Meteorologist Birthday Party

 Hello everyone, happy Good Friday! 

Today I am sharing photos from my grandfather's meteorologist-themed birthday party. It was basically the same thematically as this weather party from years back, but I would like to think this one was greatly improved or at least more stylish. 

Here are a few key details:

-The rain cloud was made with metallic silver balloons at Walmart along with translucent/iridescent gift straw stuff I came across near the balloons (it was $0.98 though). 

-The blue balloons also came from Walmart. I draped dancing ribbons I had on hand over the board, so that is what the white cloth is. 

-The clouds and words are all made from a bag of cotton (also from Walmart). 

-The donuts and cinnamon buns came from Dollar General. The pottery and dishes I had on hand (handmade years back). 

-I painted the poster with regular acrylic paints and hot-glued the words on. 

-For the party favors, I bought packs of three notebooks for $1 at Walmart, designed different weather and weather forecast templates on Canva to print and cut out, then glued them on as the notebook covers. I added mini flashlights that were bought in bulk on Amazon. 

I hope you enjoyed!

Here is a verse to close with today in honor of Good Friday if you want a powerful word to reflect on: "But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." (Isaiah 53:5, NLT). A powerful lyrics quote that seems relevant goes something like this: Even though you may be in a storm, that does not mean the storm is in you. (Mark 4.) 

Thank you for visiting!

-Lauryn 

Classroom Christmas Tour, 2025

 Hello! This is a really random post to share in January, but here is a quick tour of my classroom decorated for Christmas last year. 

Maybe it can provide some future inspiration for Christmas 2026. The lights came from both thrift stores and Amazon (specifically the star LED lights came from Amazon). The brown ribbon was bought in a huge bulk roll from Amazon. It was around $10, decorated my whole bedroom, classroom, was used to embellish gifts, used for hair bows, and I still have tons left! The bells came from Dollar Tree but I painted them to look vintage. The garlands and pine cones came from thrift stores. I probably paid a total of $5 or less for them. I did run out of those and buy one strand from Walmart, which is unreasonably expensive, as it turns out. The other decorations I had on hand from thrift stores or they were given to me as gifts in years past.  

I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for visiting! 

Blessings,

Lauryn 

Custom Keychain Gift Idea for Students

 Hello! Tonight I'd also like to share a gift idea I did for my students last Christmas as both an end of the semester and Christmas gift in one (also because I literally did not have any time to celebrate those two occasions with separate gifts). I have no regrets about this and liked the result, but disclaimer: these take an insane amount of time. Like they took me at least fifteen minutes each to put together, decide on the designs, tie, and hot glue. I multiplied that by thirty-eight students which I should have done before starting this project since I have almost zero time management skills and no sense of time passing. The number I came up with is approximately a minimum of nine and a half hours. I am pretty certain it took hours over that. 

That said, it is very time consuming. That is just for the keychain part, too, not counting the packaging part. I think I made the labels on Canva but could not find the printable to add in below. I bought the ribbon in a bulk roll from Amazon and still have plenty to spare months later. The beads came from a variety of kits I bought off of Amazon and then stole from my brother because the kits I bought ran out, so for thirty-eight students I should have bought three or four kits instead of two. Each keychain featured the student's name, and two large beads I thought they would like (such as a smiley face, bow, star, and so on) or three or four smaller ones (I tried very hard to make them all equal). 

The pros are that these are both pretty and practical, and they are very personalized. These could really be given to any age and any group of people, too. 

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find this idea helpful! 

Blessings,

Lauryn