Back to School

My oldest helper, Tessa, went back to school this week.

sniff.

Anyway - before she went we did a little back-to-school-crafting.

Instead of buying her one of the cute, but more expensive, 3 ring binders, I purchased one of the cheap solid color ones with a clean window on the front and scrapped it for her.

Now her binder is totally personalized in her favorite colors :)

Super fast, cheap and easy project. My favorite kind (but the ones I rarely do!)

The Front:

The Back:

The Side:

She loves it, so everybody's happy!

Yearbooks

Last week I made yearbooks for Tessa's first grade class.  It was my last project as Room Mom - bittersweet!  

They turned out really cute.

Front:

Inside:

Back:

Each student answered a questionnaire - their answers were really cute.  I printed that next to their picture (which I took when they finished their questionnaire.)

The front picture is the whole class on the steps at school.  The back picture is the group making silly faces.  

I bound the book with ribbons.  After I took the picture I added a tag to each book that the kids could write their names on.  On the last day of school they passed them around and had their friends and teachers sign them.  So cute!

I could have done a lot more - I have hundreds of pictures from class parties through out the year that would have been really fun to add - but I didn't think about doing that until after I was finished.  Maybe next year.

This was a really fun, easy project and the teacher and students really seemed to love it.

Practice Cake

Matt is working late.

Project #1 for the evening is a practice cake for Tessa's Birthday.

I'm a big fan of the practice cake.  It allows me to try out the recipe, the pan, the tools.  

It also allows me to eat cake.

Tonight I made a from scratch vanilla cake, which I added a few drops of almond extract to - because I have a serious almond extract addiction lately.

I baked it in my springform pan.  I was nervous about it leaking...but all went well!

I picked up a cake leveler today from JoAnn's.  

Interesting product, a cake leveler.

Or maybe it's not that interesting.  Maybe I just suck at using it.

Anyway, long story short, the cake tasted good but didn't look it.  Don't know how much use that leveler will be getting.  At least I know the pan works and the recipe is tasty!

Project #2 for the evening...

Hairbows!

Tessa's pen pal, Karissa, turned 7 on april 26th.  We've had a letter to mail her for a while, but I decided to hang on to it and send a Birthday package.  Just got around to making her gift tonight.

If i remember right, her favorite color is blue.  So I made these cute blue and pink hair clips for her.

Tried them on Tessa, to make sure they worked :)

Project #3 - Mothers Day Cards!

One for each mom - luckily there are no divorces in either family, so I only had to make 2 ;)

I looked up quotes about mom to find something to write in them.  I'm not a Hallmark employee, and even if I were I think I'd have a hard time writing something like

"for all the times you were there for me...

here's a card."

The quote I decided on cracked me up - hope the mom's find it as entertaining!

"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children becuase they are more certain they are their own" - Aristotle