Teacher Valentine: Cake Balls

Cake Balls are such a great Teacher Valentine gift, so that's what we're doing at our house.

I'm no pro when it comes to baking and I try to leave that to my husband, so here's a tutorial from someone with skills.

Here's our cake balls in festive red, pink and brown.

Valentine's Love T-shirt

Ahhh! Look at me! I'm soooo excited that my shirt is FaBuLoUs!

This shirt is done with the good ol' freezer paper stencil.

I used my Cricut to cut out the word, Amour - Love, as in the noun, in French, and the Eiffel Tower. Then I postioned them on the t-shirt and I ironed them shiny side down. Then I took out some fabric paint and filled in the stencil. On the Eiffle Tower, I didn't completely fill it in. I made sure the edges were crisp and then I dabbed and dragged the brush across the rest to give it a more textured look. After it dried, I pulled up the freezer paper and voilà! You have a Valentine's T-shirt!

Valentine Sign

This is a really simple Valentine's sign that I made with the same frame I had up at Halloween.

I like the frame because it's a shadow box type frame and the back comes off so I can just interchange it for each holiday.

Valentine Heart Wreath

Love is in the air! Or should I say, on the door :)

I found this wreath at Deseret Industries for $3 and I thought it was the perfect shape for Valentines.

I was so excited because I'd been wanting an excuse to make another wreath.

Of course I had to strip it down so I could start with a blank slate.

Heart Shaped Crayons Tutorial: Valentines for classmates

 The girls class Valentines are almost done!!

Saturday, we spent all day peeling paper off crayons then breaking them and then baking them. It was really fun for the girls and they are so happy that they made these Valentines for their classmates!

This is really very simple.

Supplies needed:

• Silicone Heart Molds (either cupcake or candy molds will work. Silicone so that you can easily pop them out when they're cooled.)
• Crayons
• Eager children who are willing to peel paper off crayons
• (optional) Little baggies and paper to beautify the finished product

Steps

1. peel the crayons
2. break each crayon into about 3-4 pieces and place in molds
3. bake @ 250-275 degrees for about 10-12 minutes
4. remove from oven and let cool until they've set
5. when they have cooled enough, pop them out and let them cool a little more

Okay so that's not some super tutorial, but there's not much to it.

A few tips:

• it's cool to mix some colors, but I would not do too many so you can still see the separate colors.
• don't turn the oven up past 300. (I used some thicker crayons on a few and it took them a little longer to melt. so I just turned it up about 10 degrees. The last batch was the same thing, there were some thicker crayons in that one, so I asked my husband to turn the oven temp up again. He turned up to 325 and when he took them out, they were smoking! And then we could smell crayon for a little while afterward:) So definitely not 325 on the oven temp)
• some of my favorites were the camouflage ones, so think of some ones that boys might like. i.e. sports team colors , John Deere, camo.

Here are my molds I used and little baggies I will use. Now all we have to do is put the crayons in the baggies, staple some cute valentine-y paper on the top and add a corny saying like, "You COLOR my world, Valentine!"

Easy does it. Start peeling, breaking and baking.

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PTR Week 3: Sequins, Feathers and Fur

Another week down! Thanks for voting!

I made it through another week!

Here's my project.

La petite fille aux Champs-Élysées: The Little Girl on the Champs-Élysées (French) She glides down the boulevard in her glamorous ebony gown wrapped in a faux zebra stole. C'est chouette! On her promenade, she will surely catch the eye of each passer-by.

Honestly, when this challenge was presented, I had some trouble getting excited about it. I wanted to make something that was practical and could be used as part of your everyday wardrobe. Then it occurred to me, this was my chance to go all out! So that's what I went for! I tried to portray the glamour of sequins, feathers and fur. I decided to try a verticle ruffle and a bustle. I thought it could either be really great or a big flop. Thankfully it turned out as I had hoped! The sequins are fashioned into a belt on the empire waist that adds to the luxury of the gown. The faux fur stole in a zebra print gives the gown an added flair and the feathers are in an eye catching hair piece that compliments its style and colors! Needless to say, by the time I finished this challenge, it ended up being really fun!

Nothing says glamour more than La petite fille aux Champs-Élysées.

I forgot to mention in my description, before the voting began, that I also made a tulle petti-skirt that is worn underneath the gown to show its fullness. Sorry, no pictures, because I just forgot and I was trying to hurry since it was so COLD outside! I made the bodice by using one of my daughter's dress as a pattern. For the bottom part, I cut about 16 4in x 80in strips and gathered them as I sewed them together. For the bustle I cut 4 8in x 40in strips and gathered them as I sewed them together & it's a looser gather than the rest of the dress. After the dress strips are all sewn together, I sewed the 2 end pieces together about 5 inches down leaving the rest open. I then attached the bustle between those 2 end pieces. I gathered the top opening to fit the bodice and sewed those together. The stole, was very simple. I just took my fabric piece, wrapped it around my daughter's shoulders, marked where I needed to cut to make it lay the way I wanted and then added 1/4in. black double fold bias tape around the edge. I left enough on the ends so it could be tied in a bow. So there's a basic description for ya! This girl is darling! She was doing her best to be a good sport and take pictures for me, even thought it was freezing outside! Thank you little sweetheart!

This project is linked up at:

December PTO Teacher Spotlight Bulletin Board

This is the bulletin board I created for December.

I used wrapping paper to look like presents on the board and I had the teacher's names on the gift tags. I wanted to do christmas light shapes for the boarder, but we didn't have a cartridge at the school with the shapes I wanted. I used the school's cricut machine to make the ivy border and only made it for the edges because it took so long to cut them out :)

I don't really feel like this picture is blog worthy, but just in case anyone out there needs bulletin board ideas, here's another one ;)

PTR Week 2: Wear a Flower in your hair

Here's my project from week 2.

The challenge was, "Wear a Flower in Your Hair."

We were each given a picture of a different flower hair piece and we were to use it to inspire us to create an item of clothing.

Here is the one I was given.

I really wanted to challenge myself and I wanted to try to somehow use this to inspire me to make something for a boy. There were a few things that went through my mind, like a pilot from the WWI flying over a field of these flowers thinking of his sweetheart and how much he missed her. What can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe it's a still shot engraved in my brain from a movie or something. Anyway, I thought it might be hard for others to catch that vision, especially since I couldn't really present it. Also, I didn't want to make another uniform because in the last challenge I made a uniform inspired look.

Because I'm a hopeless romantic, the other idea I went with, was a boy who brings flowers to the door for his first date. Granted, this is Project "Toddler" Runway, so I had to make it relative and appropriate.

That's how this challenge came to be.

I made the vest, the shirt, the pants and the bow tie.

I refashioned everything from men's clothing, except the bow tie, because it's just more economical than buying fabric. The vest is from a thick long sleeve shirt, the button up shirt and pants are made from men's sizes down to 10 year old size. These were really fun to make, but still challenging because I hadn't really done anything boy before, and because I didn't have my model to try things on as I sewed. So in the end the vest ended up being a little big and the pants as well, but hey, it worked.

The bow tie, well, they are totally "in" and this one is a real bow tie that actually has to be tied. It, too, was a challenge, but it was necessary to complete the outfit and it was my inspired project from the hair piece I was given in the challenge. Obviously, the color matches the hairpiece, but also the simplicity and elegance of the bow tie nicely compliments the hair piece. I felt that the print I picked was simplistic (Swiss dots); the bow tie fashion itself made the outfit more elegant; and the bow tie complimented this outfit so well with color and print.

Really, isn't he a sweetheart?!

Watch out girls, in a few years he'll sweep you of your feet!

Thanks Zach for being such a sport!

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