Trash to Treasure and Teacher Appreciation Week

I'm going to join the Trash to Treasure Tuesday party at Kimm's, and show you a project I did for Teacher Appreciation Week. I signed up to decorate the teacher lunchroom at our school (I've learned to volunteer for PTO projects I enjoy doing - decorating, yes, planning, not so much).

Our PTO and parents serve breakfast to the teachers on Wednesday morning, lunch Thursday, and desserts on Friday. We like to decorate the room to make it a little more special. I had the idea to put chalk boards in there (isn't it funny that schools don't have those anymore?! Even dry erase boards aren't used as much because of SmartBoards ... I digress).

I found my inspiration for the chalkboard here, at LuLu & Co. , when I saw this photo. I like to use sunflowers for parties, and I like how this whole setup looked. I was even going to buy lemons, but by the time I got to that, I had spent too much money and didn't want to fork over another $5.00.
I went to the thrift store in hopes that I would get lucky and find a frame like LuLu's, but this is the only thing I could find. Just a couple bucks, no problem. I'll make it work. It had a couple gouges on the front, so I patched them with spackle and sanded them smooth.
Then I re-painted the sides gold (I didn't like the cheap gold paint that was already on it) and after that I painted the entire thing white (I like to use heirloom white spray paint with satin finish).

When it was dry, I rubbed down the top layer of paint with steel wool. I use sand paper on the corners where I really want it worn down good, but I generally like to use steel wool because it is gentle and lets the layers of paint colors show through.

I taped off the sides and painted a couple coats of chalk board paint.
Voila!
For the second chalk board, I had an old picture frame we had in the garage. The glass had broken and there was no backing, and Mr. Jones was going to throw it away. Ooops, I don't think so.
I went to The Home Depot, and in the lumber department they had this cheap, $3.00 board. I marched it over to the cutting center and had the guy cut it to fit my frame. 2 cuts are free. That's all I needed.

I learned something new on this one, though. I thought spraying grey primer before I spray painted it with 2 coats of chalkboard paint would be good enough. Not good enough. You could see the particle board through the paint. It didn't look good. So I slopped on a thick coat of white paint with a roller. This covered up the particle board surface and gave it a nice texture. Then I painted with grey primer (more for the grey undercoat than to prime raw wood at this point) and 2 coats of chalkboard paint. Perfect.

Mr. QTPa2Tee (Youngest Child) was helping me set up, and came up with this brilliant idea: I had planned to just write a message to the teachers on the chalkboards, but he filled a couple mason jars with chalk and wrote a question for the teachers to answer. I can't wait to see what they write. Well done, my young apprentice. (He is really into Star Wars lately. Do I sound like Emperor Palpatine?)

This is the buffet table in the teachers' lunchroom. The mason jars are to hold cutlery or whatever else needs to be held. I have a thing for mason jars and jelly jars lately.

Here is my Southern Living at Home server, and I tied it with some school-themed twill from the scrapbook stash. Here's a closeup look:

I covered the buffet table with a big piece of white burlap. For those of you who read my burlap post and helped me with my problem, thank you, thank you. For those of you who didn't read it, my burlap smelled like it pumped gas at Shell all day. I washed it, Downey'd it, left it outside in the sun and rain, washed it, bleached it, and let it soak in vinegar (I still have to try lavender sachets). Yep, it was that bad. Here's what I learned: Don't buy burlap at Ben Franklin crafts. It STINKS. I went to Wal-Mart and bought more burlap to make the table runners, and that was much better. The quality was better, the color was better, and it didn't smell. Imagine that. We have lame craft stores here in Northern VA. And don't even get me started on the subject of Hobby Lobby. That is the greatest craft store ever, and there is not one in my state. Not fair. Stomp feet. I digress again.

For the 2 teacher tables, I used a big, long piece of white burlap. Since there were 2 tables, 12 feet long, I made table runners out of the 1 piece of burlap to save money. I chopped it in half lengthwise, and I stitched each side with red zigzag so it doesn't fray too much. and the zigzagging looked cute. The table runners were actually a bit too long, so I chopped off the ends, and stuck the pieces right on the buffet table.
Here's me playing with my camera. I have a question for you bloggers: Do you find yourself wanting to take pictures of everything you do so you can blog about it? Or wish you had a keyboard on your steering wheel so the post you thought of while you were driving doesn't get lost? It's an illness, I'm sure. I digress again. Distraction is an illness, too. I'm sure of it.

Next up are the lanterns, ala Matthew Mead. Ikea lanterns, about $6.something each. Great price.

I didn't have any white primer, so I painted them all over with cheap white paint. Then I painted them with heirloom white. Matthew says to use 2 sides of his download, back-to-back, and tape to the outside. What I did instead is used 1 layer of my scrap paper, and I put it behind the glass under the little prong thingies that hold the glass in. No need for tape. *BUT* if you plan on using candles, tape the paper to the outside for obvious reasons. I can't burn candles in the school anyway, so it didn't matter. I have a wild child, so I'm not really a big fan of leaving fire where he can reach it anyway, so I'm experimenting with other methods of lighting up my lanterns.

Here is what the lantern looks like with a red glow stick. How cool would that look on your walkway or deck at night, and you wouldn't even burn your house down! Unfortunately, the mega pack of glow sticks I bought were tiny white glow sticks, and you couldn't see any light when I put the lanterns in the lunch room. Oh well.

When I get my hands on some battery-powered twinkle lights, I'm going to try filling the lantern with that.

2 lanterns with floral paper, 2 with polka dots.

Next up, flowers. I just did a repeat of the flowers I did for this baby shower. I should come up with something new. I bought plastic containers to go inside the not-water-sealed tin buckets. Add a chunk of oasis soaked in water, 3 flowers, a bit of moss. I tied the flowers with some raffia and ribbon (bigger ribbon would have looked better, but I was getting stingy with the coin), and stuck a pick in it.

I made all these picks with shish kabob skewers and tags that had vintage images and buttons glued on. It would have looked great with zigzag stitching across the tag, but I made the tags 10 minutes before I was supposed to leave for the school with the flowers. Not enough time.

I hung some lanterns from the ceiling.

You can't really see it well, but right here at the end of the buffet, I stuck a box under the burlap. You can put different size boxes under your table cloth, and it makes the buffet look soooo much better. Stick some tinkle lights under that cloth, too, and it looks like a caterer came to your house.

I tend to use the same things over and over at parties. I add a little here and there to my collection. Things that are cheap, but add a lot of style. Like these old vintage milk jars. They always look good with flowers. I may get some more of those Ikea lanterns before they stop selling them. You can change the scrap paper for different events. Buy a case of mason jars or jelly jars at Wal-Mart. You can do all kinds of things with those babies. Put all of the jars right down the middle of the table with candles. If you use a lot of the same thing, it looks amazing. I'm a fan of tin buckets, too. And you can bet that burlap will show up at more events.

So that's it for me. To see more inspiration, stop by Kimm's blog and see the other Trash to Treasure Tuesday entries.

Dr. Seuss Baby Shower

I threw a class baby shower for my son's teacher last week. I just love Dr. Seuss, so I used that theme for the shower. I would have done more with the decorations, but there just wasn't time.

I found this cute Horton onesie. I love Horton holding his little clover.

I had all the kids sign a copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go! for the baby, including their future advice for the baby. Kids come up with the best things. One girl wrote, "Always stay close to your mother." I think I need to tell her mother what a good girl she is. Another wrote "Try not to drool too much." I guess he didn't hear the "future" part.

This picture is a little brighter than the actual table was. The lanterns had battery tea lights in them, and looked great. I usually use real flowers but I liked the way these dollar store flowers went with everything.

I did a few games with them. I didn't know how they would play along, but they had a blast. The game I thought would be a complete flop was baby bottle relays. Basically, you fill baby bottles with juice or water and they race to see who can drink the most. I didn't think any of them would do this. Thy ALL wanted to do it, and had I known I would have bought 24 bottles just to see the entire class drinking from baby bottles.

We played the don't say "baby" game, and I gave them all necklaces with little pacifiers. If they caught someone saying "baby", they could take their necklace.

Then I gave each of them a paper plate. They had to put it on their head and draw a baby. The teacher picked the best one.

And I gave them a baby animals matching page, where they had to match the name of the baby to the name of the mother. The had gotten pretty wild and this had them all sitting quietly within 1 minute. Priceless.

I like decorating with feather boas, too. Here, I found some cheap boas that were more fluffy than feathery and looked Suessian. I just crammed them in the bottles.

Here is another example of using boas. At this baby shower, I just stuck some big boas right on the table.
To see more feathers used to decorate a party, you really should stop by Brooklyn Limestone's christening party. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Vintage Baby Shower

... buy baby shower decorations at Party City. I just could not do it, friends.

There is a sweet lady at our bunco group who is having a baby girl next month, and we surprised her at bunco last night with a baby shower instead. I was in charge of decorations! My favorite. The baby shower decorations at Party City looked just like the ones that were for sale back when I had my first baby (12 years ago!). Come on people, we can't do better than this!?

I am also on a budget, so mostly using what I already had (which was probably too much because I am a craft/scrapbook supply hoarder), I did a vintage baby and sunflower theme. I will post a few pictures and the rest you can see on my Flickr page.

Anyway, a few years ago I bought a cd of vintage baby images from The Vintage Workshop. They have awesome images you can download into your computer. I printed images of those on file folders because I was too lazy to go upstairs and get card stock. I put sunflowers from the grocery store, and moss from WalMart into floral oasis in metal buckets I took out of my sewing room (got those from Home Depot). I used shish kabob sticks to stick the images into the flower arrangements. I used baby bottles for place cards/buffet cards. I had some vintage milk bottles from a previous baby shower I did, and used those for some more flowers. I ironed a vintage image onto a little onesie and found some tiny clothes pins at WalMart to hang them up. I took a feather boa from my daughter's room and some silk sunflowers to put on the gift table. And last, I found 3 cute wine glasses at the thrift store that I used for candles. I think it worked!

The Birthday Party

Princess had her birthday party last week, and we decided to make it a spa experience. We looked at the local birthday party places, and they were all too much money. So do-it-yourself is what we went with. It was actually pretty fun, and I enjoyed giving pedicures to all the girls. I only wish I had more time, because we didn't get to the manicures. They opted to put on makeup and do a photo shoot instead, which is just fine with me. I set up the camera on the tripod, and they went to town.
I decorated the dining room table with green and purple sheets we had in the closet, with a feather boa on top. I got these battery-powered tea lights and put them under the boa. The lights were fun, because my kids always want candles but I'm a safety freak. I had this post-card frame, and put the menu in it. I also did a "spa services" menu for the spa area of the living room. I downloaded spa music for ambiance, and had magazines out for them to look at while I pampered their feet. I also checked out some tween fashion books at the library. We made bandanna flip-flops, which I first saw at this website (check it out ... she has some adorable shoes). The girls had a lot of fun tying little strips of fabric on their flips and it kept them busy while I pedicured.
I found the flip-flops at Target Dollar-Spot, along with a pedicure pack (file, cuticle stick and toe-separator). I got a pedicure pack for each of the girls because I didn't want them to share feet germs (yes, I am a germ freak in addition to being a safety freak). I found the plastic baskets at Target for 6 cents each (yes, you heard me right!). Princess decorated water bottles and put names on them (I didn't think this was necessary but it was a fabulous idea because there were water bottles everywhere and they didn't get mixed up), and we tied my towels with fabric strips. I bought a bottle of green face mask and sliced up cucumbers so they could give themselves facials. They were so cute!
(In case you wonder why sometimes my pictures have stars on them, I am also internet-paranoid so I change the photos to protect the innocent.)

The last 2 things in the photo we didn't have time to do. If we run out of time and things get too crazy, it is important to alter the plans and not get too wrapped up in having the Perfect Party. My daughter is a mini-Martha Stewart so I have had to coach her on this issue. She lets the planning get in the way sometimes (she learned this from me), and enjoying your guests and being flexible are much more important when entertaining. But in case you're interested, we were going to make bath salts with epsom salt and store them in Crystal Light containers, and also make a paper sack scrapbook for each girl and let them decorate that.

So here is my great idea: Instead of making the scrapbook, we are making a paper sack thank you card, and will give each girl a cd with their photo shoot pictures. I didn't want to spend the money to make photo shoot prints for each guest, and we have a mega-pack of cds from our favorite warehouse store. In case you don't know how to make a paper sack scrapbook, this is what we are doing for the thank you card: Take a brown or white paper sack (Target has red ones now too!), and fold it in half. Either sew down the left side (to make a binding) or punch holes and tie ribbons on the left side. Decorate with paper. Insert photo cd in the opening, punch a hole on the right side and tie a ribbon so the cd doesn't fall out. When we are done, I will share a picture with you.

I think this is a pretty economical thank you card, and I think the party was pretty economical as well. I love to be creative and save money at the same time. It is just important to remember not to get carried away with all the details. If you want to see another birthday party idea, check out Sandy's blog, For Reluctant Entertainers. She shares wonderful ideas and advice for gracious entertaining.

In planning for the party, I found this great spa book for kids. It is called The Girls' Spa Book by Mary Wallace and Jessica Wallace. It has a lot of recipes for beauty products that they can make with things from the kitchen.

6 Years Ago Today . . .

. . . this sweet little angel was born. It is hard for me to believe that my youngest is 6 years old already.

And now here he is on the first day of school a couple weeks ago, with Big Brother.
He wanted to have an Army birthday party, so Mr. Jones and I had a little fun with it. I put a recruiting poster on the front door, with American flags on either side.
I made this invitation, with the recruiting image on the back . . .

Mr. Jones came up with this gem at the last minute. He was at the store getting camouflage netting for me, and found some pallets that were on their way to the trash. So he threw this together on Saturday morning. Here is Big Brother showing off the fort (please excuse the block-out on the sign. I'm paranoid with personal info on the internet) . . .
Here is the tank cake I made from this website. I followed the directions exactly, and used Wilton spray paint to make it green. WHY?? I do not know, because it tasted bad and I could have used good old food coloring. Oh well, the rest of the cake tasted good.
Here are the weapons boxes I made from cardboard boxes . . .
and the pup tents Mr. Jones put in the backyard.
For boot camp, we got some lawn spray paint for landscaping, and painted an obstacle course, with tunnels and balance beams, along with the trampoline we already had (Mr. Jones put a "paratrooper training" sign on that). We had them run timed relays. They were very cute, and took their training so seriously. Then to test their skills, they had to throw hand grenade water balloons (those were awesome!) on a spray-painted target to which Mr. Jones stood a little too close (on purpose), which gave added incentive to hit the target. They also got paratroopers to throw off the deck onto the target, and squirt guns. I bought canvas fanny packs from Oriental Trading which I dyed army green. I was very disappointed with the dog tags and canteens I bought from them, though, because all the dog tags broke and the canteens all leaked. The very nice men at the local Army recruiting office gave me some things to give to the boys, too. The boys were so impressed . . . "you mean this came from the "reeeeeeal" Army guys?" (said with wide eyes). And of course, we had to have painted faces and camo bandanas.

Oh, and I almost forgot ... I made a bunch of signs for our camp, but this was my favorite. Princess was very offended that I did this . . .

Happy Birthday, Soldier!