Baby Shower Mobile

My dear friend Nicole has a sister who is having a little girl this fall. For her upcoming shower Nicole and I did a craft that will double as a decoration and then as a hanging mobile in the baby’s room. Here is a simple idea anyone can recreate. AND the great thing is that it’s budget minded. The whole thing was around 10$. But I bet you could do it cheaper if you had a curly-willow (or equally cool tree) in your yard.

As all good crafters do – we looked to the wonderful Martha Stewart for inspiration. Her Bird Mobile was so cute – and we wanted something similar.

Here is what we ended up doing. At Joann's they have these large bunches of twigs. We bought one bunch and some fake flowers – manned ourselves with glue guns and hit the ground running.

I was able to undo the wire that held the large bunch together and divided them into two bunches. Used the wire to regroup the twigs and began to glue on our flowers.

Nicole’s sister’s shower is pink, yellow, and peachy orange – so we bought a sprig of yellow hydrangea and a sprig of cherry blossom. We also got a branch of green leaves as the flowers didn’t have much greenery to them.  After taking them off of the plastic branches we began to glue them down.

We tried not to over do it because we liked the simplicity of the branch Martha had created. We also tried to glue the flowers at every angle that way if Nicole’s Sister decides that she wants to hang it above the crib the baby won’t be looking at the boring side of the branches.

Here is the finished branch before we put the birds on them. We got fishing line at Walmart to use in order to hang the birds. Because the shower was still a few weeks away we didn’t put the birdies on. Last year when we had a polka-dot themed shower for our friend Kristine we made polka-dot garland. Well – if you aren’t super careful it will get all tangled – so we decided to error on the side of caution so the birdies won’t be flying until the day before.

We printed the birds from Martha’s website on purple and pink card stock. I’m sure if you are crafty enough you could cut them out by hand but who doesn’t love an easy cut out! I know I do.

Happy Crafting!

Summer Housewife

Why is it that when I am on summer vacation I want to be a housewife. Like full on butcher, baker, candle sick maker.

I really want to get a sewing machine this summer. I have two very dear friends that are both pregnant and I want to make almost everything from Creation Corner!

I also really want to try and bake bread. My grandmother is a wonderful baker and every year on major holidays she bakes these amazing bread loaves. Her best are her egg breads. I'm not sure of the official name but they are light and fluffy and wonderful. I really want to try these rolls. My friend Carly is an amazing woman and mother. I pretty much want to be her when I grow up. Always have.

So I'm off to attempt a few of these house wifey projects of mine.

Here are a list of things I would like to tackle this summer:

Clean out and organize the garage
Bake bread
Bake a cake from scratch
More crock pot cooking
Clean out my closet
Organize the Pantry
Craft various craft things

It's going to be a great summer!

Not all Caramel is like that Caramel

So I had this plan. It was a great plan.

I love going to check out Creation Corner she has a link party every Friday and I saw this project

and I thought - I can totally make that happen for my book club.

We read - Water for Elephants. Which by the way is a super fun book. It's a quick read and a little saucy in some places. I am looking forward to seeing how it's going to be adapted for the big screen - but not super excited that "Edward" is going to be playing the main role.

So because our book was about the circus I thought it would be fun to have food themed around the book. Who doesn't love food on a stick.

And so there was a plan to go to our friend Ellen's house for a good ol' time. Well Ellen's daughter got sick and so we had to make a quick change and our very generous friend Jess offered to host at her house.

She was awesome and put together a party in a matter of minutes - full on with food on a stick. I planned to bring caramel apple bites.

Sadly my caramel apples did not look like this:I had a little issue.

I couldn't find the same caramel bits that had been used in the recipe. So I thought that it would be okay to use branch's caramel pieces. I put them in a sauce pan and started to melt them down.

I used my melon baller to cut out my little mini apples. I was on my way to mini apple greatness.

Or so I thought...

I set out my parchment paper and was ahead of schedule. I was able to see that the caramel set and thought people were going to be amazed by my crafty-goodness. I went to bed dreaming of my delicious treats.

I got up in the morning and this is what I found:
Here was the problem. The apples were very juicy which is typically a good thing. But in my case it was bad. My caramel melted right off my apples.

But I had to bring some treat to book club. I was determined not to show up empty handed.

So thank goodness for supermarkets.

I tried - and that's what counts right?

Oprah and Martha

As we all know - I like Oprah.

Today two worlds collided - Oprah had on Martha Stewart.

The queen of talk meets the queen of crafts. I was in heaven.

All of my life I have loved crafts. I scrapbook and make cards and am always thinking of projects I could take on. I also like to read craft blogs. If you have not gone to check out Creation Corner then you need to. Tasha is amazing and will help you link up with other amazing craft blogs and show you projects that even the anti crafter can take on.

I grew up with Martha - I was the kid who would watch a Martha show and look at and decide - I'm going to make that. One of my favorite projects was a Christmas topiary - you take a foam ball and then a bag of fresh cranberries - and tooth picks cut in half. Pierce each cranberry with the toothpick then push the cranberry into the foam ball. You can display it by using a wooden dowel and pushing that into the foam ball as well - then place it into a container of your choice. It kinda looks like this when you are done -



oceanspray.com also has great directions on how to make your holiday shine a little brighter.

I look forward to the fall holiday season kicking off. I love the thought of sitting around and thinking of things I can make to make the house a little more holiday-tastic and what fun treats I can make for my friends.

Polka Dot tutorial

Nicole and I got inspired by Creation Corner and created some amazing crafts for the baby shower we put together for Kristine.


Nicole and I are big fans of peppy and cheep - so we found fabric at Walmart and you can also use a coupon at your favorite craft store to get the foam wreath. The polka dots are made out of nice thick scrapbook paper. It is important to note that this wreath is really built for indoor use.

Here is a Polka Dot wreath that we made as decor (and turned it into a gift)




1. Get a foam wreath at your favorite craft store.
2. Get some scrap fabric of your choosing.
3. Cut the end of the fabric and tear the fabric into strips.
4. Wrap the wreath with the fabric. (we chose to use two alternating fabrics.
5. Hot glue the fabric to the wreath.












In the mean time get out some scissors (or in my case the Cricut) - you might also want a cat to come and hang out with you. Meg loves to craft. And cut out lots of circles out.






Then what you do is glue the circle to the wreath. We chose to make it 3D. And did that by using our old school elementary knowledge of folding paper to make pop-ups.






Here is a side view.








Here is the wreath half way done. As you can see you can place the dots all over the place.








Here it is all done! We took a piece of fabric and made a loop to glue to the back in order to hang it up. It went over very well. And it took no time to make.

Cleaning and Crafting

I can't talk about the crafting - that will come later (with pictures and even a tutorial!)

The cleaning is a slow process, I'm not a very quick cleaner. I stop, I check blogs, I play with the cat.

I will be vacuuming the stairs in a moment.

Tomorrow I will be participating in the MS walk - a dear friend of mine was diagnosed with MS this past October. A bunch of my friends and I will be rocking our walking - 3K!

I can't wait to show off my craft skills. And I'll be sure to take pictures of the shower on Sunday!

It's going to be a great way to end spring break.

state testing

Makes me want to rip my hair out. In the next three weeks I will be a part of....

CAHSEE - California High School Exit Exam
EAP - Early Assesment Program
DWA - District Writing Assesment

And after spring break Comes the CSTs (California's state tests)

It's not that I am against testing. That's not it at all. I think that holding both teachers and students accountable is a good thing. But as a teacher it puts a lot of pressure on me. So this week I'm getting my kids ready for this full few weeks of testing.

Currently I am teaching 4 different classes. I don't mind it so much because they are classes I have taught before - but I do feel like I can't catch my breath sometimes. I think part of it is that I am now three weeks away from spring break. In our district gives two weeks for spring break. TWO WEEKS!!! two amazing weeks of sleeping in and staying up late. I can't wait.

But in the next three I need to finish teaching the research project to my juniors, prep my sophomores for the cahsee (and I want to do a slam poetry unit) - gosh once I put this down it doesn't seem like a lot. Maybe if I keep saying this it will become less and less.

And if I follow the simple and very helpful words from Creation Corner I choose happiness.

PS if you want any good craft ideas - head your little self over to Creation Corner - She is awesome! and has links to other awesome sites!

and i only burnt myself once

who doesn't love a hot glue gun? - everyone loves a hot glue gun, but the hot sometimes is not so great.

You might be asking yourself - why is kelly talking about glue guns

Well it's because i am teaching Julius Caesar to my 10th graders. Again i can see the questions in your mind. Have no fear - No Fear of Shakespeare! - glue guns help put together a costume in order to get students geared up for what is sure to be a bit of a challenge. Shakespeare is not easy to read - even in college the reason i got through my Shakespeare class was due to some good study sessions and sparknotes. So i figured to get these kids interested i'd dress up.

but where would i get an amazing roman costume. Why Walmart of course. - And a little help from TJMax.

Sheet Set - 2.00
Glue sticks - 2.50
Christmas Wreath - 5.00
Headbands - 3.50
Foam sword - 2.00

15$ total - split between myself and my dear teacher friend Nicole - and we are set for an amazing adventure.

Here is what was created!































































Who wouldn't want to learn like this!