A super-cheap homeschooling incentive

My son is starting 1st grade this week, and I wanted some kind of incentive to reinforce several things throughout the year.

I didn't want to use candy since my son has inherited my weak teeth and has already had to have several teeth pulled. [Not to mention the fact that he gets plenty of candy from the church people! :) ]

Then I remembered these little plastic trophies I had picked up at Dollar Tree last year because I just knew they had potential for something neat. Here's what I ended up with:



My son thought it was the greatest thing in the world, and he can't wait for the chance to display this trophy on his desk every day.

Just in case you'd like to make one (or more) of your own, let me show you the cheap supplies I used:



I paid $0.25 each for the trophies, since they came (4/pack) from Dollar Tree. The wood blocks are leftovers from some rubber stamps I unmounted. I have about 10 of these blocks lying around, so I was thrilled to find a good use for them. I just painted the block white and hot-glued the trophy to the top.

As for how we'll use the trophy ... The first thing we're going to focus on is being at our school desks on time. My kids are night owls like me (one of the "hazards" of parsonage life with all its company), so it's hard to get him adjusted to a somewhat-normal schedule when we start school. For the first week, every day that he's at his desk on time, he can keep the trophy on his desk for the day. If he's not on time, it will stay on my desk for the day.

So how excited is he about this? Well, he woke up Sunday morning with a start and looked at me wild-eyed. "When does school start?" were the first words out of his mouth. He was so anxious to get that trophy on his desk, he was afraid he had slept in! :)

50th Anniversary Card

A couple from our church is celebrating their 50th anniversary today, and my husband asked me to make a special card for them. I knew I wanted to use gold metallic paper and my Sizzix Heart Locket die, but other than that, I had no idea.

I think I cut 4-5 different heart combinations before I finally hit on this idea, and I really like it.



The decorative paper is actually a notecard I picked up at a thrift store. The notecards are rather small, so this is the perfect use for that gorgeous paper. (This card is a full sheet of paper folded in half.)

I added Stickles to the inside of the heart locket, and I really liked the effect!

Ladybug mini file folder card set

An elderly lady from church gave me some craft punches a few weeks ago, and I wanted to make her a set of notecards. Since she loves ladybugs, I came up with this idea using those cute mini file folders from Dollar Tree (which I trimmed a little bit to fit into standard envelopes):



The inside is just blank, but I traced lines since it's hard for her to write without them. I think she'll like these, especially since they have her name AND ladybugs on them. And I even used one of the border punches she gave me! :)

My friend recently highlighted this packaging idea on her blog, and I loved it! So I decided to use it for this card set. Most people use 6x6" page protectors, but this project had 8 cards and 8 envelopes, so I had to use a larger 8x8" page protector.



See that gingham "button"? It's one of those fake buttons I made. Isn't it cute? :)

What you can make with decorative file folders ...

Have you seen the pretty file folders everyone has been selling lately? I'll admit I never saw much sense in them until a few weeks ago. I mean, really, are you going to spend that much money and then hide them in a file drawer somewhere? Maybe I've missed the point. Perhaps these are supposed to be for those files you keep on your desk.

At any rate, Michaels was clearancing out their $1 section ($0.47 each), so I picked up a pack of the butterfly folders (4/pack) to try a few neat ideas I'd seen lately.

The first project is a shopping organizer. Some people go all out in decorating theirs, but my whole idea was to use a predecorated folder so I didn't have to gussy it up at all. So here is the inside:



I also picked up a magnetic list pad and sticky notes in the same butterfly theme (both $0.47/pack) so that I could make it all match inside. (I'm giving these sets to my Secret Sisters next month.) The idea is that you can hang the magnetic list pad on the fridge and then rip off your list as you're heading out the door and put it in this pocket. If I had it to do over, I'd make one of those coupon pockets into a pocket for receipts.

Here's what the outside looks like when it's all folded up and tied together:



It's a little bit odd-shaped since I had to modify the original directions to fit the list pad I had. But if you're interested in making one, I used the basic directions from this tutorial. (And while you're there, take a look around at her blog. I love her style!)

I still had two folders left and another project to try, so this next one is like a portfolio for one of those mini legal pads:



Here is the outside. It looks like it needs a little something, and I'm still thinking on it. :)

Here is the inside:



One of the things I liked the most about this project is that the legal pad can come out and be replaced when you're done with it. (It just slips into the pocket, and that's what holds it in.) I need to add a Velcro closure to this yet, but I ran out of Velcro, so I'm waiting until I get out to the store again to add it.

I followed the tutorial here, and it's one of the easiest and clearest tutorials I've ever tried. Look around her blog, too, because she has great ideas!!

Frugal homeschooling: make-your-own when possible

I think I've mentioned before that we're using all Abeka materials for homeschooling (except for Bible, for which I'm trying Alpha and Omega since it was just given to me).

If you've ever priced homeschool supplies from the manufacturer, they can be quite pricey. Not only that, but if you teach your child manuscript writing in Abeka K-2, there aren't many instructional visuals available from Abeka for handwriting. (They've been phasing them out the last few years.)

I said all that to say this: I wanted a set of alphabet wall cards that show formation of the manuscript letters the way Abeka teaches them. I searched eBay but couldn't find what I was looking for. Then it hit me: I can make my own!

Here I've used a set from Dollar Tree that I've had for several years now. It used to serve as a sort of border in my son's bedroom. Then we used it last year in homeschooling until he learned his ABCs.



So, what did I do to it? I just used a black permanent marker (ultra fine point) to trace the arrows, made sure they were going in the right direction (Abeka teaches a tiny bit different than these charts), and numbered each step. The arrows were already there in red; I just used contrasting black to trace over them and make them more visible. I also added black dots to indicate where each letter is started, just like in the Abeka handwriting books.

It is very important to make sure you put the arrows going in the right direction. I thought I should stress this because there were several letters that the arrows were going the wrong direction in the original arrow. I just added the arrowhead on the appropriate end, and it worked wonderfully!

And in case you're wondering why I'm adamant about teaching manuscript first, I think it's important that everybody learns to print. After all, there are some documents (like job applications) that require you to print. I learned cursive writing in 3rd grade, and it hasn't hurt me one bit. My handwriting is very legible, and it comes in handy to know both printing and cursive. Just my two cents on the issue ... :)

Make your own buttons for cards!

I recently got a huge stash of buttons from my ever-generous friend, so I don't need any solid-color buttons right now. But I'll admit that I've had my eye on some gingham buttons for my cards. They're so cute, but they're pricey, too!

Well, some ingenious lady over at Splitcoaststampers has a tutorial on her blog for how to make your own with decorative paper. You can check out her tutorial here. I think it's in German, but the pictures are pretty self-explanatory.

You punch out 4-5 shapes in your chosen paper. (You can use a decorative paper for the top layer and plain cardstock for the bottom layers, if you like.) Then you glue them together, with your chosen design on top. Make the button "holes" with a Cropadile or tiny circle punch, "sand" the edges with a pair of scissors, and add Crystal Effects (or other similar product) to the top. Let it dry, and you have a cute decorative button!

I just love blogs and how sharing people are, don't you? Blogs have saved me tons of money!

Window Cards

No, this probably isn't the kind of card you thought of when you saw the title, but I've been wanting to do something like this for awhile now.

I used the free curtain clip art (aka digital stamp) from Leaves of Time. You can find it here at the bottom of the page. The beauty of digital stamps is that you can reverse and resize them if you need to. And that's exactly what I did. I measured the length of the picture I wanted to frame, then resized the curtain accordingly. Since it wouldn't reach the whole way across the picture, I reversed it and printed a second one so I could overlap them as much as I needed.



These images came from one of those page-a-day calendars that I got on clearance earlier this year.



To make the windowsill, I just cut a 3/4" piece of cardstock to fit the window frame, then used my Creative Memories fancy corner rounder at two edges.



A tiny trick to these cards is finding the right kind of background paper. It has to look something like wallpaper, so the design can't be too big.



I really like how these turned out, and they were quite easy!



I almost forgot to tell you how I made the "window panes". I just cut 1/8" strips of cardstock and then glued them onto the main image.

So ... any ideas for sentiments on the inside of these cards? :)

Homemade Flower Pens

I found a tutorial on how to make these about a month ago. They use BIC pens (which I happened to get for free a week or so ago). I thought they would make a cute pairing with the altered notebooks for my guests, so here are the two that I made ...




The sunflower ...





... and the rose.




The only problem I see with these is that the original cap will not fit on the pen when you're done. But they're really cute, and I don't know how much difference that will make anyway. I guess I'll find out!

You can find the tutorial here.

Altered Spiral Notebooks IV

I've made so many of these that I'm going to have to start numbering my posts about them! :) I have some guests (family) coming tonight, and I wanted to whip up a quick gift for each of the girls. So I relied on my altered notebook standby.



I used a calendar picture for this one, as well as my Sizzix Endless Love alphabet and EK Success fleur de lis border punch.



For this one, I used an illustration from a gift book, as well as my Sizzix Endless Love alphabet.

You can find more of my altered notebooks here, here and here. And you can find the directions on how to do them here.

More clothes!

Remember those bags and bags of clothing that were given to us? I've been going through them the last few nights. I think I'm about halfway through, and I have something like two BIG garbage bags full of clothing in my parents' sizes!

One bag I opened yielded about 10 pairs of pants in Dad's size, as well as 3 tops for Mom ... and that's just one bag.

I think I'm getting to the kids' clothing now. I've already put aside several shirts for my son.

When I'm done, I just might post a picture of how much came out of this. I think I have five large garbage bags to donate to my favorite local thrift store. (Those are the clothes that we won't use and the missionaries we send to can't use.) I probably have another five large garbage bags to send to missionaries. I just can't get over how much stuff is there!

Another teen-aged boy gift

Since I teach the youth Sunday school class, I have lots of use for inexpensive, yet pleasing, birthday gifts for young people. As I said before, guys are the hardest! But here's another gift similar to the last one I made for one of my Sunday school teenagers.



Again, I used the bottom of a check box (mine came blank) to make a slider box. The digital image is from Leaves of Time, that new-to-me clip art/digital image site I just posted about last night. The sentiment is from Studio G.

I used my BIC Mark-Its to color the image. Then I used a Stampin Up color spritzer tool ($3 from a yard sale) with a regular blue marker for the sponged sky effect. Then I used cheapo Dollar Tree gold glitter glue to mimic sand. I squeezed a dab onto the image and then rubbed it around with my finger. It was perfect! It gave me the glittery look of sand, as well as the texture.

Here's a little closer look at that:



And here you can see what I filled it with ...



... a half dozen of the best chocolate chip cookies known to mankind. (Yes, they're that good, and no, the recipe isn't original with me. You can find it here. I don't make them mammoth-sized.)

I think he'll like it. :)

A new clip art site!

I just happened to stumble upon a new-to-me clip art/digital image site, and the images are absolutely beautiful, as well as high quality. It's called Leaves of Time.

She offers tons of free images here, and if you love her style as much as I do, you'll find collections for sale here. There are even (free) files to make your own background (digital) paper here!

Let me know if you use any of the images because I'd love to see your ideas. Of course, I'll post any I might come up with, too.

Oh, and if you happen to purchase one of her clip art packages, please let me know how many images are in the set. :) I'm thinking these just might end up on my wish list!

Sympathy card

Okay, I confess. I bought two stamp sets this week. But I stayed within my budget! :) This second one is also a clear Inkadinkado stamp set. The images are absolutely beautiful and perfect for our parsonage family.

This is the first card I've made with the stamps, and I can already see that I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of them! This Bible and flower image can be used for almost any occasion - sympathy, birthday, thinking of you, anniversary ... you get the idea.

So let me share the card with you:



I was inspired by the layout of this card on Splitcoaststampers.

Supplies: stamps (Spiritual Sketches by Inkadinkado, Studio G sentiment and rose image); paper (Provo Craft, American Crafts); ink (BIC Mark-Its, Krylon gold leafing pen, Versamark); dimensionals; EK Success fleur de lis border punch; scallop scissors.

Just a few things to bring to your attention:

• Check out the real gold leafing on the pages of the Bible! I bought the Krylon gold leafing pen for $0.99 at Ollie's a few months ago, and it was perfect for this. It really gives it that authentic look, since almost all Bibles have the gold leafing on the pages.
• You might not notice it, but I used my Versamark pad to stamp two coordinating rose images in the top right and lefthand corners.

I made eight of these to have on hand, since I seem to run out of sympathy cards the fastest around here.

A horse-themed card

Since I had a 50% off coupon this week, I stopped in at Michaels on Monday to see what they had in the line of new clear stamp sets. It was love at first sight with the Inkadinkado horse set, and that's what I bought ($5 + tax). I know tons of people that love horses, and I make cards for all of them!

As I was browsing new cards at Splitcoaststampers last night, I saw this card and thought it would make a nice basis to use as a sketch for one of my horse stamps. So here's my version, with different stamps and accessories.


Supplies: clear stamps (Inkadinkado horses, Studio G sentiment); Sizzix fence die; Making Memories star-shaped eyelets; SU Chocolate Chip ink; paper (American Crafts, Making Memories).

I really like how it turned out!

A quick note ...

Sorry I've been "absent" from the blog most of the week. You might see me here a little less for awhile, simply because I'm quite busy with company for the month. We just had overnight missionary guests, and now I'm getting my menu around for VBS next week. The next week we'll have my husband's sister's family visiting, and the next week my parents and grandmother will be visiting (for my birthday!).

And then, we'll be starting homeschooling (1st grade this year!), which usually requires my undivided attention for a few weeks until we get into a groove.

So, you see, my calendar is quite busy. I'm not complaining, but I thought I should explain why my once-daily blog might be a bit more infrequent for awhile. :)

I've also turned the comments onto "moderated" since I've had some annoying spam comments here and there. I catch most of them, but sometimes they pop up in unexpected places, and I don't catch them for several days. Lest anyone think I sponsor the sites they link to, I've just decided to make it easier on myself. (Not that the sites are obscene. It's just that my blog isn't about free advertising for a company I have no experience with.) So don't panic if your comment isn't posted right away!

Thanks for understanding!