Projects

Those of you who know me well know that I have a really hard time when school gets out for the summer and I suddenly don't have to work for 3 months. It's a big change for me. I don't know what to do when I don't have to be accountable for much. Anyway, I find myself doing "projects". I haven't updated my classroom much in the last 2 years due to different things, mostly lack of resources to update with and I was not sure what I was going to be working with last summer. I have done small things like borders and posters, but nothing BIG.

Throughout this school year I was shocked to find that parents actually buy book orders from the Scholastic magazines I send home and I soon began to rack in the teacher points for selling. And when I say buy, I don't mean like a $25 order here and there, like I was used to in Idaho. I mean I was putting in orders of over $200 for each magazine I would send home. Those points are USEFUL! I accumulated a lot of books this year. I actually have what I could call a decent classroom library now. To go along with that you need to have a place to put those books and I have always dreamed of a cute little library corner.  This has become my project this summer.

When we moved into this house we no longer had a second family room and thought we would just put the older couch in the bedroom we are using for the toy/family area, but we misjudged the room in there and the fact that the couch won't fit through the door so it was either take it the dump, put it on the lawn with a free sign, or Alicia gets a couch in the classroom. I began thinking of what I could do with this trashy looking, not in great shape couch to make it presentable for the classroom, not to mention less attracted to all those germs. I started looking for ideas and soon found that someone had covered a couch in crazy duct tape and then placed it in the classroom. My mind went WILD! Duct tape...there's mustache duct tape. MUSTACHE people! We all know that I LOVE my mustache decor in the classroom. That's not changing anytime soon. SO I began to think I could easily cover this couch in duct tape and then it would be easy to wash and be ADORABLE and somewhat trashy, but not too trashy. But what would I do with the throw pillows that cover the back of the couch? I decided to just make large pillowcases (I can sew well enough for that) and I would have the perfect seating for my new library.

It turned out so well (in my opinion). I can't wait to see what the kids think when they see it. It's not common, that for sure.

Then next I started to think about how I have a bigger room this year, but it doesn't lead itself well to book storage so I looked at prices of small bookcases. I decided to get some of those and mod podge fabric to the backs to make them more attractive. Those are not done yet, but on the way. 

The tops of those bookcases would need some decor so I got busy on that. I plan to set these on some easels along with the READ and Dr. Seuss saying I already have in my room on top of the bookcases.

Then Saturday I happened upon a garage sale of a retired teacher who had a rug that would match the entire thing perfectly so I added it to my decor.

As you can see the colors all go together really well! I also made a burlap wreath (first time ever) that I don't know where exactly I want it, but really wanted to make one after seeing some on Pinterest. 

Because mommy gets to do projects the kids think they should too. I let them paint with me the other day and Kai cried almost the entire time because he wasn't expecting it to be like work and he didn't want to wait between colors because that would take all day. Havyn was meticulous and enjoyed it just like me. Kael just blobbed orange everywhere and couldn't wait for it to dry. Koen wasn't interested, his age is really starting to show. He doesn't seem to think the same things are as great anymore.