Wood block photo frames

I found this super cute and easy idea from a fabulous link : http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2011/05/make-your-own-wood-block-photo-frames.html
I didn't stencil mine like she did, but the possibilities are endless with what you can do. I think I want to try some with Cricut vinyl, and also try Mod Podging cute paper on there. I couldn't find any of that nice baker's twine when I looked, but I really like the look of the satiny ribbon. I used a sheer organza ribbon for most of them, because I had the most of that. Love the satin ribbon and bow! I didn't even need glue or staples. I just wrapped the ribbon around several times and tied a double knot, then a bow.

I don't know if the dowel needs to be the full 4 1/4 inches, but it adds stability being that length.

And here's all of them together, all ready to slip my "thank you" tags in for the teachers. I made these to give to all the female teachers, secretaries, lunch lady, and safety patrol lady (that just doesn't sound "proper" but I don't know what else to call her. I appreciate them all and thought (and hope) they might enjoy the little gifts.

I almost decided to give these to the male teachers- somehow we have a bunch of male teachers for my boys, which is good, but makes giving crafty gifts kind of hard... I decided against it, and they will get chocolate dipped pretzels instead. I don't have the cash to give everyone Starbuck's cards.. wish I did, but oh well... :) Anyhow, check out the link and get some great ideas like I did! Thanks Stephanie!!

Inexpensive, easy Teacher Gifts

This is a variation on covering journals and other notebooks. I found these swivel notepads at our Craft Warehouse for a dollar each, and thought, well, they would be much cuter with cute paper covering them. As I've done previously, I traced the notepad shape on the chosen paper, cut it out and glued it on. I used sandpaper to sand the edges of the paper off the pad to make it cleaner looking, and then inked. I added a flower and button in the middle and a little bit of Stickles glitter glue. The childcare workers I gave them to really liked them. Easy gift, not too time consuming... not a whole lot of brain pain involed.. always a plus!

Loving those Mason Jars!

I found these the other day whilst ( I like that word- a little more interesting than "while" ) perusing craft blogs and some of their links to other blogs... I've been finding the neatest ideas that way! I was able to track down the original post and blog for this craft- since I don't always know where I found the pictures I save for future crafts, this is very cool. I don't want to ever take credit (or be given it for that matter) for somebody else's great idea, that is NOT cool. Okay, so I found this idea here: http://www.recapturedcharm.com/2010/05/mason-jar-tea-lights.html on a blog called Recaptured Charm. I'm going to have to spend more time perusing her blog. I showed my best friend and we both made these using apples, so we could give them as teacher gifts. We used vinyl die-cuts made with the Cricut die cutting machine, but as you will see if you check out this talented lady's tutorial at Recaptured Charm, she did not have a Cricut and still found a way around that little (in)convenience- she made her own- yep, she's just that good! While I'm at it, I'm going to give the link to my best buddy's blog too, so you can check out her cool stuff, and her take on these little gems : http://dlemmascraftsbykatherine.blogspot.com/

I used the wide mouth Mason pint jars, my buddy used the half pint wide mouth jars- which I happen to think are adorable.. gush.... :) After making these, I have become a big fan of the Frosting spray- I used Valspar brand, and found it at Lowe's home improvement store for $4.98, you can find it at Michael's too, but it was several dollars more. Anyway, check out the link, and you can see how she did it. Easy peasy. I'm thinking this technique would be fabulous with Dollar Store glass plates on the underside- think of all the possibilities. The next thing I try with this will surely get posted here :) Thanks for checking it out, I hope you got some fun ideas to try!

Teacher Gifts

I found the idea for this from a blog somewhere, a couple of years ago, probably, so I can't give credit where it's due- so for the record, I'm not taking credit for thinking of this myself.. The original that I saw had some kind of clip art or stamps that were cute and it was a little more dressed up- but, I was crunched for time and lucky that I even got these done. You get any kind of small container and fill with either Smarties candies or Dum Dum suckers. For the Smarties jar, I made a little sign that says "Thanks to you I'm a Smartie! " and for the Dum Dums jar, the sign said "Thanks to you, I'm no Dum Dum! ". My kids got a kick out of the play on the words for the candies (as did I :) ).

Mini Magnetic Memo/Picture Boards

This little project idea came out of the bigger memo board I did recently. In our search for an adequately sized memo board, we had to use two 8 x 12 metal roofing shingles and put them together and stabilize them. Well, this is what only one of those roofing shingles looks like by itself when it's covered. Sixty three cents at Lowe's provided me a metal roofing shingle which I covered with scrapbooking paper (using spray adhesive to adhere). I used my Cropadile to punch holes for the hanger, but you could use a drill. Then I used a glue gun to put the ribbon on. This is a very basic version, you could add more detail and/or personalize it, but I'll be working on approximately 30 of them for childcare worker gifts for our MOPS group at church, so I can't go overboard time and detail wise. I used the flat bottomed glass pebbles that you can find in a floral section- I bought mine at the Dollar Store- the smallest size of them that would work. I then used leftover paper, traced around what I wanted under the glass and glued it on with Aleene's Paper Glaze- which I found at Michael's arts and crafts store (about $4.50 ). A little goes a very long way. After I glued the paper to the bottom of the glass pebbles, I used a hot glue gun to glue the magnets on the backs. At Craft Warehouse, they have bigger flat bottomed glass pieces that you can cut out pictures or cute paper, etc. and glue on the glass pebbles. I believe they use Diamond Glaze to glue the paper onto the glass pebble, and E600 glue (comes in a silver tube) to glue the magnets on. My experience with using the hot glue gun has been a good one, so if you have a glue gun and don't want to spend more on glue, then by all means use what you have. I hope this gave you a fun idea for teacher gifts or whomever else you'd like to give something fun to.