Hand Stitching and Another Lovely Award

I must be slightly nuts! I decided that I hated the ugly green curtains on a shelf I have at work so I should make new ones. Sounds simple right....well I also decided not to go for hot gluing (which is my tool of choice for fabric) and am hand stitching them... in the middle of the night....
Oh my lordy....and before you ask, well why aren't you using a sewing machine maybe I should give you some background about me and sewing machines. We don't click. I have had three different people attempt to teach me to use one and all I end up doing is wasting fabric and breaking the machine so when I sew, I sew by hand.

Since I think I am nuts for hand hemming curtains in the middle of the night I decided to take a break and give some over due thanks.

Being in the blogging world is definitely rewarding. I received a lovely blog award from two very lovely bloggers: Jackie at Crazy Daze in First Grade and Miss Pasqua at Miss Pasqua's Kinder. Thank you so very much for thinking of me for this award.

Here are the guidelines:
1. Follow the person who gave you the award
2. Link back to the person that gave you the award
3. Pass the award on to 15 people

Here are my awardees:

1. Kindergarten Korner

2. Carried Away in Kindergarten

3. Me and My Kindergarten Gang

4. 1...2...3.. Teach With Me
5. The Silver Lining
6. Miss Kindergarten
7. Peace, Love and First Grade
8. Chalk Talk
9. A Cupcake for the Teacher
10. Just Wild About Teaching
11. Life in First Grade
12. Kindergarten is a Hoot
13. Sharing Kindergarten

(I know I am supposed to pick fifteen but once I started writing this blog I got sidetracked for hours reading through all these and other blogs that I found through these. I think I may need a 12 step program after all!!!)

:)  :)

1

News and Craftiness!!!

Well I went to my school and found out that I will be back in Kindergarten this upcoming school year. (The letter said TENTATIVE but I am ignoring that). I will be in my same classroom so I will not have to move all of my stuff again (In the past four years I have had to chnage classrooms at this school 4 times!) and there are no words as to how happy I am about that!

And since I got the happy news, I have been sneaking into my classroom for the past two days. Yes, SNEAKING. My principal does not like anyone being in the school to set up until the very last minute but expects fully outfitted and functioning classrooms for the first day of school.  My school custodians, who I love, and my next door neighbor (classroom that is) are letting me in and helping me move furniture and clean up. All my shelves are where they need to go and I have started cleaning and doing some odds and ends meanwhile making sure that my principal does not find us there.

I don't like being subversive, but it takes me a while to decide on just where I want things to go and how that area feels. I am very big on that the room has to have a flow and a feel to it as well as be functional for centers, meeting area, independent work stations, etc. Last year, I didn't know what grade I was teaching till four days before school started and I had to change classrooms on top of remembering how to teach kindergarten. All of this in four days!!! I was not ready for anything and I will not go through that gain this year. I am going to be organized and happy in doing my job. :)

Added blue duct tape to the very wax-dirtied bottom of my bookshelves. It makes the white shelves really pop. Will be doing some shelves in yellow and green as well as blue when I go back in and finish my clean up job. :)

So I have also been making up some things to jazz up my room and finishing up some projects. :)

First up I wanted to jazz up my teacher chairs so I made some cute chair pockets. (I even made one for my author's chair but its missing something, maybe glitter....)

Then I decided that I hated the cushions my kiddos had been using to sit on at our library so I made some cushions using this adorable monkey colors print.

Materials I used to make the cushions! (Gotta love glue guns!)

How I glued the seam closed instead of hand sewing it. (Sewing machines and I do not get along.)

Three finished cushions! (Will be making more!) I LOVE the print!

I am continuing my craftiness tomorrow (Going through my  Ideas for Next School Year Pinterest board as I type...) and eagerly awaiting a package from Really Good Stuff with some beautiful new bins to organize my classroom library. Heaven help me that is going to take me a while, I don't even know how to best do the organizing now!!! I have them grouped loosely by genre, though I mean loosely and can never find anything. :( 

Ideas anyone???