One In A Mellon!

This year we gave Emmalee's teacher a giant watermelon!  She was a fabulous teacher, patient and very good at her job.  I wanted to give her something fun, and maybe not so teacher-y.  That was when I decided to give her one of my Watermelon Door Signs.  

I included this tag...

As far as teachers go,

You are one in Melon!

Thanks for the great year.

Great teachers are such a relief to worried mothers.

I am eternally grateful for teachers that strive for excellence, 

and love those children that they teach <3 p="">

Overflowing With Joy

OK, This little project was going out on a limb just a bit.  It also really reveals my weird sense of humor, possibly a little too much :0}

I am finally getting around to blogging a couple of the projects I did back in Sioux Falls while we were homelessly waiting for school to get out so we could move to Minnesota with Papa Bear.  I made these back at that same time as the High Heel Cupcakes, while staying at my friend Lindsey's house.  Can I just say, I have the best friends EVER!  They know that when Vanessa makes a visit, there will be crafts and craft disaster everywhere.  Somehow...they still let me come over!

Anyway, I wanted a fun, and can I say CHEEP, little something that I could give my friends from Young Women's or that the kids could give to their favorite teachers.  That was when we came up with the plunger craft.

Just hang in there a little bit longer.  I promise, it gets better.

We visited Dollar Tree and found the plungers there for $1!

SaWeeEEeT!

Life living between two states was rather expensive and the budget didn't have a lot of room for extras.  I could totally do $1.

I unscrewed the handles.  When I say "I", I mean Madison.  Then I cut them down to about 12" {again, when I say "I" I mean Lindsey's husband.  Yep.  I even put him to work}

Here are my lovely plunger heads drying in the warm Worthington, Minnesota sun on Lindsey's lawn.  I am sure the neighbors thought them lovely lawn ornaments :0)

After that, it was an easy project to finish.  We just screwed the handles back onto the heads, put the plungers in treat bags purchased at Walmart, topped them off with a $1 box of candy {also Walmart}, tied them shut with curling ribbon, then glued on a flower magnet {as an added bonus-flowers purchased at the dollar store}  I am figuring the plungers costing me about $2.50 each.  Not bad!

So here is a close-up and tags to go with each!

The tags, as if anyone would want a tag to go with a gift plunger :0)

can be downloaded HERE!  The tags are the perfect size to print up as photos at your local photo lab.

And there you have it.  Crazy little gifts to show our appreciation to friends and teachers before moving on to wetter pastures.  I was seriously wondering if Minnesota HAD a sun in their sky until this morning.  There is finally sunlight streaming into my room this morning.  YES!  I am very tempted to throw everything off my schedule and just go outside to soak up a few much needed rays.

Sunny wishes to you too today!

Teacher Treats

Got 'em done!  Here are the teacher treats for my kids teachers this year.  They both change classes all day, so they both have 7 teachers.  That's a lot of treats to make.  

I went with half of the cake pops ball-style.  I sprinkled green sugar crystals on the white ones, and used these adorable holly sprinkles to decorate the red ones.  The Holly I bought from Joanns in the Wilton section, but I also saw a smaller bottle {too bad I saw this one second} in the Christmas section at Walmart.

I used a tree-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the Christmas Tree Cake Pops. Once they were dipped and set, I added green squiggles and ornament-like ballies for decoration.

Here is the finished gift, complete with the printable I shared yesterday.  

I just found out that half the city has been out of school for day.  Not us.  We have a half day today, then it is hard-core Christmas partying the rest of the week ;0)

Have a great day and I hope you get to party hard-core-style too!

Merry Christmas!!!

{Christmas} Treat Printables

I will add a picture as soon as I get them finished tonight, but here are some printables I made for the teacher gifts my kids are giving this year.  Thought I'd post them just in case anyone else is interested in them.  They are all designed to be sent as photos to your photo lab of choice.  

This guy is a treat bag topper.  Fold in half and staple to the top of a bag

I thought it was kinda cute, so I made it smaller to put on my treat plates to neighbors...

Then decided it would actually be good a little smaller :0)  You wanted the whole process of my madness tonight, right?

Finally, I added the tag with our family name so I don't have to write it on every card.  You can load this into any photo editing software with text and add your own family name if interested.

Now, to make cake pops for thousands.  It's gonna be a long night!

Best Teacher EVER!

It was Eli's last day of school today.  He had the absolute best teacher EVER this year.  Not only was she a fabulous teacher, but she was also a fan of my crafts!!!  

(Either she was a fan of the crafts or she faked it well :0)

Anyway, while we were in Utah this past weekend I saw this Watermelon slice at The Wood Connection and had to make it for her.

I have talked about The Wood Connection many times and this visit was not a disappointment!  There were several crafts that must be made, but this watermelon was so cute I actually bought three.  Granny, my sister Kira and I all finished one after our Saturday morning brunch.  

Thanks again Granny for the FABULOUS food!

I made this quote block to go with the watermelon. Now I'm feeling a little dorky because I made the poem up myself.  I read it to Scott before posting and he said it was a little more "Hallmarky" than the stuff I usually do.  I guess I'm a little sentimental after leaving all our family this weekend than usually.  I just really wanted to let our fabulous teacher know how much I appreciate the time she spent away from her kids to teach mine :0)

I made these treats for Eli's class this morning.  My friend Ashley, from Cute As A Fox made some, but hers turned out much better.  I couldn't find any chocolate covered cookies that were square while we were on the road, so I bought some Lorna Doones and dipped them myself.  I cheated a little and just put a sour gummi worm on the top instead of making tassels.  I figured the kids would like them just as well.

I put the worm on while the chocolate was still wet and skipped the whole glue-them-on step 

One my way out of the classroom, as triumphant kids swarmed everywhere and paper airplanes whizzed past my ear, I snapped a shot of this sign on the wall.  

I need this sign in my house :0)

For the Best Teacher I "Snow"

By now you know that I over-book myself so detrimentally that I have no choice but do things as needed, and inevitably, just before they are needed :0)  No time for procrastination. 

With one day of school left before Christmas Break, I put this guy together after bunco last night.  It didn't take long.  I had the wood cut, holes drilled, and the whole thing painted.  All that was left was to put this snowy guy together.

I went with drilling holes and wiring my wooden snowballs together rather than glue.  I was sure the glue wouldn't hold and Mr. Snowman would come to pieces if dropped.  By the way, this is the only way to build a snowman in Phoenix.  I don't think Emmalee has ever seen snow :0)

I gave up on blushing cheeks with paint years ago.  I use REAL BLUSH!!!  Sometimes I use an applicator, a regular one you would use on your own face, sometimes I just use my finger.  Load up whatever you are using, and rub it on.  I start in the center and work my way out, blending it in as I go.  You can use spray varnish, but I have even used brush-on varnish and the blush stays in place.  I have even skipped the varnish all together and not had a problem with the blush coming off. 

The eyes were made by dabbing the end of a brush in paint then dabbing the painted brush end on the head.  I used a  fine tipped sharpie for the eyebrows and a regular sharpie for the mouth.   

Once all the appendages were glued in place we had quite a handsome fellow!  I decided to cut out arms since we don't have normal trees here in Arizona either.  The branches are green.  Green arms for my snowman???  I don't think so!

We included a card that said, "For the Best Teacher I "Snow"".

And she is fabulous!  She deserves a million dollars with all she puts up with in the classroom.  

 I hope she likes my snowman.  I don't have a million dollars :0)