Spring Break

Hi there! My spring break is over and I am trying to prepare myself to get back into a routine this week. I know that waking up tomorrow will be a challenge. 

I enjoyed my spring break though. We took a short trip to Asheville to visit The Biltmore Estate. It was absolutely gorgeous. 

This was my third visit to The Biltmore Estate and I enjoyed it so much more this time. I really enjoyed learning about the history and the family that lived here. They have a bowling alley and a swimming pool in the basement! How cool is that? If you ever get the opportunity to visit you really should. They also have a beautiful conservatory. 

This was one of my favorite flowers there.

Over break I also was able to complete a few crafts. My current favorite is a bulletin board that I covered in fabric to use as an inspirational board.  I will have to share photos of it later. I need some pretty images and inspiring quotes to add to it. Have any suggestions? 

While I am not looking forward to my alarm going off at 5:45 tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to seeing and hugging my sweet second graders! I have missed them so much. 

Hope you have a wonderful Monday!

Inspiration

I am currently working on updating my inspiration board that hangs in my office/craft room. I feel that I have so many different things that help inspire me, that I might need a bigger board. 

I often find myself inspired by beautiful pictures, words/quotes and lovely letters from pen pals. 

Our Spring Break is this week and I am very excited to be able to relax and recharge for the rest of the school year. This break is one I needed to be able to find inspiration for teaching and life over all. 

Where do you go when you need inspiration?

Who Am I?

I know I haven't written anything in a very long time. There has been something on my mind lately, and I just have to get it out somehow. Plus I really do miss the blog community.

My parents raised me to help others when ever I can. My parents are very wonderful people who would do as much as they could to help out a friend, family member or stranger in need. This is something I admire about my parents and hope to one day be as helpful as they are to others.

When I wrote on this blog a lot during college I was always trying to share a simple way that everyone could help make a difference in someone else's life. I feel that once I graduated and started teaching, I somehow lost this desire to "make a difference." Some days I would tell myself "Well, I am teacher, I make a difference every day. Isn't that enough?"  For the longest time, I thought it was enough. Mostly because I was struggling with balancing teaching and the other areas of my life. Now I am able to balance it much better and I feel that I need to do more to help make a difference.

One of the many reasons I wanted to be a teacher was to inspire my students to help others less fortunate than us. Recently I started an account on We Give Books for my students to use in my classroom throughout the school day. I was hoping I could inspire my students to read and help donate books. They are excited,  they beg me to use We Give Books, they really want to help. Several times over the past few weeks, I have said, "Not today" or "We don't have time."
Who have I become that I would say this? Why don't we have time to read one book and help other students around the world?

We have one more quarter left in this school year, and I will make the time for my students to be able to help others through reading. I am hoping that my desire to help others will continue to grow and I will actually do something about it.

How do you help make a difference?

DIY Headband Holder

I love headbands. I love that putting on a cute headband can turn around my entire day. 

Since I love them so much, I of course have an abundant amount hanging around the house. 

I tried to keep them in a drawer but the ones with flowers continued to squished.

I came across this DIY headband holder on Pinterest. 

It was probably one of the first items I ever pinned. 

I never eat oats, so I never had the materials to complete this project until now. I was very excited to find a recipe that used oats (granola bites) so that I could finally create a headband holder! 

Materials I used: 

1 oats container

1 fat quarter of fabric (found it for $1 at AC Moore)

1 candle holder ($5 at Target) 

hot glue 

paint

ribbon tape ( $0.67 clearance at Michael's)

Step 1: Cover your container in your fabric. I used a fat quarter and it was enough for the whole container. 

I had to cut off some at the bottom. I left some fabric at the top and bottom to fold over. Use hot glue to adhere your fabric to the container. 

Step 2: Hot glue the bottom of your container to the candle stick holder. This part was tricky because my candle holder was not a flat surface. After using almost entire hot glue stick it stayed in place. 

Step 3: I used acrylic paint to paint my lid. I think next time I will cover the lid in fabric or matching paper. 

It took forever for the paint to dry and I couldn't quite get my desired result.

I embellished the side of the lid with pink fabric/lace tape I found on clearance at Michael's. 

Step 4:  Add your headbands!! 

I absolutely love to display my headbands now! The best part is all my other hair accessories will fit inside the container. Let me know if you make one, I would love to see your variation! 

Which DIY projects have you completed lately?

Arm Party Swap!

I was so excited when I heard about the Arm Party Swap, so of course I had to sign up. Did you?

My lovely partner, Beth sent me some wonderful arm candy to show off. 

I love the bright colors she used, they definitely make me smile!

They provide the perfect pop of color to a colorless outfit (which I wear a lot). 

I felt extremely blessed to receive her package in the mail. Not only were the bracelets amazing, but Beth included a very sweet card. Who doesn't love opening the mailbox to something special? Thanks Beth! 

I can't wait to wear them to work, I know my students will love them also!

Please head on over to Through the Eyes of the Mrs. to visit the lovely Beth! She is very sweet and has an amazing blog. I am so glad her adorable girls found a bracelet for themselves as well! 

Thanks to much love, illy and Yellow Heart Art for hosting this awesome arm party swap!

Donors Choose

My friend, Ari wrote an amazing post recently about Donors Choose. 

She had been raving on about this amazing website that helps teachers acquire the materials they need for their classroom, and she convinced me to create a project for my classroom. 

I don't share a lot about my classroom, students, and school mainly because I am afraid of giving away too much personal information about my students and school. However my classroom is in desperate need of a Math Library.  I am requesting a math library to help my students apply math concepts to the world outside of the classroom. I have had 3 very generous people in my life already donate to our classroom project. We only need $144 ( if 72 people gave just $2) to complete our project. If you would like to sponsor a teacher and a classroom please consider helping us out. 

You can read all about my project by going here.

Thank you for reading this post! 

Check back next week for a post about our honeymoon (finally, right?)! 

Words We Heart Giveaway

Words We Heart, is another blog that I sometimes contribute to and we are hosting a small giveaway! 

Please head over there to check out the giveaway and enter to win! 

Hope you have a lovely day! 

Crafty!

Since it is summer, I have been working hard to try and complete some of the crafts from my Pinterest board. 

There are so many lovely ideas and only so much time during the school year to complete them. 

Here are a few pictures of my completed crafts. 

Melted Crayon Art - I loved this craft. It was so much fun to complete. I cannot wait to put it up in my classroom. 

Headband - Original idea

This was very easy to complete. I bought a stretchy headband at Target and the flowers I found at Mary Jo's Fabric store for 98 cents. Then I used some hot glue to stick them together. It adds a little something extra to almost any outfit.

 Lace Earring Holder - Original Idea

This is such a pretty way to put my earrings on display. The original site has a great tutorial on how to complete this project. (please forgive the poor quality phone picture).

Ticket Shadow Box - Original

This is probably my favorite craft so far. We absolutely love to go to the movies and after 6 years of going to see movies I had a lot of tickets saved up. I knew that I did not want to throw them away, but was also unsure of what to do with them. Then I saw this idea on Pinterest. While the original is for all types of tickets, ours is focused mainly on movie tickets. I found the shadow box, scrapbook paper, and stickers at Michael's.

The most challenging part of this project was finding a way to make an opening in the top, so we can continue to add movie tickets over the years. Thankfully my father had just the right tool. 

What is your favorite craft you have made or are planning to make?

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! I decided a great way to start the weekend would be by sharing a happy list! 

Here are a few things that have made me happy lately:

1. Adding personal touches to our house is making it feel more like home everyday. 

2. Being able to sleep in past 6 am (so not ready to go back to work). 

3. Having the time to be creative every day. Thanks to Pinterest I have been given a lot of new ideas! 

4. Slowly (I mean very slowly) getting things ready for my classroom this fall. I love the owl theme I decided on. Owls are adorable. :)

5. Spending time with our families. 

What is on your happy list?

Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens

Last week, my mom and I took a trip to the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens to celebrate her birthday! 

Although it was pretty hot and humid out, we really enjoyed exploring the gardens. 

The current theme is a Summer of Color. 

It was so beautiful to see all the different flowers and plants arranged by color. 

I actually took pictures with my camera (not my iPhone). 

Throughout the gardens paint cans were placed so it appeared the colored paint was spilling out onto the flowers. It was very creative. 

There were also many unique flowers and plants that were new to me. 

Other than having beautiful flowers and plants around the gardens, there were also several fountains. 

I am not sure about you, but I find it extremely peaceful and relaxing to listen to the sounds of a water fountain (even if it is 100 degrees out). 

This was probably my favorite, mainly because you could walk under it and cool off! 

This was my favorite view from the day. It was so amazing to see the colorful plants going down both sides of the water fountain. I probably could of stood here most of the day. 

What is your favorite flower/plant?