My {New and Improved} Craftroom!

Back in March I moved my craftroom upstairs and bought new furniture to go in the freshly painted space. I started using it right away and finally today I decided that it was probably as clean as it would ever be again, so here are a few pictures of it. The lighting isn't as good as it was downstairs (My husband says he will install a new light fixture as soon as I find one I like!) but everything else is about a million times better.

Here is a piece of artwork I made (!!!) using leftover green spray paint (from my baskets), pink acrylic paint (to match the bows on the curtain valance) and a black copic marker. Love it!

I painted some of my ikea drawers with black chalkboard paint (I had to sand it first) so I could write what I have in each and can switch them around as I please.

I brought this from my room downstairs. It holds all of my ribbon spools, fake flowers, buttons, glitter, and other random crafty things. I used the space on top to hold some of my projects.

Here is my answer to "making curtains that still let plenty of light in." I used a large needle to string a piece of white twine through a bit of tulle, then tied on pink bows.

I love it! I chose the color after purchasing the blue ikea cart that my stamps are in (you can see it in the second picture) and I am thrilled with my color choice. There isn't a single thing I wish I had done differently. The only thing I'd like to add is more stuff on the walls. I'm not sure if it will be art for prettiness or shelving for practicality, but it definitely needs something! 

Another Wreath

I made this wreath last night for my mom to hang on the office door at school. It doesn't have a "Welcome to Our Class" sign so it can be used anywhere! I love it.

Back-to-School Wreaths

Today, after many months of thinking about it, I finally made a new Back-to-School wreath for my classroom door. Except I didn't make just one... I made three! I think they all turned out great; I'm going to have a tough time deciding which one to hang up and what to do with the other two. I left them all blank so they could be customized (name/room number) with chalk or a marker. I tried to get a few pictures of each one, but the lighting and shadows are just awful at my house.

Wreath 1: My WM only had 1 grapevine wreath, so I used some of my heavier items to decorate it with. I first wrapped the wreath with a strip of dark red tulle, and used typical school stuff (crayons, markers, pencils, highlighters, glue, paperclips, erasers, ruler, hand sanitizer) as well as a small piece of corkboard and black chalkboard paper. I finished it off with a postcard that says "Welcome to our Class!"

 Wreath 2: I wrapped a styrofoam wreath with wired ribbon decorated with school buses, then used a measuring tape to wrap over half. (I also used the measuring tape as the hanger, if the door needs it.) I found the most adorable ribbon at Michaels on clearance last year, so I made a cute bow to glue on top. I added many of the same items as the first wreath, however this postcard looks a little different. It's also a bit smaller than the grapevine wreath.

Wreath 3: If you've browsed through other pages of my craft blog, you might have noticed a wreath I made last year that looks very similar to this. I used the same concept, buy gluing pencils in pairs, then sets, but this time I glued wooden dowel rods behind the back set to brace them a little better. This wreath is very simple in design. I have several big cut outs of school stuff (WM last year on clearance) and so I glued the ginormous glue bottle onto my pencil frame, then added a few crayons (those weird colors that didn't match wreath 2) that matched the ribbon accents. I added a touch of corkboard with notebook paper (customizable!) and a binder clip for effect. The shadow was super bad on these pics (oops!) but I can promise you it looks AMAZING in person. Thanks for looking!

A Couple of Projects

To have a place for my small supplies at school, I bought this small toolbox from Lowes and painted it red. I used packaging tape to adhere scrapbook paper at the front of each drawer, leaving a pocket for labels. I used clear packaging tape (folded in half so it sticks together) and sharpies to make removable inserts. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

And this morning I made some more laundry detergent! Back in April 2012 I first made some (you can look in my archives to find directions) and it lasted until Christmas. I made a bit more in December, and we just ran out again this week. I like the liquid version as well, but this powered stuff is SO freaking easy. The hardest part is grating the soap (which is like not hard at  all!) I guess that means I can take the afternoon off from housework now? haha. I'm tutoring a rising Second Grader twice a week, so I can't let myself get too lazy or I'll forget the time!

A Few Cards

The start to summer is always busy for me, and as we have yet to turn on the AC, it's been almost too hot to even think about going upstairs and working in my craft room. Here are a few things I've made in the last couple of months, though I did make several more but forgot to take pictures.

A special little girl I know found out she had diabetes recently, so I made her a tear-bear card letting her know I was thinking about her.

Here is a birthday card. I think it was for my little sister. It's been awhile back, so I can't exactly remember. I made a couple more similar. I can't remember who I gave them to, either.

For my birthday in March, I moved my craftroom upstairs. I painted the walls blue, spent a fortune at Ikea buying new furniture, and over spring break put it all together. Here is some wall art I made to go on a blank wall.

This card I made for my Grandma's birthday.

A friend of my sister's got married and asked for a card to send them.

So yeah... that's it for now :-P

Fox in Socks & Lily's Purple Plastic Purse

I'm not sure why I just thought about posting this (maybe because I feel bad for not posting- or even crafting- like I should be doing) but here it is... my costume from Dr. Seuss' Birthday Celebration, along with my classroom door. Each student decorated a sock to hang on the line, and the text says "Can you kick? Can you knock? Can you knock just like a fox? Lots of socks, Just one fox, Class of Fox and Socks that rock!" (Assuming you've read the book, you'll agree that it's pretty clever and awesome! And we won, btw...) :-) I wore a brown shirt under a one-piece orange jumpsuit I sewed, and attached an orange tail on the back. I created the fox ears using the same tail fur spiraled around wire that was glued to a headband. I dolled up my face with whiskers and wore blue socks, of course!

Also, I realized I never posted my Halloween costume. We have Book Character Dress Up Day at school every year on the 31st, so I chose to be Lily, a cute little mouse from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes, one of my favorite children's authors.

I used cardboard and a headband to make the ears (with white fur glued around the edges) and yellow construction paper for the crown. I sewed a tacky (and ill-fitting) blue polka-dotted dress, along with a cape, and found matching cowboy boots. I wore white leggings, and made a huge purple purse from old Cricut mats and purple scrapbook paper. I adorned the edges with glitter and found a big tacky flower to dress up the front. I painted my face with whiskers and grabbed my book... and I was ready to go!

Valentine's Card

Here is the Valentine's Day card I made for my husband. No Cricut... just a tearbear and heart.

I found a kit at Michael's with base cardstock/matching envelopes, which has been my go-to since Christmas. Here you can see the gold envelope I found to match the card.

and the inside... very lovely, I think!

A Sad Ending and New Beginning

I posted a few weeks ago about my dog, Sophie, having her third litter of puppies on the day after Christmas. It's been a rough few weeks since then, and I want/need to write it all down. No worries about not reading this post- it's terribly long!

Sophie was my very best friend, and I would often tell people that I truly loved her more than most humans. I had gotten her around Thanksgiving in 2006, when my husband was going through training in Richmond for his job. He would leave on Sunday afternoon and get home Friday night, which meant  I was all alone with my precious baby girl. Here is a picture of our first Christmas as a family, in 2006.

We moved away for a few months when my husband's job transferred, so while he was busy learning the ropes to his new job, Sophie and I bonded even more. I took her shopping for outfits at Petsmart, we walked around the apartment complex 3 or more times a day, and she learned all sorts of new tricks, like running into her cage when I yelled 'To the Batcave!' (Trust me... it was hilarious!) Here is a picture of her in the snow in 2007.

So fast-forward a few months, to the following spring, when my husband was deployed to Iraq/Kuwait.  Sophie truly became my best friend during this time, as she filled the loneliness I had while alone. She started sleeping in the bed with me (a habit my husband couldn't break when he came home) and followed me everywhere I went. She stayed at my feet that entire year. Here is a random picture of us playing in the grass that summer. 

After coming home in 2008, we bought a house and decided that Sophie needed her own best friend. For Christmas, we got her a mate. We brought home Alex, and after Sophie determined that she could still be the alpha, she took to teaching him our daily routines and how to have fun. Here's a picture of them looking slightly embarrassed in matching Snuggies.

In 2010 they had their first litter of puppies on Christmas Eve. They had 2 girls, one a spitting image of Alex, and the other of Sophie. 

They were both great parents, but were happy after 8 weeks when the little pups found their new homes and it was back to being just us. Here they are after a bubble-bath one night.

(Just curious if you think I'm crazy yet, for having so many pictures of my dogs? Trust me, there are many more that I'm not posting! :-/)

Anyway, we had planned on letting her body take a break and not have puppies for a bit longer, but on my last day before summer vacation in 2011, the dogs managed to get together again. Sophie had her second litter of pups the day I went back to work that fall. She had 7 this time, 2 boys and 5 girls. We found all of them good homes by the end of October. 

After another year of freedom to do whatever they wanted, Sophie got pregnant again around Halloween in 2012.

We felt comfortable with her pregnancy this time, as it was her third, and everything seemed to go well. On the day after Christmas, I knew she was getting close to delivery, and she and I snuggled close all day on the couch. Alex took his place at my feet, as was custom, and we thoroughly enjoyed the day. She went into labor that afternoon, and after struggling with pup#2, we took her to the ER vet who delivered the stuck pup. She had the rest of her litter with no problems, and we ended up with 9 beautiful dogs, all but one strikingly black like their father. 

A few days later, on the 29th, Sophie still hadn't recuperated much from her delivery. The first couple days after, she was getting up and moving around, but on Saturday she wouldn't leave her cage. I figured she was still sore from the stuck puppy, and her body wasn't used to the medication she was given for delivery. She wouldn't eat or drink, which had us concerned, so after carrying her outside (in which she just laid there, instead of doing her business) and giving her a warm bath (pretty much me holding her up in the tub) we decided to take her to the vet. We loaded up all the puppies with her in a laundry basket, and made our way to the ER vet's office again. (Of course it would be night when we started getting anxious and our regular vet was closed). Sadly, she died on the way up there. I was so sad, I cried and cried and cried. I couldn't imagine life without my Sophie. Apparently, there were unknown complications from her delivery and suddenly we found ourselves bottle-feeding 8 miniature schnauzer pups every 2 hours, in addition to keeping their body temperatures up, stimulating their undeveloped organs so they could go potty, and pretty much crying for the loss of our beloved pet. Alex was a real trooper during this time, and immediately became my snuggle-bunny. He usually didn't like to cuddle, but I think he was missing Sophie as much as I was. We spent most of the next week laying on the couch together between feedings.

Day after day, it seemed as though we couldn't keep the dogs alive, and they started dying. They would seem fine for one feeding, but then would be dead when we got them for the next. When they were 8 days old, I took the 5 we had left to the vet to ensure that we were doing everything right (we were.) They said that puppies just die sometimes. Later, however, we found out that if a mom is in labor for too long, then she can spread an infection to her puppies. They usually die 2-10 days later. 

We were down to 2 puppies on the following Saturday morning (Jan 5) and my husband was bottle-feeding the pups. He had let Alex go out, like always, and tried calling for him to come back in. Then suddenly, he spotted something in the road. Alex had been hit by a car, and died immediately. We lost our two most precious creatures exactly 1 week from each other. I don't know if Alex missed Sophie's guidance to NOT go in the road (they usually took off toward the barn when they went out) or if a new puppy across the street enticed him to visit, or if God just knew that Alex couldn't handle being here without his mate. I was so mad at him, for going out in the road, for leaving us after we just lost Sophie... but I know he's just a dog, and that's what dogs do. 

So anyway, the next day, our female puppy died, which left us with only one. After a few more days of feeding and coddling, we decided if he survived we would keep him. He's now 4 weeks old and doing really well. We named him Tobias, and are really really hoping he survives this big tragedy. He's now eating every 6 hours or so, which has definitely helped mood and temperament around here (ha!) and can potty on his own. He's even getting used to peeing on a paper towel, instead of the blanket we've got on the table for feedings. We've also begun mixing canned puppy food in his milk so that he can begin to get a taste of dog chow. 

He seems to be a perfect blend of Sophie and Alex, and I hope he grows up to be as loving and sweet as both of his parents. I hate that they're not here to take care of him, teach him doggy things, or even just play, but we are doing the absolute best we can to make sure he grows up as well-adjusted as possible... even though he's being raised by crazy humans instead of sane dogparents!