I decided to make coasters for my co-workers for Christmas this year. Here is my stack of finished coasters. I think I made almost 20 coasters all together, this was my stack after I'd already given them to 4 of the paras that work in my classroom.
These were the 3 basic designs. I found this cute "Figgy Pudding" fabric at the quilt shop in Olathe.
I had so much fun making these coasters and giving them away. The expression on their faces was totally worth the late night, not to mention it let me procrastinate on grading some papers for a night.
Since I've been going through a little blogging slump, I decided I'd post our Christmas decorations.
We completed our Christmas shopping on Saturday and finished wrapping our presents today. I think I might spend the rest of this week making goodies and sewing. Enjoy the pictures!
While I haven't been sewing as much as I'd like to, I have been busy making some new projects. On Sunday, my friend Lesley came over and we had a sewing day. We try to get together every week or so and craft. This week's project was a crayon roll. Lesley found the pattern on-line and we spent the day Sunday sewing. Here is my finished product. The original pattern called for ribbon, I used elastic instead (thinking it would be more kid-friendly). I used too much elastic, so this is my example, next time I'll know, less elastic. One of my former students and volleyball players, Judy, has cystic fibrosis and is in the hospital for 3 weeks. Yuck! Please keep Judy and her family in your prayers, as they are waiting for a lung transplant. Judy is very artistic, so I decided to change the crayon roll into a colored pencil roll. I'm hoping to take it to Judy in the hospital when I visit her later this week or next week.
Hopefully this will help Judy pass the time!
Another project Lesley and I created were these cute coasters. Again, the pattern was Lesley's idea and it is so easy! I'm planning on making some of these for my coworkers for Christmas. These are the ones I made for my coworker's Tea/Coffee themed basket for our school silent auction. I can't believe how easy these are!
Natalie celebrated her 3rd birthday last weekend with a party. The party was complete with yummy cake, soup, and of course presents. Natalie's favorite present was a big-girl bike from her parents. Thanks for a great party! Happy 3rd Birthday, Natalie!
To continue working on my photo editing skills, I created these two colleges with Picasa. I love Picasa because it is so simple to work with and it was free! It doesn't quite do all of the things that Photoshop will do, but I love how easy it is to use.
My mom bought me Photoshop for Christmas last year and thanks to this blog I stumbled across, I've finally gotten around to playing with it. Here are a few of the random things I created. They aren't anything fabulous and I still have a ton to learn about the program, but I thought I'd share what I have so far.
Looks like I need to take some new pictures, the All-Star Game ones are getting kind of old.
The blog had a post on how to create a reflection, so I created one of Hallie eating a s'more at the lake. I'm not really sure why I picked the picture of Hallie eating a s'more other than the fact that we were at the lake. Don't get too excited about getting this as a Christmas card, I was just playing around.
Hopefully this will encourage me to complete #16 and learn to take better pictures.
Baby Bennett that is. I had the privilege of hosting a baby shower for baby Bennett on Sunday. Tami, was kind enough to host the shower at her house, Tina made the food, and my contribution was the pacifier mints. (I think I lucked out!)
The mint making process...
The finished product
Nothing better that a party with cake! I found the idea to use baby blocks on-line and thought it turned out pretty cute, plus baby Bennett can play with them later. (Just now noticed the e is sideways, oops!) The hostesses with the mom-to-be
The proud parents-to-be Congrats Bennetts! I can't wait to meet baby Bennett!
my daily fountain drink. It's not really a daily thing, but I'm definitely addicted. So, I've decided to start working on #14 and to stop drinking soda.
So goodbye refill cup, goodbye friendly gas station workers, goodbye soda (at least for a little while).
Fall is finally here! I love fall! A couple of weekends ago, I began the process of putting up my fall decorations. Here are a few of the pics, although I'm always looking for new fall decorations, this is how it looks for now.
Good-bye summer decorations!
The pie cabinet in my kitchen. I originally bought the pumpkin, witch, and ghost sign to hang on my door, but thought it looked cute hanging there, so that is where it will stay. The fire place
Our entryway I always think putting my decorations out should be a quick and easy thing, but I never remember where I put things, so I'm hoping to use these pictures next year too!
Now if the weather would just cooperate and stay fall-like instead of winter-like, I'd be happy!
In honor of the Cardinals making it to the play-off and in hopes of giving them some good luck as they play the Dodgers in St. Louis, I made them a Wordle.
One of our district technology specialists showed us how to use Wordle a couple of weeks ago and I finally got the chance to play around with it. It's a neat website you can use to create word pictures. You just copy and paste any text you want to the website and it creates a picture using the words. The words that are used the most turn out the biggest. I used it at a writing project for my 5th graders and they loved it.
Aside from watching the Cardinals in the play-offs, not much is new with us. My volleyball season ended on Monday, I won't tell you exactly how many we games we won or lost, but just that my team improved a lot and we had lots of fun. I loved coaching, but it is sure nice to have the afternoon back to work in my classroom. I feel like I'm finally starting to get caught back up.
Neither! One of the things on my "to do" list is to find 4 new ways to go green and implement them. Here are the 4 ways I've started "going green":
1. I use these bags whenever I head to the store and I love them! I love the feeling at the checkout when I get to hand these over to the cashier, plus I get paid to use them (only $.05, but it's something).
You can fit so much more in one of these than a plastic bag. Now if I could just find something to do with my cupboard full of plastic sacks.
2. I only use 1 paper towel to dry my hands. It sounds silly, but after I watched this video and realized it can be done, I now do it all the time. You might be thinking what's the point, it's only 1 paper towel, but I'm saving at least 60 paper towels each month and that adds up to over 500 towels each year. Not only am I saving paper towels, I'm saving money too! Think about it!
A co-worker sent me this video to share with my class on Earth Day two years ago. One of my biggest pet peeves is kids using 3 and 4 paper towels to dry their hands, so I make it a point to show this to my class and make a big deal about only using 1 paper towel.
3. We recycle. When we lived in Olathe, they had a curb-side recycling program and we used it, but not like I wish we would have, because now I miss it. We don't have a curb-side recycling program anymore, so it takes a little more work for us to recycle. Luckily, my school has a recycling bin behind it so that's where I take all of our stuff and it works out great!
Our recycling station
We recycle bottles,
cans, (can you tell someone at our house drinks a lot of pepsi?)and boxes.
4. I pledge to reduce bottled water waste. I've had a Nalgene bottle since college, only because they were the "cool" thing to have back then, but now it's a basic nessesstity for me every school day. I usually drink two of these each day, I fill it up from my Brita in the morning and the school's water cooler in the afternoon. (Luckily, my school has a water cooler that we pay to use, hopefully this will keep me away from some of the kid germs.) Now if I could just get Tim to start using a water bottle instead of drinking bottled water. #52- Find 4 new ways to go green and implement them- done! My next green step is to get my parents to recycle and find even more ways to go green, so if you have any good green tips, send them my way!
Here one of my official coaching shirts. We have two, a navy one and a white one.
It's official, you can call me Coach! After two weeks of practice and try-outs, our first official volleyball game is Monday. I'm absolutely loving coaching volleyball. I'm coaching the 7th grade girls junior varsity team (I'm not sure when they started calling 7th grade teams varsity and jv, I'm still used to A team and B team). Anyways, the goal of my team is to learn the basics of the game, give everyone equal playing time and have fun. I was a little nervous after camp this summer and try-outs, but my girls are making progress everyday at practice, I'm so proud! Wish me luck on Monday! (I might need it to me through the game!)
For my last few weeks of summer, I tried to cram in as much sewing time as possible. Here are a few things I came up with.
I decided I couldn't go back to school without making myself a new school bag, so this is what I made. I used Mary Englebright fabric and I really like it, even Tim was impressed with this bag.
We'll call this my "Last Summer bag", since I made it tonight, on the last night of my summer. This was the first time I'd made this pattern and I ended up shortening it by 2 inches, and I think I like it better smaller.
I keep wondering to myself, what in the world am I going to do with all of these purses/ bags, so... If you see something you like, let me know, it could be yours!
On Saturday morning, I met a couple of friends and their kids to watch the fair parade. We lucked out and found a really nice, shady spot to watch the parade. It lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, but ended up being a nice parade. Here are a few more pictures so you get the full idea of the "Dancing with the Steers" theme.
I think I found Daisy a spot in next year's parade.
Okay, so I thought I took more pictures than I did. Some of what you missed were the grown men dressed up as cows and a giant toilet painted like a cow.
Wednesday night, Tim and I headed to the Johnson County Fair. Since the fair is in Gardner, we usually make a trip at least one night of the week to enjoy some fair food. This year's theme was "Dancing With the Steers." To go along with the theme, they had a cow decorating contest (wooden cows, not real ones). Some of the decorated cows were a little different, I forgot my camera this trip, but I'm hoping to make another trip to the fair to get some pictures.
Our friends, Tina, Jason, and Daniel joined us at the fair. Tina was smart and brought her camera, so here are some of her pictures.
Tina by the signMost of the decorated cows had a theme. This cow was decorated by Fantastic Sams. I love the lei for a nose ring. I'm not sure who decorated this cow, but we all thought it was a little slutty to be displayed at a county fair. I believe Tina's exact words were," Man, that is a slutty cow in the purple strapless bra!"
Tim and Jason didn't want any part of this, but Tina and I couldn't resist. Tina was kind enough to let me be the girl cow. Thanks Tina for letting me be the girl!
See what you all missed out on by not attending the Johnson County Fair!
I decided to make coasters for my co-workers for Christmas this year. Here is my stack of finished coasters. I think I made almost 20 coasters all together, this was my stack after I'd already given them to 4 of the paras that work in my classroom. 
These were the 3 basic designs. I found this cute "Figgy Pudding" fabric at the quilt shop in Olathe. 
I had so much fun making these coasters and giving them away. The expression on their faces was totally worth the late night, not to mention it let me procrastinate on grading some papers for a night. 
