graduation/summer {gift ideas}

I know the summer is over and school has started, but I never posted the gifts I gave out at the end of the school year.

For my sons' teachers, I used this idea from eighteen25.  I do NOT take credit for this photo, because it is not mine.  It belongs to eighteen25.  This is exactly what I did, but I forgot to take pix.  And there is a great free printable on the site as well!

I got this idea from another teacher at my school... I did not know what to give my aides.  She gave me the "orange" idea and I found the free printable here.  I went to the dollar store and bought an orange bucket and Orange stuff... like orange slice candies, orange soda, cheetos, etc.  Easy and cute.

 I don't know what it is, but I can't just give a card... I even make all of my own cards, but I still can't just give a card.  I found this idea for a grad gift and I loved it!   However, I wanted something more authentic.  So, I just searched for images online.  I found a "real" sign.  I cut a slit in the paper so that the hand is holding the money.  Easy.  Then, I could give different amounts of money for different people... like my cousin who finally graduated after like 10 years of school (love ya Libby).

Last, but not least, is my favorite... and I didn't even do it!  My friend had a son graduate from high school and she wanted to give something to all of his friends.  She bought cheap flipflops from the dollar store and made a tag that said, "I'm so flippin excited you didn't flop out of high school."  I am totally going to do that next year!

So, now, you can pin these for next end of school year!

Summer Scrapbooking

I don't have time to blog any more... I really don't.  But for some reason, now that school has started, I thought I would do a little blog catch up of some of the crafty things I did over the summer.

I love to scrapbook... crafting is fun, but I love to scrapbook.  And every summer, I plan on getting tons of scrapbooking done since I don't work in the summer... but, I have kids to entertain and play with, so I don't get any scrapbooking done... It's okay, I'll get caught up some day:)

Here are the pages that I worked on.  I think I got all of 2011 finished, so I can start working on 2012.

A halloween party I did for my kids.

 The Jubilee of Trees... held the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving... love layouts where I can fit tons of pix.

My hubby's birthday is in December.

Christmas Eve we went to Zion national park.

2 page spread of Christmas 2011

And the very last page of 2011... New Year's Eve

I still really love my little 6x6 albums I make for my kids.  Easy, simple quick layouts.  I don't put a lot in them, but sometimes there's just a picture that I take that needs to be saved... love this little boy.

Lastly, because I do two page spreads, there is always a page at the beginning of the album and end of the album that is a single page.  I try to put our family pix in those spaces... this is from 2009.  I had a few missing holes in some of my scrapbooks.

Map Mania... going global {parties}

I love maps... it's kind of the "in" thing right now.... or at least one of the "in" things.  I decorated my classroom with globes and map paper and I am always finding ways to use my maps.

Well, I saw this adorable Airplane party on Pinterest awhile back.  My cousin, Libby, was applying for flight attendant jobs... and I wanted to do a party like this for her when she got her job.  Well, she got the job!  So I got to plan a party...  However, in the mean time, I also wanted to have a dinner for all of the people who had helped babysit, drive carpool, etc. for my preschooler while I worked.  I loved the map stuff so much that I thought I'd find a way to incorporate it for both parties.

I came up with the "extra mile" idea.  This is the invitation I designed.

For the party we had foods that were from different countries around the world.  I used my super cute Pick Your Plum chalk board labels to label the country the food was from.  We put the (American) hot dog and hamburger buns in a vintage suit case.

I cut map paper into 12x12 squares and laminated them for placemats.  I used my cute paper bags from Pick Your Plum to hold the utensils.  The center pieces were either suitcases, globes or brown paper packages wrapped with twine.

For games, I found games from around the world.  I have included printables of the games HERE.  The favorite was "pass the parcel."  In the parcel, I wrapped tiny squirt guns from the dollar store for each kid.  They had a blast!

Then it was time for Libby's party.  We love to have family bbq's in Kanarraville.  In fact, we are renting our grandma's home as a vacation rental.  If interested, visit this site.

Libby found out she was going to be stationed in Chicago and would be moving there.  So, instead of doing a "global" theme, we had Chicago style hot dogs and potluck.

We had the same games and centerpieces, and decor.... despite the gale force winds that kept blowing things off the tables.

 My cousin's garage is the perfect backdrop for parties.

And it works great for pictures of me with my girl cousins:)

 And, of course, I had to serve peanuts... and peanut butter cookies.

thanks for stopping by:)