Valentines!!!

Valentines!

I have not written a blog post in awhile!! Sorry, time just gets away.  Thought I would share the valentines the kids are handing out to their friends and teachers this year.

I pinned several ideas on Pinterest and let the kids decide what they wanted to do.

For Savannah, we did the same thing we did last year.

I made a design in an Excel document and printed 4 on a page. The top says "Have a KOOL Valentine's Day". The bottom says "Love" with 2 hearts and a place for her to write her name. 

The middle is blank to attach a package of Kool-aid. We taped that in the middle, glued a piece of color card stock on the back, put that in a clear bag with a twisty straw and there you go!! I got the idea from this pin. She has a free printable you can use. It was easy to make my own too.

Cost: (made 18 valentines)

$3 for 3 packs of 6 twisty straws

$3.60 for 18 packs of Kool-aid

$1 for pack of 25 clear bags

I think, if I can still do math, that comes to less than 50 cents for each one.

Simple & easy and since no one from her preschool is at her current school it was easy to use the same idea :).

For Landon, we went for a Mustache theme.  We liked this idea found here, but I knew he would not like "I Mustache ask you to be my Valentine". So I combined that idea of a cut-out mustache and sucker with this idea with a different saying and came up with this.

I printed a picture of a mustache and used it as a template to cut 18 mustaches out of black foam pieces. 

I made the card in Excel and printed on card stock. (4 on a page)

Punched a hole in the mustache and put it on the sucker. Punched a hole in the card, stuck the sucker stick through the card and taped the stick to the back of the card.

Who doesn't want to eat a sucker & have it look like you have a giant black mustache?

Cost: (made 18 valentines)

$2 for 2 bags of blow-pops

89 cents for a piece of 12x18 black foam

Something like 20 cents per card.

Fun & easy to make!

Teacher gifts. Found the idea on Pinterest, but the link goes no where. A box of brownie mix with a spatula.

The tag says "Shooting for Brownie Points".

Savannah also has 5th grade friends. Had to make them a happy too.  Bought small water bottles at Hobby Lobby for $2 each. Stuck a pack of M&Ms in each one, then cut their initial out of vinyl to personalize them.

Googled "M" adjectives to make different M&M tags like:

Thanks for being a Magnificent and Magical 5th grade friend.

(Savannah picked Magical :)

Didn't they turn out cute?!?!?!

We are excited for Friday!

Snowman Crafts--4 different ornaments

Snowman Class

Tealight ornament, Lightbulb ornament and 2 salt dough ornaments

For Day 5 & final week of our Snowman class we made 4 different ornaments.

I made 2 batches of this salt dough recipe. (This was more than enough dough to make 12 ornaments of each kind.) Rolled the dough out and used a biscuit cutter to cut circles for snowman face ornaments (also found in the link above) and full snowmen using a cookie cutter. For the noses on the circle faces, I cut triangles with a plastic knife and formed them with my hands to shape I wanted.

Baked according to directions and let dry for a little over a day.

The kids painted and used sharpies to decorate them in class!

For the tea light ornaments, I glued a small, looped piece of twine on the back prior to class so they can be hung on the tree. I also cut several hats out of foam pieces.

In class the kids decorated the hats with markers and glued them on. They drew their faces on with sharpies. We twisted a pipe cleaner around the light for a scarf.

For the light bulb ornaments, I sprayed them with glitter prior to class.  Make sure you buy white bulbs not clear ones.  The kids picked pipe cleaners for the scarf and the hanger.  We twisted the pipe cleaners in place, then the kids used sharpies to draw on the faces.  We used a small orange triangle cut from foam for the nose. We glued black sequins on for buttons.

These were all fun & easy.  Here is a picture of my 2 demo ornaments that I made. :)

This was such a fun class!!  I forgot that in week 4 I printed this poem for the kids.  There is a black & white version so I printed and they colored it in.  Find it here.

Snowman Crafts--Wooden Snowman & Bottle cap Ornament

Snowman Crafts

4x4 Snowman & Bottle cap Ornament

The 4th week, we made snowmen out of a piece of 4x4 and and ornament using bottle caps.

I bought a 10 foot long 4x4 board from Lowes and asked my brother-in-law to cut it into six 12 inch pieces and six 8 inch pieces. The younger siblings & kids made the smaller size and the older siblings/kids made the bigger size.

I painted the wooden pieces prior to class to save time.

We used adult size fuzzy gloves from the Dollar Tree for the hats.  We put a Kroger plastic bag in the glove to help puff it up a bit, then tied a piece of string around the finger holes to make it look like a hat.

I had scraps of fleece that I cut into strips for the scarves. I purchased a pack of bells at the Dollar Tree to tie on the scarves. I found a pack of wooden oval pieces at Hobby Lobby that I painted orange for the noses.

The kids picked buttons and a nose to glue on and used Sharpies to decorate the face.  Some decided their snowmen needed hair and other accessories so they went to town with the Sharpies making the Snowmen their own creations.

I found the idea of using a 4x4 from and Etsy shop and used this tutorial for the glove hat idea.

For the ornament, I had Kevin save his beer bottle lids for several weeks. I spray painted them white to cover all the labels and sprayed them with glitter spray just for fun.

I painted Popsicle sticks navy blue, sprayed them with glitter spray and glued a looped string on the back for a hanger.

The kids decorated 2 out of 3 bottle caps for their snowman ornament.  One with a face & the middle with button.  We used Sharpies to do this.

Then they glued the bottle caps onto the Popsicle sticks and the ornament was done!!

Snowman Crafts--Candy Dish & Burlap Ornament

Snowman Crafts

Snowman Candy Dish & Burlap Ornament

For the 3rd week of class, we made Candy dishes and a burlap ornament. 

There are several different pins on Pinterest for candy dishes made from small clay pots & glass bowls.  I pinned a couple and this is the best one.

Here are the ones we made.

I bought 4 inch clay pots and saucers at Lowes & Home Depot for 79 cents each.

To help class go smoothly and avoid sending home too much wet paint, I painted all the pots & saucers before class.  The pots took 3-4 coats of white spray paint. If I ever make these again, I would use a sealer on the pots first OR use a different brand of spray paint. I used the 97 cents Wal-mart stuff.

For the saucers, I painted half of them red and half black. They took 3 coats of paint. I had 3 sets of siblings in class, so I painted them different colors so the families would have slightly different ones.

I bought a bag of 12 wooden balls at Hobby Lobby for the lids. They are flat on one side and glued them on prior to class with E-6000 glue. I painted them white before gluing them on.

I cut scarves out of sheets of felt and eyes, nose, mouth and buttons out of vinyl.

The glass bowls came from the Dollar Tree.  They have 2 sizes--this was the bigger size--I think it was 4.5 inches.

Once in class, the kids put their faces & buttons on the snowmen. I helped them tie the scarf around the pot, then we glued the glass bowl on using 5-6000 glue.

We had extra time after making our ornament, so I let them paint their lids to make them their own.  They were once again very creative and most ended up not black or red at all!!

We also made a burlap ornament. I got the idea from an Etsy shop pin. I bought a half yard of burlap and had more than enough to make 15 ornaments (extras just in case).

I made a snowman shape with my Silhouette machine and cut white card stock to glue to the burlap. I felt like it needed a backing since the kids would be gluing things on the burlap.

I used spray adhesive to glue the burlap & card stock together, then trimmed the burlap around the shape.

The kids painted faces, glued on buttons, tied a string round the neck for a scarf.  We taped small twigs on the back for arms.

Needless to say, both projects turned out Super Cute!!

Snowman Crafts--Ornaments & Q-tips paintings

Snowman Class

Q-tip Paintings, Clear-filled ornament & Thumbprint Ornament

For our 2nd class, we made 2 ornaments and a painting.

We started by finishing the Thumbprint ornaments. The first week, I painted each child's thumb & pressed it 3 times on a plain, blue ornament to make a snowman. Since we finished them week 2, they were obviously completely dry by then :).

I had a bunch of sharpies, laid them all out for the kids and let them decorate their snowmen.

Once again, they were all very creative!!  Some went wild, like Landon--who put 4 arms on one of his-- and other were sweet and made cute snowmen. 

You can't go wrong with art and it was fun to see them be creative and make it their own.

Next, we filled a clear ornament with small, white  Styrofoam balls.  I pre-filled plastic cups with the right amount of styrofoam and made small funnels out of paper for each child.

Styrofoam is static-y and goes everywhere!! If I had it to do over, I might use the packaged, shredded white paper stuff, but the ornaments turned out so cute with the foam balls, if you can stand the mess use them!!

I have a Silhouette cutter machine, so I cut eyes and mouth circles out of black vinyl and triangle noses out of orange vinyl.  This worked out great & was easy!! If you can't do vinyl or some kind of stickers, you could paint the face on the ornament.

We used pipe cleaners & pompoms as a earmuffs for the top. I pre-glued the pompoms to the pipe cleaners to save time.

The worst part was the kids having to hold the earmuffs on while the glue dried.  It just took sooooooooooo long...at least according to kids :).  We did figure out that if you wedged them into the plastic cups just right, the cup would hold it all together while the glue dried.

Last, we made Q-tip Snowmen paintings. (Once again, the kids made a demo at home to see how it went.)

Close-up of Landon's class painting.  The cutest thing was, that the youngest girl in class loved Landon's demo painting so much she wanted to do one just like it! (The small, squatty man above, left)

This one is mine--it was so fun to make!

Apparently, Savannah didn't want pictures taken of her projects or I just didn't take any...who knows.

These are so simple! I bought a pack of card stock at Michael's with several shades of blue, a pack of Q-tips and used acrylic paint I had on hand.

It really is fun to watch kids create & just see what comes out of their minds and onto paper.

All these were really easy projects.  Cost just depends on what you already have on hand to use.  You can buy pompoms and pipe cleaners at the Dollar Tree, so you can get supplies inexpensively!

(The pins I pinned for these ideas ended up being just pictures with no blogs or tutorials, or went to blogs, but I couldn't find an actual post about the picture. So can't give credit to anyone.)

Snowman Crafts--Sock Snowman

Snowman Crafts

Sock Snowman

Our school offers After School Enrichment classes for students. I decided, since I work there now, that I would teach a snowman craft class for 5 weeks.

While I thought I would write a post each week about what we made, it turns out I was too busy with 3rd grade homework to make that happen. Plus we were so busy in class, I didn't take pictures of anything!!
Only took pictures of my kids & their stuff once we got home.

Now that class is over, I will share what we made--we had so much fun!!

I had 11 students total, ranging in age from 5-12. They all did a great job and we made many projects!

To get ready for the class, I started a Snowman Class board on Pinterest (of course).

The first class we made Sock Snowmen. 

My kids each made a demo at home so we would see how it worked so they ended up with two.

I pinned several sock snowmen on Pinterest and used ideas from all of them to make ours.  The best tutorial came from this one.  Except for the hat, I took the idea of just rolling down the top of the sock from this tutorial (which is also a good tutorial).

I have a craft room and have accumulated a lot of supplies.  I pulled out my buttons, ribbon, pompoms, glue, batting & puffy paint. 

I bought 3-packs of white, men's socks from the Dollar Tree and rice from the grocery store.

Each child got a sock and I filled the bottom of the sock with about a 1/3 bag of the rice. I would say 3/4-1 cup of rice. Then the kids filled up the rest of the sock with batting.  Fill it up to the bottom of the ribbed top part of the sock (or less if you want it shorter) and rubber band the sock closed. (NOTE: in one of our demos, we used popcorn instead of rice, but you could see it through the sock. So I would definitely use white rice, not popcorn.)

Fold the top of the sock over onto the top part of the batting filled part.  This makes your hat--tack it down with a little glue.

Then decorate how you choose!!  We used Tacky Glue to glue all the parts on. The kids were all so creative and really made them their own creations.  As you can see from Landon's picture above, he made his with batting hair.

This was my first class and over all it went well!  The only thing I would change is using black puffy paint.  It got a little out of control.  My oldest student decided to polka-dot her top pompom--an idea that several others decided to do too!!

Pretty soon we had puffy paint everywhere.

Also, the ribbon scarves got into some of the puffy painted mouths and ended up everywhere.

We quickly had to remake one girls' snowman before we left.

I suppose if you were making at home where the paint could just dry and did not have to be transported, it would be ok to use.

My goal was to also make a thumbprint snowman ornament.  We got the thumbprints done, but didn't complete the ornaments.

So we finished those the next week...will tell you about those in the next post!!

Overall, an easy, cheap and fun project!!

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls

Yesterday I made cinnamon rolls to take to work today. 

The real homemade kind...not Pillsbury canned ones.

Many people asked for the recipe so I thought I would share it here since I took it from a couple of different Pinterest recipes.

Growing up, we made homemade cinnamon rolls and they were so yummy.  Now, my mom's recipe is missing and no one seems to know where it might have gone. So I had to resort to Pinterest to find a good one.

I wasn't planning on writing a blog post on this, so I didn't take a picture of the 2 pans of rolls.  So I took a picture of what I brought back home.

That is only 5 out of two pans...I think they liked them! :)

Dough:

½ cup very warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 packet of yeast
½ cup melted butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
½ cup sugar
1½ cups warm milk
5½ cups flour (I use 2 cups wheat flour & the rest white)

Filling:About 1/2 stick softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3 Tbs. cinnamon

Combine sugars & cinnamon

(These are approximate, just depends on how much filling you want)

Icing:

For icing, melt butter (about 2 tablespoons).  Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons milk.  Sift powdered sugar into mixture and stir well.  Amount of powdered sugar depends on how thick you want your icing.

• Combine water, 1 tablespoon sugar and yeast.  Set aside for 5 minutes to activate.
• Mix ½ cup sugar, melted butter, eggs, and salt.  Add yeast mixture.
• Stir in warm milk. (I heat in microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring in between, for about 1 1/2 minutes total.
• Add 5 cups flour, 1-2 cups at a time.
• Knead dough on a well-floured surface, adding flour as necessary, until dough isn’t sticky.
• Let rise until double in a clean, oiled bowl. (I heat my oven and turn it off, place the bowl in the oven so it has a warm place to rise OR leave the oven on & place the bowl on top. The heat from the oven will help it rise.)
• Punch down risen dough.  Separate into two pieces.
• Roll out dough in a large rectangle.  Spread with softened butter.  Sprinkle liberally with brown sugar, white sugar, and cinnamon mixture.
• Roll dough until about 1/4 inch thick. 
• Use floss to cut into 1 inch rolls. I place rolls on a cutting board to rise until double in size. 
• Bake at 350° for 20-22 minutes.  Spread icing while hot.

I pinned this recipe from here. I've also used this recipe link for icing. Just depends on if you want a cream cheese icing or not. Both are yummy!

Cream Cheese Icing:

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Making cinnamon rolls is easy and so worth it! Just be sure to allow time for the dough to rise.

Make some & enjoy!!