My Monday Made It... Sorta...

I missed last week's Monday Made It because my projects weren't quite done yet.  Fast forward to this week and they're still not done... Our laminator at school is down for the count :( I'm debating if I should hold out until it gets fixed or if I should go to the teacher store and pay to get them laminated. I'm kind of cheap, frugal, fiscally responsible, so I'm thinking about waiting for the school laminator to get fixed. I also worked on a little sewing project for my son and a crochet project for myself. Thanks to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for hosting.

For my Classroom:
The awesome Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade is sharing her schedule cards FOR FREE! My old schedule cards were super boring and definitely needing an update. Here are the new ones:

Academic subjects or classroom activities are mounted on blue card stock. Specials and special activities are mounted on red card stock. I don't know if the kiddos will notice that, but it makes me happy. Once they're laminated, I will put magnets on the back to hang them on the white board. Here's my awesome secret!! Use business card magnets like these instead of the magnet roll! Ugh, I despise the magnet roll!  They never stay on, don't lie flat, and they're too thick. Business card magnets, while more expensive than the magnet roll, are thinner, stronger, and don't come off. You can cut them to size or use it as-is. I have hung up full sheets of heavy poster board with just four business card magnets! Go get yours today!!

My second project is something decorative for my room. I have six windows on the inside of my classroom that overlook a common area we call the Breakout. After seeing lots of pins and posts about pennants, I wanted to make hippo pennants to spice up the windows. Surprise, surprise... they don't sell hippo scrapbook paper. So I just bought a few different patterned papers that I thought went well together and glued some hippo sticky notes I have onto some of the flags. Again, no laminator, so it's not quite done yet, but I'll be sure to share the final product when I hang it up in my room. I plan on tying them together with some light blue ribbon. This project only cost me $4! Sweet!

OK, last thing for the classroom. This is a black side table I bought for $13 at WalMart to put next to my reading chair on the carpet. I plan on putting my teaching supplies on it, so that I don't leave a pile of it on the counter behind the chair. It was cute, but it needed some pizazz, so I bought some argyle duct tape to spruce it up. See below:

I am seriously in love! I carried it around the school to show it off to anyone I could find LOL! Too bad I could only find about four people. But they were all impressed! I just bought another bookshelf that I'm going to put the argyle on, and I'm looking for more places in my room to add it.

For my Littles:
Going back to school for me means going back to school for the Littles. I realized that my son sleeps on a cot every day with no pillow :( So I bought him a travel pillow at WalMart, and he picked out some fabric so I could make him some pillowcases. When I went off to college, my mom (who is a fabulous quilter!) made me themed pillowcases... I had one for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day... she even made me a hippo pillowcase (yes, this hippo obsession is not a phase. Hippos and I go waayyyy back!), so I thought it would be sweet to do the same thing for my son. Here they are!

They seem so simple, don't they? HA! It took me much longer than I had anticipated. Probably because I didn't have a pattern. Don't tell my mom. She's always hassling me about having a pattern, but no no, I don't need no stinkin' pattern... OK, maybe I did. Oh well.

For Me: 
The last thing I did has actually been in the works for months now. I LOVE winter accessories (probably because I'm cold all. of. the. time.), and last fall I was at Gap and fell in love with an infinity scarf. I did not love the price... $35 (remember the above-mentioned "fiscally responsible-ness?" Yeah...). I decided I would make my own. I found these super cute mittens, but there was no matching scarf or hat. So I went to Joann's and found some matching yarn for $4 a skein and started to knit a ribbed scarf. I kept dropping stitches and losing count; I think I might have pulled it out and started over three or four times! I gave up, so the yarn hid in the closet for 8 months until I spotted it last week. This time I decided to crochet it so I wouldn't have to think too hard. I used a basic double crochet stitch, and before I sewed the ends together, I twisted it just like the fancy schmancy Gap scarf. Here's how it turned out:

Yessss!! I have a skein of yarn left, so I think I'll whip up a newsboy hat to match it. Better get it done now before school starts!

Yikes! This was a long post!! Well, I'm off to my classroom. I have a mountain of books waiting to be leveled and sorted...