More crafting!

I've been working on more crafts for school, and a couple for home, too.  I'm having so much fun. For the first one I'm showing you, I was inspired by a pin similar to this on Pinterest.  I saw it on a Classroom Management board, and the pinner said she envisioned a board like this for her classroom for papers that have no name on them.  I thought, "Genius! I am SO doing that!", so I did it.  And it came out soooo cute!  See??

Is this not adorable??  What a great idea!  I had TONS of papers without names while teaching 1st grade, but I'm hoping I'll have less of that in 4th.  But I have such a cute board to use in case there are any. :)  Now I won't have to say over and over, "Who's paper is this?" "This paper doesn't have a name on it", "so-and-so, I don't have your paper; is one of these yours?"  I'll just stick the paper on this board and tell the students they need to check the board for their papers.  Of course, I will start this procedure at the beginning of the school year.  I'm so excited!  I love this idea!

How I made it: I had the board ($4.99 from, where else? Hobby Lobby) in a closet for a long time, not knowing what to do with it.  It was just plain white, and I intended on using it somehow in my home decor.  But I never could think of a good idea for it.  Until now! 

I found the adorable letters in the spray paint/wallpaper section of Walmart for 97 cents a sheet!!!  Can't beat that deal.  They are stick-on.  Then I added a strip of left over wrapping paper that I've been using on my Mod Podge projects to it, painted some clothes pins, and hot-glued them on. Super easy and ADORABLE!!!! 

The second thing I got finished today is a board for students to "sign out" when they leave the room.  I was inspired by this pin , and took it a little bit further.  I am not sure if I am really done with it or not--I may end up adding some polka dots to it or something.  I have a cute arrow that I am going to add to it after I get it in the classroom and see where I am going to put it.  Which direction the arrow goes will be determinded by where I put it in my room.  (I want the arrow to point to the door.)  Anyway, here it is:

 It is BIG.  I am hoping there will be a good place near the door for it. (Remember, I am moving to a new room, so I am not very familiar with the layout yet.)  The arrow is going to go right under the words.  I am not sure if it needs polka dots or not. What do you think?  I love it, though.  This way I will know where every student is all the time (I have a bad memory!).  Then, in case of an emergency drill or whatever, I can glance at it and make sure I know where everybody is and who they should be with.  The yellow board is a heavy piece of plywood, approx. 4x3 ft.  It was left over from a project my hubby was working on.  Already framed out on the sides and everything.  So I confiscated it  asked him if I could have it.  ;)  I painted it yellow, which took several coats.  I had the three frames in the middle (I didn't do anything to them--they looked this way when I bought them) in a closet forever, not knowing what to do with them.  But they were so cute, so I had to buy them.  And let them sit in a closet. Cuz that's how I roll.

I also had the outer two frames in a closet, but one was black and one was gold, so I painted them and added the bows.  I used a white paint pen to write the words on them.  The pink one is our "pull out" teachers' names.  I wracked my brain for a couple of weeks to make sure I wasn't forgetting a major "out of the room" place, and I could only come up with these.  I hope I didn't forget anything major!

I broke the stands off the back of the frames and hot glued them to the board.  I staggered them 1) because I liked it better that way, 2) (the main reason) because I can't do anything in a straight line, lol, and 3) because the frames were not all the same size.  The 3 in the middle are 4x6's and the two on the ends are 5x7's.  But with them staggered, you can't really tell. :-)

For the background of each frame, I simply cut out a plain white piece of paper to the right size and put them inside.  The students will use a dry-erase marker to write their names on the appropriate "boards" when they are ready to leave the room.  Another fabulous piece of organization!  I love it!

**Update (7/2/12) on the "I'm Outta Here!" board: the hot glue did not hold! So hubby gave me some Liquid Nails type stuff to try.  It didn't hold, either!  I was getting frustrated, so I pulled out my Gorilla Glue that I've used before.  I hesitated to use it because it has always spread and squeezed out past where I put it when dried, and I was left with a clumpy mess.  But I tried it anyway.  And it held! :)  But it also squeezed out! :(  So now I have clumpy gunk to try to figure out how to get rid of.  Ugh.

And just for the fun of it, I'll add in the two home crafting projects I've done:

 (I know the color quality of this pic is terrible, sorry.)  When I first made it last summer, this is what I came up with.  I wasn't too thrilled with it, plus it didn't really go well anywhere in my house.  So, it too, went in a closet.  I brought it out this week when I was doing my other crafts and ....

added these flowers!  It made such a big difference!  I really like it now.  The colors match my bathroom, so I hung it up in there.  And although nothing else in there is zebra--it's all French country--I love it in there!

One other thing I've been working on is this:

The R is my hubby's initial and the J is mine.  They are thin wood letters (the & sign is a lot thicker than the letters) that I found at Hobby Lobby.  I had the canvas from another project and I painted over it with some leftover paint.  Gorgeous color--Valspar Deep Blue Sea.  Then painted the letters brown.  The colors match my bedroom colors.  Not sure where I am going to put it, but I'll find a spot!  I am not quite done with it yet, though.  I am going to find smaller wood numbers for the year we got married, paint them, too, and add them to the bottom left corner.  I love it!

I've been having so much fun crafting this summer.  It feels so good to be productive instead of just sludging it around all summer.  I can work a little when I want to, and relax when I want to.  It's perfect!  I've got many more ideas running around in my head, so who knows what I'll come up with next!