valentine's day #sheepishheartbomb

i had even more fun than i thought i would participating in one sheepish girl's valentine's day yarn bombing.  i had five little crocheted hearts to share with the world.  i decided to put mine in the teachers' lounge at my morning school.  i ended up only having four for the teachers though as one of my high school boys saw them and wanted one.  so cute.  so here they are hung on the bulletin board.  i was hoping to not have an audience for my yarn bombing, but there was one teacher there.  she immediately noticed my little hearts and was delighted when i told her she could take one home to her six-year-old daughter.  i actually peeked in before heading to my afternoon school and another was already gone. truly, such a fun experience.  and even more fun has been watching the yarn bombings show up on instagram (i'm dorissander over there as i am most places ;) with the #sheepishheartbomb tag.  people are so creative and sweet.  i have to say, this was such a fun twist on valentine's day and i definitely look forward to the next yarn bombing opportunity.

valentine, you're dino-mite!

20 paper mache lidded containers from joann's - $20
20 plastic dinosaurs pilfered from g's toybox - $0
krylon indoor/outdoor banner red gloss spray paint - $6.99
beacon 527 multi-use glue - $6.99
pink shredded paper -  $2.99
2 bags hershey's kisses - $7.00
my son being mega-proud of his dino-mite valentines - priceless

how to:
1. glue dinos to lids.  let dry THOROUGHLY.
2. spray with spray paint (several coats required)
3. fill with treats and a sweet note

note:
i think i sprayed these guys five times.  they are still slightly tacky to the touch a day later, but hey, they're elementary school valentines.  i had to spray them in the light of the floodlights in our flower bed.  it was raining all day yesterday and i was too chicken to do more than these samples on the front porch.  hello if i get high gloss red spray paint on the concrete right outside my front door i will be traumatized.  i finished them up in the dark this evening, but i think if you did them in the grass in the light of day you might manage in two coats.

i got the idea off pinterest, of course.  love my pinboards and i really try to use them once in a while.

i've already told g we will be working through his plastic bugs for his 4th grade valentines and his plastic lizards for his 5th grade valentines.  he's cool with that; now to come up with the ideas.  it's going to be hard to top the 3rd grade valentines.  as it was hard to top the 2nd grade valentines.  but it sure is fun tryinng!

donkey kong: valentine's day edition

a quickie post cuz we are up past our bedtime for the third night in a row.  wah!  these are cards i made for g's teachers from bits and pieces from the january jbs mercantile kits.  this, sadly, is my only contribution to our donkey kong valentine's day edition.  all those january germs just completely derailed me.

very excited to report though that i have some squeal-worthy (i should probably say roar-worthy) valentines in the works for g's class.  they are so so cute.  can't wait to share them!  hopefully tomorrow!  and i also have a fun new jbs mercantile game up my sleeve that will start february 15th right after donkey kong ends.  stay tune . . . ;)

jbs mercantile: the first project life spread

i know some of you were doubtful, even after seeing my project life cover page.  you'll be pleased to know that i've completed my first spread (although this isn't actually the first spread in my book, just the first finished).  even more exciting to me, i've printed pics all the way through february 2nd and have them all slotted along with journaling cards and such.  i've actually got three more spreads in the 70 to 90% completion zone.  amazing!  i have to say that after all my smack talk about it last year, i'm actually loving this project.  who woulda thunk it?

i think perhaps what i love most about this project is that my son enjoys it so much.  we spend a lot of time together in our craft room.  he'll sit there and play ipad or legos or do homework while i play with paper or get work done on the computer.  he looks at the pictures and asks me about them and gives me little snippets of extra information to include, like the quote on the minecraft pic or the titles for the nerf gun boys.  he asked me yesterday if this was the new "style" for scrapbooks.  he's a little more knowledgeable about the world of papercrafting than most nine year olds i'd say.

on the this page: these pages were both created with the february papercrafting kits from jbs mercantile.  (check the gallery for updates!  lots of new pretties with more to come!).  i absolutely loved mixing in vintage bits from the antiquarian add-on, like the first national bank check and "oral" pharmacy paper were just so perfect for the tooth fairy slots.  the two slots to the right of the tooth fairy section are documenting my one little word for this year; i've decided to go with "details" and i'm using instagram to help me keep on track with documenting project life (thanks bridgette for the supercute instagram die-cut!).  the little mason jar was created with a stamp set from the main kit; it's sold out, but the stamp set will be available for individual purchase in limited quantities in july.

one thing i'm having to work through with this project is the journaling.  g is well over halfway through with third grade, the year cursive is generally taught, and he has learned none.  knowing that he can't currently read cursive and probably will never read it well, i've decided to do more computer journaling and writing in print in this book.  joy.  not.  those who know me well know that i hate to mess with the computer in scrapbooking and i'm not as fond of the look of my print writing as i am of my cursive.  i'm sure i will figure them both out eventually, but right now it's a learning curve for me.  overall though, two thumbs up from me and g!  more pages coming soon!

on this page:  the left column is more or less minecraft related.  the right column is all about our first germ infested weekend in january (there were three, sigh).  the journaling bottom right is printed directly from my blog entry (another source for project life documentation).  the journaling is extensive, so i folded the card to four inches tall and tabbed it at the top so it can be pulled out to read the rest.  one trick i've already picked up on to make this project easier is to not feel i need a photo for every story.  for example, i told the minecraft story with a drawing from my son (that i colored) and a snippet cut from the packaging of the miners lego set be bought that weekend.  i am absolutely itching to go back and fix the smudged titles on that bottom photo and the wonky spacing on the journaling with the lego image.  i have ocd issues; oh my!

get it scrapped!: what?? a lizard!

this is it!  the very last of that backlog of unshared layouts!  never fear though!  i've started a new stash of unshared layouts!  ha!  i actually hit the creative zone and made four last night!  woaaaaa!  it's been a loooooooooong time since that's happenend!  can i use any more exclamation points!  sorry!  it's just so exciting to be in the midst of the first germ free weekend in a month!  woot!

this layout was created for an article on journaling on photos over at get it scrapped!  <---- that exclamation point is legitimate as it's part of the title of the website, lol.  anyhoo, head on over to read more and see more.  happy weekend all!

haiku 124

bright happy faces
joyously dance in the light
cold depress-me-nots

january photowalk: pretty much an epic fail

so, i was thinking how cool it would be to do some of those photowalks.  you know where you walk around and take pictures of interesting things you see.  for our first one, i decided g and i were going to walk to his school and back.  since we moved back in october, we're now only two miles from his school, so a four mile round trip.  not bad as we're used to walking about that much on the greenway.  we've also been reading "farmer boy" (the little house book about laura ingalls wilder's husband's growing up years), so i thought it would just be a neat experience for g to be able to say that he walked to school once.

i'm labeling is a mostly epic fail.  i feel like i looked hard, but the only interesting things we saw were a few nice sunflares.  my camera pooped out after the first mile, so i had to start using my cell phone camera midway.  when we got home, i noticed i was coughing a bit.  i just chalked it up to evening air.  hmph.  i woke up sunday morning with a fever.  me who never gets sick.  meh.  monday morning i thought i was just a little tired from the "24 hour bug" i'd had the day before and went to work per usual.  g woke up with a fever tuesday morning.  i assumed it was the same "24 hour bug" that id had.  not.  when we both woke up with chills and g spiking a 103.8+ fever i finally admitted the flu might be in our house.  the doctor confirmed this wednesday morning.  yea.  so i totally felt like trash the rest of the week.  g wasn't too bad as we caught his in time for tamiflu to work.  here we are on day twelve and i still have a residual cough.  i'm so over it.

and i accidentally deleted those photowalk pics on my camera.  ooops.  at least i have the few on the cell phone to chronicle the disaster.