Impress your teacher with a Money Machine!

It's been a long hard school year! But take heart the finish line is in sight. There's just a little hiccup end of the year teacher gifts. As a homeschooler, it seems kind of silly to give a gift to myself, (although I've been known to 😉) but my children do participate in cooperative classes at times and I need to find gifts for those teachers.

So enter in the need to find gifts for two very special ladies. One of them put together an entire government/constitution class for two of my kids (and 15 others) and the other opened her home to us to have that class for 12 weeks! The families of the students wanted to get together and bless these ladies in some way. After tossing around several places to give gift certificates to, it was decided cash would be the best gift and since I never want to just "give cash" I had to find a creative way to present it. So enter in

"The money machine"

 

I saw several of these "premade" boxes online ranging from $5 to $17 dollars (plus shipping.) Who wants to spend money to give money. So I tried making one myself. 

Supplies needed:

 Money- $1 are fun (because the roll is longer.) but any denomination of bill works.  

Reposition-able Tape- (Scotch- Matte' Finish)

Small Box

Scissors/trimmer

Craft knife

Fake Money- Or use fake/play dollar bill images printed from online.

Letter Stickers

Mod Podge-Plaid Crafts

Computer/Printer

To create your "Money Machine"

• Start by taping your bills together end to end (I used a small piece of tape on both sides for extra strength.) The "matte finish"  tape came off the bills nicely as long as the tape didn't over lap the entire edge of the bill.

 

• When your money chain is finished rolled up the bills and place in a box that will fit not only the roll but big enough you can cut a slit in the top to feed your chain through.

 

• Using the craft knife, cut a slit in the top of the box. Then take your play/fake money and Mod Podge to the surface of the top of box.  Add your letter stickers. If you want a title on your machine.  I gave it a final coat of Mod Podge to act as a sealer to make sure the stickers stayed in place.

• I added some directions on how to use the money machine that I printed out.  I also realized I wanted some type of "pull tab" to thread through the top of the box so this I also printed off and then taped to the end of the dollar bill roll.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Then it's wrapping your gift and "patiently" waiting for your favorite teacher to open!

Christmas Tree Photo Holder

I love Christmas, even more so I love crafting with kids at Christmas, the look on their faces not to mention the pride they show as they create decorations or presents for friends and family is priceless. This year I had the privilege to work with Thrive Homeschool Group to create a photo holder Christmas Trees, they are super easy and kids and parents alike love them!

Supplies:

Large Craft Sticks (found at Dollar Tree)
1" x 1 1/2" wood block (I used scrap wood)
1 wood clothespin
1 wood star (if desired)
Assorted Paint I used Folk Art by Plaid Crafts
Paint Brushes
Paper Plate for Pallet
Hot Glue Gun
Saw or Heavy Duty Scissors (to cut the craft sticks)
Plastic or newspaper to protect painting surface


Directions-for one tree:

Prepare 4 craft sticks to paint, leave the first stick alone, the second stick snip off the rounded ends, cut the third stick into two pieces so that one is 1/3 third of the stick the other one is 2/3s of the stick. Cut the final stick in half. You will only use one of the halves.

Paint all pieces as desired. Start with a base coat, allow to dry and then add decorations. Older children are normally fine but might need a bit of guidance. Younger children use their finger prints to add "ornaments" to their trees for a special keepsakes (Be sure to add the year!)

Once the paint is dry, glue pieces together to the base. The uncut stick is the trunk, and arrange the rest of the pieces above the present largest to smallest to form the tree. You can either glue them straight, or for a more whimsical look tilt them. Glue the clothespin to the back of the tree and the star to the top.

The kids did a great job! 

Thanks to Plaid Crafts for generously supplying the paints and brushes! 

The things you do for shoeboxes!

Serving as an Area Coordinator for Operation Christmas Child, I have the privilege of sharing about the ministry and message of OCC with many groups. I love talking to homeschool groups because well, I am a homeschooler and they have a tendency to think a bit out of the norm when it comes to motivation.

The Cornerstone Christian Homeschool Cooperative invited me to share about shoeboxes. Their group had a goal of packing 100 shoebox gifts. Knowing that I am also the #CrazyShoeboxLady I do some pretty crazy things to encourage people to pack shoeboxes. This year was a first for me!

I agreed if the group packed 200 shoeboxes I would let a student put a pie in my face! They not only met that goal they blew it out of the water with 260 shoebox gifts packed!! So being true to my word I received a wonderful whipping cream "facial" as a result!

To see the full video Click here!  The things you do for shoeboxes!

The things you do for shoeboxes!

When Home Depot Comes to Visit!

We are a part of a fabulous homeschooling cooperative called Potter's Hand. In addition to regular activity days, field trips, and spelling bees, one of the events our family looks forward to every year is our Christmas Activity Day.

This year instead of the parents teaching individual project classes for the day, Potter's Hand invited the wonderful gals from the Home Depot Kid's Workshop to come in and do a woodworking project with the kids. They were awesome! Not only did they instruct the children on creating their projects, they brought in all tools and supplies as well.

The kids worked diligently, gluing, hammering, and then painting and decorating, and had fun doing it.  The projects ranged from painted holiday yard stakes, to tool boxes and coasters.  Even our "hard to please" pre/teenage boys group got into the projects enjoying the fact it wasn't your typical "cut and glue" Christmas craft.

Due to the "sensitive nature" of the projects created, my children would not let their "finished projects" be photographed. But I did manage to get a picture of some of the projects from an earlier class while they were drying! (They turned out adorable!) A huge thank-you to the ladies from the Frankfort, IL Home Depot!

Tie Dying!

I love our homeschool group. We meet for field trips, special classes and once a month meet for activity day. Activity days have different themes could be science related or history themed, or occupations, or just fun days. This was our last activity day of the school year so we had a field day. This year I again had the privilege of helping the kids tie dye shirts. Being a crafter I have tie dyed before but it's usually with the store bought dyes. For our activity day there is an AWESOME gal named Cheri that gets all of the supplies for it and the good stuff, the professional strength doesn't run off in the wash dye. Now it's always crazy doing this type of project with so many kids but I LOVE it. (Granted I do come home a bit "colorful") Even though things are crazy before we clean up, I get a chance to sneak in a project of my own.

This year I wanted to try making a tie dyed heart.
I saw a fabulous video on Tulip

The process was simple but took some patience to get things lined up.  First you dampen your shirt and fold it in half. Then using a pencil draw a 1/2 of heart shape (like you were going to cut one out of paper.)

Then carefully starting at the bottom of the heart fold and scrunch the shirt up along the line. You want your pencil marks to line up in a straight line. When you are finished scrunching you can adjust the folds to make sure things line up perfectly.










Then tightly rubber band it. Follow with a second one about an inch away from the first for a double heart.

Finally add additional bands underneath depending on the number of colors or personal preference.  I only wanted two colors to alternate to make it really stand out.  Those colors are actually Orange and Pink but it looks read both in the photo and real life.

For dying, the "top color" will be the center of the heart, the 2nd space is the "space around the heart" the 3rd space is your outside heart. Finally the rest of the shirt color.

After the dye has set, and you have removed the bands your shirt will look like:





















I have a blast doing this. I thank Cheri for being our "fearless" leader into the world of tie-dye  and all the moms that I have privilege to work with that make the day so much fun!