Monday Made It {Home, Labels & Freebie Style}

Where is this summer going?!?! EEK! I was just checking my summer project list and have a noticed I am a little a lot off track. But, I am completely okay with that. This week got a little wacky since I was in class all week and so when I got home all I wanted to do was hang out with this cutie!

So here are my Monday Made Its that I have linked back up with 4th Grade Frolics!

 

One of my personal goals this summer was to cook a new meal each week. I am happy to report, I did just that on Saturday night and it was delicious!! I bought a pork tenderloin because it was on sale. Let's face it, meat is expensive so I buy what is on sale for the week and make do. I googled a crock pot meal because seriously that is way easier then slaving over the stove all day. I found a fun cooking blog with a delicious recipe. I made a Balsamic Pork Tenderloin with roasted potatoes and a salad. This meal was so good it made it on the list. You know the list that says this was good enough that I would eat it again! Sadly, I did not take a picture but I am just not a food photographer so this picture will do it better justice! This picture is from Add a Pinch and you can grab the recipe while you are there!

My second Monday Made It was for that cute little boy's room. This was a Pinspired project! I was so proud of myself to make the stripes on the background and not just go buy digital paper. (My wallet  husband thanks me.) I have a deep respect for those of that can create digital papers and clip art because I just do not have the patience for that. So these stripes made me super excited. And thank goodness for KG Fonts! I made them as 8x10 prints and now I just have to go shopping to find the perfect frames for
these bad boys! :)

 

According to my calender my classroom library should be organized, labeled and ready for the first day of school. HAHA, yeah that has so not happened. I have sorted through all of my little readers and have those ready to go but I have not even attempted my thematic books for my classroom library.  

I am organizing my library in 4 parts this year. I will have a thematic books, topic books, 100 Book Challenge and have a leveled area (by number). This will be an area for my students to find books that are close to their level. It will hold those little tiny readers that are hard to place in a thematic area. My hope is that it will give my students a small selection of book baskets to choose a "just right" book. They will be able to get 3-5 leveled books, 3-5 100 BC books and 3-5 thematic books to place in their book baskets.  l love for them to have TONS of books in their book baskets for "read to self time." So these number labels are for my leveled library area.  I am in LOVE with the black glittery ribbon I am using to attach these labels! For all of my fabulous followers you can grab this set here for FREE..available in black & white backgrounds!

Make sure you hope over and check out all the other awesome Monday Made It Projects! 

Check out my Monday Made It Projects from this summer here!

 

Monday Made It {Spray Paint Style}

Do you know how hard it is to find Satin Island Splash Spray Paint?! I have been working on these projects for a while but ran out of spray paint and it has taken 2 weeks, 5 stores and a phone call before finding the last bottle and asking them to hold it until the morning. I will be stalking the stores to stock up on this spray paint bottle though because I am sure there will be more projects to be completed and this color is just wayyy to perfect! Without further ado my Monday Made It Projects....

 

I am just in love with these frames from Michaels! I picked them up a while ago and have been completing some various projects around the house and still have several so I knew just what to do! I added my classroom spray paint color and jazzed them up and I am using them to display my classroom rules. I still have a few more frames with a couple ideas in my head of what I am going to do with them. You can read more about my classroom rules and why I am going in this direction here!

 

My next project is Pinterest Inspired and has been on my to-do list for a looooong time. I found these perfect letters at Hobby Lobby 50% off, for a grand total of $4.00 for 4 letters! They are the paper mache letters so extremely lightweight and can hang anywhere! Added my favorite spray paint color and ta-da! Sorry for the shadow and bad lighting but I was so excited to cross this off my list. :)

 

I took my old First Day of Kindergarten Frame (was not feeling the color) jazzed it up with the pretty blue paint and ta-da!! Don't you just love the glittery letters?!

 My last one has nothing to do with spray paint because lets face it, it would be gross. I am in love with these roasted potatoes and they are so easy. We had these for dinner Sunday Night with some grilled chicken and yummy pasta salad. MMMM. Just cut up your red potatoes, toss them in olive oil season with some salt & pepper bake at 350 for about 45 minutes and them ENJOY!!! I told you it is easy and a family favorite!

Don't forget to hop back over to 4th Grade Frolics for the rest of the Monday Made Its!

Deck, Back to School Brochures and Shopping {Monday Made It!}

I am linking back up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made it! This linky party has kicked my rear in high gear. My summer calendar is filled with summer projects to hopefully make it a little easier when I go back in August to set back up and to add some homieness  to our new house!

 

I have been busy this last week with lots of projects around the house and some little mini school projects have been marked off!

Okay so this isn't really a made but more like an assembled. We finally got a patio set for our deck!! I am in LOVE. It has a tile table and 6 comfy chairs. Thank goodness for a handy husband, helpful dad and my mom for helping us to pick it up and assemble it!

 The best part...it was marked way down. Thank goodness for sales!! Now I will have to have my detective eyes working to find a cute umbrella for our table Have you seen any great deals? Let me know!

 

Okay I confess this also isn't really a made it but more like a did it! If you have been following me on Instagram, you have seen many of these pictures and great finds!

 

I found most of these awesome deals at Dollar Tree. Lots of buckets, sight word dice and other great finds! Click here if you would like to read more about each item and where I found it!

 

 

I also found some great steals and perfect items for my classroom at Big Lots. 3 Big Lots stalking trips laterand I think I got it all! 28 magazine buckets, 12 baskets for classroom library and some cute blue storage containers. I think I have finished my organization shopping trips this summer. Is anyone else just do addicted to Back to School shopping? I am pretty sure I enjoy this and school crafts way more than crafty for my house

 

This week I have been working on creating Back To School Brochures. I am so excited about these as an alternative and better way than having lots of papers for papers for them to keep up with. So far I have created a jungle, ocean and owl back to school theme. I still have a few free ones up for grabs and ways to request other designs! Read more here!

 

 

 

 What fun things hav eyou done this week around the house or getting ready for Back to School? Share below!

Monday Made It! FREEBIE ALERT!

I have fallen in love with Monday Made It over at 4th Grade Frolics! It is keeping me on almost on track with my projects this summer. I am trying very hard to spread my projects out over the summer instead of trying to tackle it all the week before school starts!

 

Did  you read my post from Five for Friday and wonder what was in that mystery package?? Well here it is!!

 

First up, you know those (ugly) sentence strips that are hung on walls. I have a love hate relationships with those suckers. They are at the just perfect level for every kid that comes by to rub their shoulders across, crumple paper on the strip and many times rip the work off the wall. I hate stapling work on it for that very reason. The staples just help the hole get even bigger on the student's work and you just have staples on over your border on the strip. I would really love to take that down and have a HUGE bulletin board in its place. But, since that is not possible I have been working on jazzing up some clothespins to add to my sentence strip to hang up student work. My hope is even if it falls off the strip it won't get ripped with the staples and it will add a little jazz to the strip!

 

So I ordered some silver, sparkly washi tape and mini clothespins. I chose the silver washi tape so no matter what color border I have up, it will pop and it will work for every season. I modged podged the wash tape on the clothespin and then hot glued a push pin to the back to make it easy to put on the sentence strip. It was fairly easy..took about an hour...I think I'm liking it...

 

 

 

My Terms of Use page needed some jazzing up so while I was procrastinating on some cleaning I gave it a facelift! The graphics are thanks to A Bird in Hand Designs and the frame is from The 3AM Teacher. Love their work!

 

 

And last, I finally got around to finishing my Kindergarten Journal to monitor growth as a writer for a year. I am so excited about using this resource next year. I still need to print it out and bind it into a book. Each student will have their own book to complete a writing piece each month. This will allow me to monitor progress with their writing and illustrations, be a great tool for RTI and make a great End of Year gift. Wowzers, getting a long of bang for one project!

 

I have always had writing folders and journals that go home at the end of the year but I am excited about having this one book that you can quickly see how the students have grown over each month!

 

To celebrate completing this product, I have made my First Day of Kindergarten Page a FREEBIE! Wahoo! Click here to get The First Day of Kindergarten Page! Would LOVE some feedback! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are some fun projects that you have made this summer? Share below!

How To Tie Dye!

I have linked up with 4th Grade Frolics for this week's Monday Made It! This is my first MIM linky this summer and I am so excited to join in the fun!

 

For Father's Day, I made this super sweet personalized picture for my hubby! I shared in yesterday's post how to make these. If you want to see how I created it, click here!

 

 

Oh my goodness, I just have to share with you these super adorable Tie Dye t-shirts that we made for Field Day. All the parents loved being able to recognize their kiddo out on the field by finding our shirts. We did the bulls eye design in aqua and lime green! In fact, my entire grade level chose different colors and we all wore our tie dye shirts on Field Day. They turned out so cute and were so EASY to make. Plus, every kid got their own shirt and a special little last memory in kindergarten! They are a little time consuming and take some planning but the process is easy.
Now I must confess, I did not take attempt pictures when we completed this project. I was a little preoccupied figuring out the ins and outs. So, I  recreated these at home. I was wanting to test out some new designs anyways so thought I would snap some pictures and share the process with you.

Before you get started!

1. Allow your self 2-3 days to complete your tie dyed t-shirts.
2. Pre- wash you white cotton t-shirts. This is a very important step to help the dye absorb into your shirt.
3. Choose the dye you want to buy. They are many options out on the market. RIT is very popular and so is Tulip. I highly recommend buying the powder. It is cheaper and makes way more dye!

    4.* Squirt bottles. You can buy dye in pre-made squirt bottles but I do not recommend buying these for large projects. You can buy simple squirt bottles at Wal-Mart for $0.99. Buy one for each color of dye and I also suggest buying matching color drinking pitchers to mix your dye in. These are easy to find in the summer months and it makes it easier on you to know what color dye is in each pitcher. (I have created a Tie Dye storage container in my room to keep all of these materials to use each year.)

   5. If you are not using pre-made squirt bottles, you will want to go ahead and mix your dye. Be prepared to use your dye within 45 minutes of mixing. The dye will begin to lose its concentration after that time period. I do not suggest buying the pre-made squirt bottles unless you are doing 1 or 2 shirts. I bought the powder for my class and ONE package was able to dye 25 shirts and 23 bandanas and I still had left over dye in the pitcher! Plus, the powder is cheaper!

  5. You will need lots of rubber bands, rubber gloves and a great attitude! :)

  6.  Prepare a work area. I suggest an outdoor area and placing down garbage bags so the dye doesn't leave stains behind or placing your shirts on a raised metal rack so the dye doesn't blend with other colors.

 

Choose Your Design!

There are many different ways to use your rubber bands to create fun designs. For today's project, I have 3 shirts and will use 3 different designs for you to see the final product. The final product is towards the bottom of this post!

 

1. The Bulls Eye!:

• Pull the shirt up from the center and gather to make a log shape
• Use your rubber bands to bind and make sections

 

 

 

2. The Swirl

• Pinch the shirt in the middle and twist into a flat spiral.
• Bind with your rubber bands into sections.

 

 

3. Stripes

• Pleat the fabric into stripes. Go from shoulder to shoulder.
• Use your bands to create sections.

 

 

 

 

Time to DYE!

For this at home project, I bought the Tulip Tie Dye Kit. I DO NOT recommend buying this product unless you only have 1 or 2 projects to do. I ran out of dye quickly and could not create the patterns that I had hoped to. You will be able to see the designs but the color choice was not what I wanted. :(

 

 

Soak your shirts in water. It is easier for the dye to soak in. If you are pre washing them the same day just skip the drying part. Also, to help with dying you want to be sure your rubber bands are not on to tight. For the skinny small bands, I only tied it twice. It is also important to make sure you get the dye into the folds of the shirt. If you do not do this you will probably have large white areas on your shirt.

Take everything outside. I had a garbage bag for each shirt, my dye and gloves all within reach.

 

 Now the reasons for those bands!! I use those sections to help me plan out my color choices. I dyed each section a different color. You can make patterns or even make it a rainbow shirt!

 

As you can tell on this shirt below, I ran out of dye on the SECOND shirt. If you weren't convinced before...don't buy the tie dye kit!

 

 

After you have dyed your shirts. DON'T FORGET THE BACK!! Let them sit out side for about 30-60 minutes.

 

 

 

After they have sat outside, take your garbage bags or plastic bags and wrap each shirt up individually for about 6 hours. The longer they sit, the darker the color.

 

.

Time to OPEN those bags!!

After they have sat for at least 6 hours (I was really anxious so I took them out right at 6 hours), take your bags to the sink. You will need to rinse each shirt out until the water runs clear. After you rinse out each shirt, wash them in warm water with a little detergent. When the cycle is finished, check your washer for any dye. If there is dye in your washer just run the load again. (Both times I have washed my shirts, I have not had any dye in the washer. I would suggest just making sure you rinse the shirts really well.) And VOILA, your very own tie dye shirts!

THE BULLSEYE EYE

THE SWIRL (This is the shirt where the dye was running out...it is noticeable by the white area but you can the really neat design!)

STRIPES

 

 

I should note that I took these shirts out after 6 hours. I was just a little excited to see the final product. The dye lost a LOT of intensity as I rinsed out the dye. This is why I recommend waiting over night before washing the dye out.

 

 

 

 

Tips for Tie Dying

• Pre-wash all of your shirts. Cotton fabric seems to hold the dye the best.
• Buy the powdered dye. It takes an extra minute to make but is cheaper and give you more dye. I was able to use 1 dye packet of each color for 25 shirts and 23 bandanas and still had left overs!
• Invest in squirt bottles and pitchers to hold your dye. Squirting the dye on the fabric makes it way easier for kids of all ages to participate!
• Dampen your shirt before dying.
• Apply your dye within 45 minutes of mixing.
• Use a sharpie marker to write names inside of the shirt. The dye will not cover it up and you will be able to read after washing. If you want your kids to have the shirts they dye do not forget this tip!
• Do not tie your bands too tight on the shirts and make sure to get dye into all of the folds.
• Place your shirt on a raised wire rack while dying if you do not want your colors to blend.
• Wear GLOVES!
• Have a bag for each shirt after dying to wrap.
• It is best to leave your shirts in the bags over night. The longer it sits, the greater the intensity and less dye will rinse out.
• Be adventurous, try something new. You can't mess up tie dye. Try a new pattern. Just band it up and which way!
• Rinse your shirts until the water run clears.
• Wash your shirts in warm water and check your washer that there is no dye residue. If there is dye in the washer just rewash.
• Wear your shirt with pride!

 

 

This was a lot of fun and it makes me want to try other products and more complex designs! I just might have to add that on my summer to do list! I hope you found these tips and pictures helpful and that you will decide to do this fun projects with your kiddos (yours or your school kids).These are perfect for field day, field trips, 1st day of school activity, summer camps, add it to your summer bucket list and just because!! I can't wait to hear about your tie dying experiences!!



Me and my super awesome assistant in our tie dye t-shirts and bandanas!!