Just Make Stuff

Cards are the new sticks...

I am halfway through the second week of the semester and so happy to be back in the classroom with a really great new batch of students. 

Part of the reason it's so fun to be back is because my college courses almost always include an activity or two during class time. It's usually a lighthearted way to explore the concepts we are learning together, something like analyzing our favorite songs or brainstorming ideas while you draw with crayons.

For the last couple of years I have used sticks that I have been painting and stamping as a way for students to gather into different groups each day, but this summer I designed cards and had them printed. 

The cards all have the same back (more stripes) and then I made forty different front designs. Students will pick up a card on their way into the classroom and whenever we are going to get in a group I'll let them know if it's by color, letter, number or symbol.

These cards get students into groups of five, which I have found to be enough minds working together that not everyone feels pressure to have to talk (in case they are more comfortable listening), however there are not too many people in case everyone does want to jump into the discussion.

While they work together, I continuously move from group to group, so my first trip around the room is to collect the cards back up for the day. It is extra awesome to get to consistently interact with students throughout the class time.

I had the cards printed through Moo since you can upload as many as fifty different designs in one batch of printed cards. They are just business cards that are thick and glossy with rounded edges so they stand up to being used by a over a hundred students. 

If you would like to order cards you can get $15 off your order with this link (this is an affiliate link, so I would receive credit towards my next batch of cards). I am also happy to send you the file of the cards I designed. Either comment here (and make sure you've linked a current email address) or send me an email.

Fabric Covered Magnetic Frames...

We had a few summer projects around here like we always do. I have already shared the closet and next up is our upstairs hallway. 

For years we have had a very mismatched gallery wall full of family photos and I was eager to clean it up. Here's how it looked before...

You can see this hallway from downstairs, so I wanted to paint the wall a fun color. We actually now have this same color over the hood in our kitchen, on our bedroom dressers, and one wall in our family room. 

I thought of hanging a new gallery wall, but really wanted something easier to switch out. After a bunch of brainstorming and Pinterest-ing, I came up with magnetic frames. I bought three big barn wood frames and we bought sheet metal at the hardware store. I wanted this to look cuter than that though, so we stretched some fabric over the metal and taped it down before popping the metal into the empty frame. 

When we took down the photos we scanned in a ton of them since they were from the pre-digital era, then I had some of our very favorite photos reprinted.

Love that our favorite family memories are still there and can be easily switched out and added to anytime I want.

Rainbow Alphabet Stamps...

Alphabet stamps continue to be my fastest way to personalize a gift with a tiny bit of homemade-ness. I have used them for two years worth of holiday wrapping (2014 & 2015) and I often use them for birthday gifts too.

Don't forget notes...

For the last year or so, I have been pretty obsessed with putting together a stripe of colors. It started when I was making a banner image (one of my favorite class planning details) for one of my course's online website and now pretty much all my courses have them on their homepage. They have been around here too...like the current banner and I am sure there will be more.

I decided to take the stripes I made for this semester's courses and make myself little notes for my class planner. Here's the file in case you'd like to print some out... download don't forget striped notes

I made a big change in class planners this summer and it's working so much better. I'll share more soon.

Leftover fabric ribbon...

I stitched together more fabric strips than I needed for a wreath I made earlier this summer, so I tucked the extra away to use as ribbon. I have also used this same idea by knotting the strips together. 

Back to school mantle...

Truth be told, I get a little sad and overwhelmed when the school year starts. And by little I mean it usually includes at least one full-scale freak-out.

So, maybe it's not so little. 

When Sean headed back to school last week I decided that, instead of wallowing, I would celebrate the new school year by decorating our mantle a little bit.

The prints are by Life Love Paper, Caravan Shoppe and Kiwi in the Clouds. 

I also crafted up another fabric wreath (here is are two others I've made over the years: one, two). I pinned red fabric scraps around the styrofoam form. Then, to try to make it look like an apple, I roughly cut out a stem and leaves out of felt. I glued the felt pieces to card stock to help them stand up better.

So now any sadness or worry is totally cured. Woohoo the school year! Bring on the endless emails! The working all weekend!  The grading, grading and more grading! The feeling of barely ever being caught up no matter how hard you try!

Okay, so maybe I am not quite cured...but the cute mantle does help.

The end of summer...

Sean started school this past Monday and I have just over a week before classes start. However, I have five syllabi to write and five course websites to put together, so I have been working all week to start to get it all done. 

When our countdown to summer was done on the little letter board in our room, I put together a little summer list. I am happy to say we accomplished all of these summer relaxation goals. 

Now hopefully we can find some time to continue all of them this fall...

Stamped once card set...

Over the last few months, I have uploaded photos into a bunch of blog posts that I have just saved as drafts (including several recipes to write). These birthday thank you notes are one of them.

I stamped a new favorite thanks stamp and then used a pencil eraser to make the dots. 

I made one card and realized it would be a fair amount of work to stamp over and over. So, I scanned it in and printed out what I needed.

I have done it before and I will definitely use this trick again. 

Here's a PDF of the notes in case you want to avoid stamping at all... Download thank you note sheet

Montana...

It was so good that there are no words, but I will find them anyway. This trip was my dad's idea and he booked a ranch that he and mom had first gone to before I was born, a looooong time ago. I had been here once with my Dad and sister for a family reunion on my dad's side when I was seventeen. My mom has talked about Montana all my life, so we asked Dad if she could come along. My brother came too and my little sister and sister, her husband and my nephew & nieces. 

The first night we were there we went out on a "wild life" tour when our hosts took us on a long drive to try to spot animals at dusk. The other highlight was my mom getting up on a horse...no small feat since her knee has never improved from her surgery last summer and pretty much will not bend...but nothing stops my mom.

Speaking of horses, Mac was uncannily natural on them. He hopped right on and rode around like it was no big deal. 

I was uncannily natural at taking photos. I will spare you images of how I was on a horse...it was very, very far from natural for me.

Instead I obsessed over nature. Trees, wide open vistas, empty roads, wild flowers and the sky filled with stars late at night.

P.S. There were 1.2 million grasshoppers hiding in here and when we drove back down the hill, in an open vehicle, they all came flying up at our face. 

Sean and I took a day to go on a long drive from where we were staying, just outside Helena. We headed towards Great Falls to just wander and stop to see a Lewis and Clark museum (and we stopped at the world's smallest river where we took this photo). Sean, the history major, taught me about all Lewis and Clark details I ignored in school and by the time I got there I was really into it.

But before we got to Great Falls, we stopped a few times to look out on the side of the road. One of those times was to teeter around as I waded into a crystal clear creek running down from the mountains we drove through. The water was so crisp and clear. I carefully selected a handful of these stones to bring home with us.

Of course, Sean was a natural on both a horse and taking photos. His specialty were panoramic ones. Especially love the one he took at dawn as he was about to go for a run on the ranch.

I told Sean we are buying a house and spending our summers in Montana. It's so peaceful. You cannot help but take a deep breath and slow down. You can drive and drive without a stop light or sometimes even a person in sight. Granted, it would be the slimmest of chances that we would ever actually end up with a house there, but the lifestyle really needs to come home with us...especially at the beginning of a school year. We need to be outside, take a deep breath and slow down way more than we have for the last several years. And, house or not, we really will need to go back to Montana...

Well Wishes...

Well Wishes...a homemade card shared on Wednesdays.