teacher gifts

my children love their teachers.

and i love that their teachers are so patient, helpful, and kind. 

i mean really . . . just how do you get so many patience to keep up with those kids all year?!

i love every chance we get to shower them with a little something.

these are our end of the year gifts.
(i found the idea here and just tweaked it to make it my own).

i found the coffee cups at the dollar store.  used some scrapbook paper i had and then added the poem.

the poem reads:

thanks for your:

commit-'mint' to help me learn,

encourage-'mint' to always do my best,

involve-'mint' in my life,

invest-'mint' of time and energy to make school such a great place to be.

thanks for making each day an enjoy-'mint'.

everything you have done this year has really 'mint' a lot to me!

then i signed my sons name.

and inside the cups are an assort-'mint' of candies.

easy, peasy, frugal and loved by the recipients!

i have an eight year old

just how do they get from this . . .

to this . . .

so quickly?!

has it really been eight years?! 

happy happy birthday to my eight year old ROCK STAR!!

i love ya darlin!

what makes a house a home?

the writing on the wall.

the thomas the train growth chart was a bit to young for my almost 8 year old.  so i transferred all the heights to a door way in our hallway using a sharpie marker.  i will forever treasure this.

what is this?

i found this yesterday at an estate sale.
what is it?

with this cute little scoop is it for sugar or salt?

i am using it to hold my business cards. 

i love the floral detail on it.

cheers!  to the weekend!

leave me a comment if you know what this is.  thanks!

a little bird told me . . .

that living in a pasta nest is best!
these little nests turned out adorable, and yes, they are made out of pasta!
these are the perfect "i made it myself" gift for children to give for mothers day.

i was having trouble finding eggs for this project. 

 i ended up just buying the paper mache eggs at hobby lobby. 

 i also bought some paint and thought i'd spend an afternoon painting 20 of them. 

 but when i got them home i noticed that a few of them had some blue spots on them. 

 i took one and soaked off the brown craft paper.  and did you know. . . that under that brown paper are beautiful blue plastic eggs??!!  who knew!

  i love accidental good finds!  especially ones that save me time from painting!

just look at all the beautiful blue shades.  these are exactly what i was looking for!

get your crafty crown on . . . here are the easy steps on how to make these adorable nests.

step one: pour  1/4 cup of glue and a couple squirts of brown paint into a plastic container.

  butter bowls work good or what ever size you want your nest to end up.

  stir the paint and the glue all together until it looks like chocolate milk.

step 2:  you will need some pasta.

  i was lucky to find these small bags and the pasta was already broken into little pieces.

  perfect for this project! 

step 3:  measure one cup of pasta and pour into glue/paint mixture.

step 4:  using a plastic spoon, stir the pasta.

  be sure to get all of the glue mixed in with the pasta.

step 5:  once all the pasta is coated with the glue shape your nest.

  using the plastic spoon, smoosh to the sides of the dish, be sure to leave some pasta in the bottom, you don't want a hole in your nest. 

step 6:  let your nest dry, in the plastic bowl for about 10 minutes.

  then squish the sides of the bowl until the nest is easy to pop out.

   it should look something like this...

step 7:  let the nest dry over night.

  i flipped mine several times to make sure the bottom was dry.

step 8:  once dry:  fill your nest with feathers, write something on the tag for the recipient and an egg.

good luck, hollar if you have any questions!