DIY Teacher Valentine Gift Idea + Art Class Valentines for Students

 This is a bit late, but here are some Valentine's Day gift and card ideas I created this year for my teacher colleagues and students. Some of the student cards are themed around artworks/artists, such as the middle school ones, which had a Howard Finster pun since we've been studying GA folk art. I found an artwork of Mark from the Bible to go with my markers and marker pun for my second graders. I used sweet treat artwork by Wayne Thiebaud for some of my lower school student gifts. Some of the gift tags just had a pun and I handwrote them. For the teachers, I bought containers of Valentine's Day donuts, put two in each bag, and separately packaged soap roses I fond at a local store in bulk. The poem I wrote for them is below on the free printable, but if you needed to change the wording like the word "colleague" or do different gifts, I made my tags in the Paint program most computers come with. I shopped all over and the stores all kept running out of supplies, so I had to do different things for each class. I gave glitter pens to my first grade class (since they all love glitter) and ice cream pens, chalk markers and chalk tags to my second grade class who expressed interest in using chalk markers, Sharpies or special pens with glitter glue sticks or rainbow pens for my third-to-seventh grade students, note sets with cats or dogs for my high school small group members, and stacked highlighters for my art appreciation class. I decorated my classroom with a balloon arch you may recognize from the party I recently posted (it was still put together, too, which saved a lot of time), and gave the option of spending the Monday before Valentine's Day creating Valentine's cards or drawing animals holding hearts in art class. I unfortunately did not really photograph the beautiful works before I sent them home. 

Free Printable Cards:

I hope you enjoyed these free printable cards and find the Valentine's Day ideas handy for next year! 

-Lauryn 

Modern Plant-Themed 24th Birthday Party

 Hey guys, today I am sharing an event that I actually did not put together, but was a surprise for my birthday last month my family and relatives kindly did for me. I said surprise --allow me to clarify. I knew there was a 'party' but I did not know they had time to decorate and had gone all out for it, so it was a pleasant surprise. If you know me well, you know I hate many surprises, surprise parties included, but I enjoyed this surprise. 

As the balloons show, I turned 2,424. Man, how time flies. The decades just go by faster every century. They chose a plant-ish theme and simple colors, which is perfect for me. My mother even got fancy, practical notebook favors and my grandparents gave me a lovely pot of live flowers that miraculously are still alive as I type. The four balloon popped, so they got creative and used matching tissue paper on a cardboard four, which looked more unique, so it worked out well. I honestly thought that was intentional, so thumbs up for great improv!

I hope you enjoyed this theme idea as much as I did, and look forward to sharing more events soon!

-Lauryn 

2023 Bedroom Tour (Fairytale/Story Theme)

 Good evening, I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! I am on a school break, so I am hoping to share a couple posts the next two days, but here is a quick room tour to start with. I decided to do a story/fairytale sort of theme with lots of animals and nature in my décor, and I decorated the day after Christmas (as always) for the new year. All of the decorations were handmade, from the thrift store or on hand. For example, I used dried roses and leaves I had saved to decorate my piano. In other words, these are cheap and easy decoration ideas I hope some of you might find applicable. 

I look forward to hopefully sharing more soon. Thank you for visiting!

-Lauryn

Cast Gift idea: Wood-Burned Keychains

 Hey everyone! Here is a quick cast gift idea for theater folks and directors who may want to give their cast a personal, custom but affordable gift. I bought these keychains at Hobby Lobby or Michaels on sale and wanted to do a wood-burned keychain for everyone but I ran out and could not get to Gainesville that week. So the first cast gift idea is to use a wood burner and carve out the characters along with the actors' and actresses' names on such keychains. I like to give each cast member a personal gift, as well. The second gift used Dollar Tree chalkboard tags, chalk taped onto to each so they could be drawn on, and I painted with white acrylic paint a show symbol (for Addams Family I did a snapping hand) and the actor's or actress's name on each. These types of gifts could really apply to any group of people, though. 

Thank you for visiting, I hope you enjoyed! 

-Lauryn 

Handmade Mysterious Benedict Society Costumes (Disney Version)

 Hello everyone, it has been so long since I have had time to create a post. This is an overview of how I created our Mysterious Benedict Society group Halloween costumes this past October. It's not exactly a tutorial, but I will try to describe in summary how I made each. 

Cosplay inspiration:

Ours:

For Constance, I found the perfect plaid pattern on thrift store pajama pants, which I cut and sewed into a shawl (I basically just needed to hem and attach two rectangles). I used extra strips for hair bows. I also found a pink, long button-up shirt at the same store. I had to trim the sleeves, add plaid to the tips, and hem them. I hot-glued more of the extra plaid fabric to the buttons to make them match. I bought long white socks at Dollar Tree. That's all there was to it! 

For Mr. Benedict, we already had a hat and grey face paint, so I painted a beard and used Dollar Tree yarn to make hair. The shirts/jacket were thrift store finds, as was the tie. This costume was basically finding and matching up parts, it did not require much creating. 

For Reynie we bought a green sweatshirt at a thrift store, then my brother cut it into a vest and painted a gold trim. He had tan shirts, I got him long mismatched socks at Dollar Tree, and the shirt came from the thrift store, too. 

Finally, for Kate I bought a hat and jacket that were the right materials but wrong colors. I also found a striped shirt and orange-brownish pants. All of the thrift store supplies including those were bought at a big sale at our local Freedom Hill store. I mixed acrylic paints with fabric softener and painted the hat green, and all of the jacket. The jacket took many, many layers and several days since I had to wait for each layer and side to dry. 

I hope somebody who sees this costume idea knows what The Mysterious Benedict Society is unlike everybody we encountered on Halloween, and if you appreciate the series as much as I do, perhaps you'll find this idea useful for the future. 

Thanks for visiting!

-Lauryn