Classy Teacher Retirement Party

Last year my mom retired after teaching elementary for 37 years.  For her retirement party, I wanted to keep it school themed but also wanted it to be bright, colorful, modern, and classy.  Here are a few pictures of the party details!

Welcome to the Party

-I ordered a photo blanket from collage.com with photos of all of my Mom's classes.  It hung for decoration at the party and my mom got to keep it afterwards

-In powerpoint I created a poster using all of the class photos, in order, and typed text over the top. I had it printed in color at Staples for around $20

-We used the book 'The Giving Tree' as a guest book.  Red pens were set out so the ink would be consistent and stand out on the pages.  Instructions to sign the book were printed in chalkboard font and displayed in a frame.

-Instead of a card 'box', I set out a book bag for cards to keep with the school theme.  I chose a plain white bag from Michaels and used my cricut to make the CARDS banner that hung from zipper to zipper

-Flowers displayed in pencil vase and votives in crayon votive holder

-Digital photo frame flashed pictures of all the classes she taught over the years

-A printed photo of her first class was displayed in a frame, labeled using chalkboard font.

Have Something to Eat

-A simple and classy menu for summer: Chicken Salad Croissants, Strawberry Spinach Salad, Lemon Orzo Pasta Salad, and Fruit

-I used Crayola paint samples from Menards to create the food labels and printed the text using crayon font in a coordinating colors

-Chalkboard ABC ribbon tied around jars to hold silverware

-A single large vase of Green Apples popped against my purple tablecloth, and was a fun way to incorporate 'teachers apples'.

Don't Forget Dessert

-The dessert table banner read 'Retirement is Sweet' and was made using a cricut and gluing letters to ribbon

-To create the cupcake toppers, I used an alphabet mold from Michael's to create different colored candy letters using Wilton candy melts in bright colors.  It was time consuming since I only had one mold but easy to do in advance. I spelled 'Congrats Kathy' in cupcakes and displayed on a stand in the center of the dessert table

-I made school bus wrappers for Hershey's Nuggets by designing in powerpoint and printing on yellow paper

-Alphabet cookies from Trader Joe's fit the theme and were great for young guests

And of Course--Wine!

-We set-up a wine station on my Mom's center island so guests would feel welcome to help themselves

-Insulated beverage tubs are great for displaying white whites while keeping them cold, and look stunning for a party

-I have boxes of Libbey wine glasses just for parties. They come in packs of 12 and are easy to store in boxes and transport. I set them out on stacked trays so a lot of glasses can be set out at once without taking too  much room

-Farmers market flowers in pencil vases tied in the teacher theme and added color to the wine station.  

COWgradulations Funny Graduation Card

Last year my cousin Zach graduated from high school.  Since he worked on a dairy farm I wanted to make him a card with cows.  I cut out the cow using my Animal Kingdom Cricut cartridge, added googly eyes and a graduation cap sticker.  I placed tape over the 'Con' on my 'congratulations' stamp, then used stickers to add 'COW' in place on 'Con'.  The background and border was his school colors, but you could use any color card stock.

Painted Countertops: 6 Years Later

We're in the process of remodeling our kitchen and in celebration of the dumpster containing the old cabinets and countertops (shown above) being hauled away this morning, I thought I'd give an up-date on our painted faux granite kitchen countertops.  

It's been almost 6 years since we painted our countertop and many people have e-mailed me inquiring about how the paint job has held-up.  Overall I would say it held-up very well aside from minor scratches that have dulled the shine.  

(keep in mind our countertops are black, so these photos have really been lightened to show the scratches which weren't' that bad in read life).

Ideally we should have put a new seal coat on probably every year which would have helped with the minor scratches. 

There were a few spots where the feet of our small appliances made dents in the paint overtime, as shown here:

In hindsight I'm glad we painted our countertops when we did, as it was inexpensive and allowed us to visually up-date the kitchen until we were ready to remodel and purchase stone countertops.  I would not say it's an alternative to granite, but rather a better option than ugly laminate countertops.  

Organizing with Bankers Boxes

We are very lucky to have a walk-in closet in our guest bedroom, which we've re-named the 'party closet' because it stores all of my party gear.  The space is great except every time I would get something out I found myself having to re-organize the entire closet, which is the last thing I wanted to do on top of cleaning up a party. I decided there was a better way to organize it to make everything more accessible.

Here is a before picture of the closet.  Although it looks really messy and unorganized it really wasn't.  I had actually set everything neatly on shelves.  The issue was that everything was a different size making it hard to neatly line-up and stack.

In order to make everything a consistent size, I used bankers boxes to store all of the random goods. At first it seemed like a waste of space since larger awkward items left a lot of dead space in the box, but everything ended up fitting into the closet better when in boxes, and looked much more organized.

I created labels for the boxes by running card stock through the printer.  Not only does it make it easy to find what I'm looking for, but it no longer looks like a bunch of files stacked in the closet.  Storing our party items this way has also been great for lending out party items since everything is wrapped-up inside and already boxed.

Due to the gained space I was able to move all of my tablecloths from hangers to a spare shelf:

Before                                   After

Valentine's Day Dinner

My family is coming to visit on Valentine's Day, so I thought it would be fun to stay-in and make a Valentine's Day Themed Dinner!  

Here's what I have panned for the menu:

1. Valentine's Day Caprese Salad
2. Heart Salads with Homemade Croutons
3. Valentine Surf & Turf
4. Roasted Heart Potatoes
5. Heart Shaped Carrots
6. Jell-O Strawberry Parfait

Up-dated Craft Storage with Casters

In preparation for changing our 'blonde' floors to 'espresso',  I've been trying to go around the house and change any of our espresso furniture that might blend in by either setting on a light colored rug or swapping out for something lighter.  I really like the espresso shelf I have in my craft room and the storage it provides.  Rather than swapping it out or painting it, I decided to add silver coasters to the bottom to lift it off of the 'soon-to-be-dark' floors.

Here are some before pictures of the shelf sitting directly on the floor:

 

I bought 6 of these casters at Home Depot for $5.48 a piece, so the total cost to up-date was about $35.

 

Hubbs screwed them into the bottom of the shelf for me, and here it is now! It was an easy up-date and added a bit of industrial detail to the shelf.  Best of all, we're ready for the dark floors I've been wanting!

 

Pinterest Fail: Washing Legos in the Washing Machine

A few weeks ago I found a huge bin of legos at Goodwill and I had a 25% off coupon--major score! I thought they would be great to own for when kids visit.  Like most things from Goodwill, I immediately thought about how I would wash all of these tiny interlocking bricks before setting out in my home.  I had seen legos washed in mesh bags many times on Pinterest, so for the $4 mesh bag investment I knew how to easily go about this (or so I thought.....)

In order to get rid of all of the loose junk mixed in with the legos, I picked out each lego individually and put them into the mesh bag.  I put the bag in the washing machine on hot, with bleach.  I peeked in half way through the cycle and the legos were floating!!! They completely ripped through the mesh bag and were loose! I figured it couldn't hurt and left it go. 

After the wash was complete, what was left of the legos in bag were completely tied up around the agitator. I had to cut it loose with a scissors.  After getting that out, there was about 6" of loose legos I had to scoop out by hand and put on beach towels to dry.  Some of the larger legos used as a flat base got cracked in the wash also, but are still ok to use.

When its all said and done, I probably spent 3+ hours of my life cleaning my discount Legos.

DIY Reminder Tag

My husband often forgets his lunch, not because I'm a bad cook but by accident.  Sometimes he leaves it in the fridge but I usually find it sitting on top of the cabinet in the entryway.  I've actually learned to look for it so I can put it back in the fridge.

We were joking about how often he forgets it and that he needs something in his face to remind him. Being crafty, I went into my gift wrap stash and grabbed an inexpensive chalkboard tag I had purchased from Michaels and was saving for gifting a bottle of wine. Using chalk I wrote 'LUNCH' across the tag and the reminder tag was done!

We keep it on a 3M hook inside of the cabinet in the entryway and put it on the door knob after dinner if there are leftovers.  Since the chalk is easy to wash off, we can use this to remind ourselves about anything before leaving the house.

Simple Scrap Cards

 

Sometimes the simplest cards can be the most elegant, so for card making I'm always looking for simple ideas that I can easily mass produce and if I can do it using scraps that's a bonus.  I had found a similar card on Pinterest that I really liked. Instead of reading the directions I eye-balled the size of the design and cut.  Well, it was not the right size so instead I came up with this design to use all of the 'pedals' that I had cut, which turned out even better! 

Here's how I did it:

-Cut colored card stock into 1" squares (4 of color #1, 3 of color #2, and 3 of color #3)

-Using a corner rounding punch, round two opposite corners of each square

-Starting in the upper right hand corner, glue the first pedal of color #1 (the one with 4).  Work your way down and across the paper.

-Stamp a sentiment and that's it!

'Merry Christmas' Breakfast Pastry

This pastry came about when I sent my husband to get groceries to make a Christmas Breakfast Pastry Ring to bring to our friends' annual Christmas brunch.  The pastry ring uses crescent roll dough that comes in triangles which are put together to form a circle for the ring.  He came back with Crescent Seamless Dough Sheets, which is actually really great for most crescent recipes I make but not when the triangles are actually helpful.  

Rather than trying to mess with cutting triangles or a large circle, I decided to change it up to make things easier, got out my cookie cutter set, and the 'Merry Christmas' breakfast pastry was born.

I baked this at a friends' house so I don't have a photo of it baked with the glaze, but it looked even better after baking!

'Merry Christmas' Breakfast Pastry

Pastry:

2 packages refrigerated Crescent Seamless Dough Sheets

1 8oz.  package cream cheese softened

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

1  can  pie filling ( Blueberry used here,  Strawberry is also great)

Glaze:

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 to 3 teaspoons milk

Heat oven to 350 degrees F

For filling, combine cream cheese, icing sugar, egg and vanilla extract.  Unroll one crescent dough onto baking sheet. Spread cream cheese mixture over dough to within 1/2 inch of the edge; top with pie filling. Use cookie cutters to cut 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' letters out of second crescent sheet.  Arrange letters on top of pie filling layer.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.

When cool, mix powdered sugar and milk until smooth to create the glaze: drizzle over pastry.  Cut into slices and serve.