attached a pink ribbon so the monogram could hang from the wall. DONE! I will wrap this and give it to the little lady for Christmas. Of course I got a Barbie toy as a back up...just in case.

My next project...a monogram made out of Champagne corks... MB