Totally Transformed: Pez Dispensers

This week I am back again with another Monday Made It edition of "Totally Transformed". Last week's project of transforming the Dollar Spot bags was a huge hit! If you missed it, click the picture below to check it out! 

   

On the menu this week: transforming Pez dispensers into CVC sliders. I have been a collector of Pez dispensers since I was a child. I knew there had to be a fun way to transform these childhood favorites into a teaching tool.

Student teaching in kindergarten, a HUGE focus of the year was with CVC words. We used "Stretchy the Snake" a lot in the classroom! However, envelopes and pencil boxes can only hold the attention of a 5 year old for so long. By adding in simple character faces on a Pez dispenser, children will be instantly engaged! For example, if you have a child who loves Star Wars? No problem! Grab a Darth Vader Pez dispenser and you are golden!

Let's see the breakdown...

This project was as simple as adding two pieces of tape and writing three letters on each side. By adding the piece of tape, you have a teaching tool that can be used over and over again! However, if you don't plan on reusing these, you can skip that step and write directly on the Pez dispenser. This was seriously one of the easiest projects I have ever done! Gotta love 5 minute DIY's!

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While you are here, I also "made" a linky party called "Font-astic Favorites". It's perfect for all you font obsessed teachers out there! If you have a chance, I would love for you to link up! Click the picture below to join in on the fun!

See you next week when I tackle another everyday object and turn it into a teaching treasure!

Monday Made It - Totally Transformed

Welcome back to another Monday Made It hosted by the lovely Tara at 4th Grade Frolics!

This week I am kicking off a new series of Monday Made It posts on my blog:

Totally Transformed

Hopefully it will be the solution to end my craft fails! During this series, I am going to take an everyday object and totally transform it into something new. 

For today's transformation I turned to my trusty sidekick: Pinterest. While it might be summer, teacher's never turn off their school brain. After seeing these on Pinterest...

source

I knew I just had to make some fancy new wall art for the classroom! If you are like me, you fall in love with wall art at places like Hobby Lobby only to discover it costs upwards of $30 for a single canvas. Have no fear, I am here to show you a much cheaper way to get top notch wall art! For the final product, each canvas cost under $1.50 to make after using coupons. 

Let's take a look at the break down:

Feel free to pin any of my Monday Made It creations on Pinterest that you might like to tackle in the future! We all know it is where most of my crafting ideas come from!

The process to turn these canvas bags into wall art takes just a few simple steps. If you are a teacher hoarder and Target fanatic like myself, odds are you will have all these things at your disposal.

To make six of these bags it took less than an hour. My favorite part, there was no wait time for things to dry like with other crafting projects. It was as easy as cut, tack, hang. The even have the strap already attached so they can easily be hung on the wall. Here are the final products in all their glory...

As you can see, I had a newer (2014) and older (2013) version of each bag. I know I have the original (2012) bags from the Pinterest page if I dig through my closet hard enough. I have been diligently collecting these bags at Target. I always buy at least 2 of each bag when I go to the Dollar Spot because I never know when I might need more than one and they are always sold out. Good thing I bought duplicates because now I have beautiful wall art and bags to use in the classroom. I cannot wait until the new set of bags come out so I can continue to add to my collection!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Thanks to Fancy Frugal Life for the inspiration for this project! See you next week when I tackle another Totally Transformed project!

Let The Crafting Begin!

Ready or not, according to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics, it is full on summer crafting mode! While my school calendar still is in the teens, many lucky ladies and gents are on vacation. Summer vacation can only mean one thing...the best weekly crafting party on the world wide web! 

If you are tuning in for yet another major craft fail... click HERE if you dare... you won't find any today! I haven't had time to scour Pinterest for the best DIY projects of the year. Remember the teacher toolbox of 2 years ago? Yea, I totally jumped on that crafting bandwagon! For this week, you will have to see a couple my digital creations that I never got around to sharing. 

 Desktop Organizer

I don't know about you, but I am totally guilty of downloading hundreds of items to my desktop and just leaving them in a cluttered mess, or throwing them all in one folder called random and pretending like everything is sunshine and butterflies. I created this desktop organizer so maybe I can trick myself into being more organized this summer. Cute things always make organization easier right?

Password List

Along the same lines, I have a millions passwords to all the sites I use online. I have become far too familiar with the "forgot you password" link this year. It has started to get so out of control that I had to make a change and create a list to keep track. We will see how long I can keep track. My Erin Condren planner lasted a good three solid months before I threw in the towel. Hey, you win some, you lose some! 

  

Maybe next week I will get my act together for the real deal! I can stalk all of the people who linked up already and see if there is another craft fail in my near future. See you next Monday!

Q is for... Monday Made It and Teacher Week? {Giveaway Day 17}

Three Things this post tackles:
1. Monday Made It
2. Teacher Week
3. Bloggy Birthday Alphapalooza

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I am glad that Tara posted her Monday Made It a day early because it got my crafting butt in gear! I am going to be posting early as well because this way I won't be staying up until 1am getting my post ready to go.

 Is it bad to say I'm kind of looking forward to the monthy made its to come back next month? I just can't keep up anymore! These lazy days of summer are killing me! I need to get back into a routine of waking up early! Hopefully next week will get me back on track because I don't have much time left until school starts! 

I have three quick little projects to link up the lovely Tara this week.

The first one is a little container for some warm fuzzies. 

I am all about the positive behavior reinforcement this year. These little guys will be perfect! Can't wait to put them to good use! It was so simple to create! Use a dollar spot container, add a washi tape stripe, slap a label on the front and tie some ribbon on the ends. Easy and cute!

Next, I have a simple pom-pom that I created. 

Everyone was making their own so I just had to jump on board! (Obviously keeping with the blue and green theme!) I love how it turned out! 

Finally, I "created" a button for a linky party that I am hosting on student teaching reflections and advice. I want to be the best student teacher that I can be and I am turning to my blogging friends for help. If you would like to link up, click the button to join! I would really appreciate it!

I struggle big time when creating buttons. I love whatever everyone else creates but when I try and create something, I never love it. I don't have a good eye for graphic design I guess. However, I loved how this one turned out! And I didn't even use my traditional blue and green! That's what I call a success!

Thanks for hosting Tara! I can't wait to see what everyone else created!

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It also just so happens to be Teacher Week at Blog Hoppin!

 

I had to link up today since it would probably be the only day of the week that I am able to link up.

Hope you learned some new facts about me! I loved getting to know some of my favorite bloggers better today too! Happy Teacher Week! 

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Now, back to the bloggy birthday alphapalooza!

Background and frames by Lovin-Lit

Font by A Cupcake for the Teacher

Alphabet Blocks by Sonya Dehart

 

Here are the links to the previous days to catch up if you missed any! Trust me, you are going to want to go back and catch up if you missed any! There are HUGE prizes up for grabs!

Day 11
Day 12

Day 13
Day 14 
Day 15 
Day 16

Today's giveaway features the one and only Katie King from Queen of the First Grade Jungle...now exploring second grade! She really saved the day for me on this one! Without her, it wouldn't have been an alphapalooza now would it! Thanks so, so much Katie! And have you see her new blog design? It's too fabulous! You need to check it out if you haven't already!

 Katie is offering up her numbers 0-20 pack. It is perfect for back to school! You know you want to win it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am off to enjoy a night of TV. Big Brother, Whodunnit, Teen Choice Awards, Food Network Star. Thank goodness for DVR's!

Have a wonderful Monday! Good luck if tomorrow is your first day back at school!

J is for... {Giveaway Day 10} & Monday Made It!

 ***Be sure to read to the end of the post to enter my bloggy birthday alphapalooza giveaway!***

It's already the 5th of August! Yikes! Less than a month until back to school! That means it's time to kick it into high gear to get ready for the start of school! I was quite the slacker in July for Monday Made It. Now, I have some serious catching up to do to get ready in time! 

I wanted to create something that has been on my to do list for weeks now! (And something that I knew I wouldn't mess up *cough* *cough*) Those Copy, Grade, File drawers! However, it seemed that every place I looked had the ridged drawers and that wasn't going to work for me. I found a set at Walmart this weekend that were just what I had been looking for! I knew it was a Monday Made It meant to be moment! 

I got right to work whipping up a set of labels to put on those drawers and I am obsessed with how they turned out! I used the same papers as in my blog design for the creation so they are all matchy matchy. Love, love, love! Like seriously in love! Check them out for yourself below! 

I did an impromptu photo shoot using my fur rug as a backdrop. Pretty professional right? Well there you have it! Some blog design inspired drawer labels! Here are the papers that I used for the project if you are curious. Will you be making a set to match your blog design?

Thanks so much for hosting once again Tara! The crafting inspiration through this linky is endless!  Head on over to see what everyone else was up to this week!

Now back to the regularly scheduled giveaways!

Background and frames by Lovin-Lit

Font by A Cupcake for the Teacher

Alphabet Blocks by Sonya Dehart

The third giveaway has ended and there were 2 winners! Were you one of the lucky ladies?

How funny that Cara won the other letter C giveaway? It must have been paying her back for donating so many fabulous prizes to the giveaway! 

 Congrats Beth! I am sure these prizes will inspire some wonderful resources to create for the classroom!

I will be contacting you both in with your prize information shortly! Expect an e-mail from me soon!

Don't you want to be a lucky winner like these lovely ladies? Be sure to enter each day, as many entries as you are allowed! Just one isn't enough! You want all the odds stacked in your favor! Here are the links to the previous days to catch up if you missed any!

Day 4 

Day 5 
Day 6 
Day 7 
Day 8 
Day 9

Today's giveaway features a trio of insanely creative people!

70 clip art sets to choose from!

If only all substitute teachers were as phenomenal as Tanja! 

I am obsessed with bucket filling and this pack is just too cute to pass up! 

 Just enter on the Rafflecopter to be the lucky winner of these three prizes! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Are you sure it wouldn't be fair to win my own giveaway? Just kidding! Good luck! See you tomorrow for another chance to win some back to school goodies!

Monday Made It - Paint Stirrers Part 1

Bet you didn't think you would be hearing from me this Monday Made It did you seeing as it is almost midnight? I almost posted a picture on Instagram last night saying go ahead and cry yourselves to sleep tonight because you won't get to read all about my crafting fails tomorrow. However, I refrained because I knew I couldn't let you all down! I know my fails turn into laughs which make your week!

I worked long and hard after work today to finish up my Monday Made It's so I could link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics! 

Last week, I posted this photo:

My goal was to transform these free paint stirrers into some amazing new creations. Well, after the jam packed 4th of July weekend, plans got changed. I was only able to accomplish part of what I had intended. Can you guess why? Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! Craft fails! 

I really had the best intentions! I wanted to give spray paint another go, but this time around I wasn't going to lay them down on a tarp. I knew better! The wind would take over, blow the tarp, and smudge all the paint. I decided to hang them on the clothesline so I could paint both sides unharmed. 

Genius idea, right? Wrong!  This was the end result...

When I turned the clothespins around to paint the other side, the paint wasn't completely dry I guess. When I took them off the line, the clips chipped off chunks of paint. Looking good!

In addition, the paint got all weird on some of them and turned powdery, guessing from all the wind blowing around. I thought I would just brush off the excess powder with a napkin. However, instead of just removing powder on top, it took off all the paint. 

Simple fix for both right? Just re-paint them with some more spray paint. Well, painting 20 of them used up all the spray paint. When did I buy this paint, over a year ago. Do you think I could find the same color in the store? Nope! I swear you cannot make these things up!

However, despite these craft fails, I did still turn out with some great products! Keep on reading to see that I am not a complete failure this week!

My first inspiration was this pin from Hands on Bible Teacher.

I knew that I had to create something similar for school! My school-themed inspiration came from Cheryl from Primary Graffiti's Sub Tubs. 

I just love the Old Lady book series and they are perfect for sequencing! I also know that come Winter, I will be doing a lot of substitute teaching! This will be such a simple little task to carry around! Combine the sub tubs with these sequencing sticks and you have a match made in heaven!

These strips can be changed up for any book in the series or any book in the world! All the pieces are interchangeable with velcro. They make sequence writing a piece of cake! I can see these being a favorite center in the classroom!

Next up, some word work! 

Hilary from Rockin' Teacher Materials posted these paint stirrer letter sound activities.

For back to school in kindergarten, I thought I would stick with something basic: children's first names. I turned these free paint stirrers into magnet strips to practice spelling their names. 

Really simple to make! I bought some $2 magnetic sheets at Walmart and cut them into strips and stuck them onto the paint stirrers. Since I don't know the names of the children yet, I just did a demo using my name. Very simple yet very effective! Can't wait to put them to good use!

Finally, the ever fabulous Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher posted some fabulous ideas using paint stirrers. One that I loved and could definitely see being a huge help in the classroom were her library sticks. 

I just had to create these in my color scheme! They were so very simple to make and will be a huge lifesaver! I don't know how many I need so I just created one in each color to model.

Of course nothing would be complete with out a little washi tape! That stripe makes the perfect accent! Don't you just love them! 

So that wasn't a total failure right? Feel free to pin any of these ideas if you want to make them in the future! I promise they are not as complicated as my efforts make them appear!

So this weekend, I will be headed back to home depot to pick up more free paint stirrers and try and find some matching spray paint to tackle the remaining creations that I had planned. Leave some more comments if you have any other guesses as to what I have left to create for your chance to win! Stay tuned for part 2 next week where I will announce the winners for parts 1&2! I really am keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have any craft fails to show you but now that wouldn't be any fun would it? Good night!