Monday Made It

I know, I know! I've been MIA...again! This summer has been so weird...the girls and I have been, surprisingly, bored! I know, right? We should be enjoying the time off from school, hangin' at the pool, going to the lake, drawing or painting or crafting something together. Instead, we've been driving each other crazy with "What are we going to do today?"

Well, I finally have something to show for it, so I'm linking up with Tara for Monday Made It!

 I finally got around to my first chalk paint project, but, y'all, I have to tell you, chalk paint ain't all that! You HAVE to look for this newer, way, way better product: Paint Couture and Glaze Couture.

There's NO waxing. Ever. It's easier to use than chalk paint, yet gives the same look, only better. There are about a million combinations between all the paint and glaze colors. A-Maz-Ing! So, this is similar to the cabinet I redid:

My mom gave it to me about ten years ago, but the top piece was broken in several places, so I tossed it when we moved across-country. We've been using the bottom half as an entertainment center ever since, but it was just too dated and too formal for me, so I bit the bullet and painted it peacock and glazed it copper. Easy Peasy and I LOVE it now!

 
Before, my lamps were pretty outdated, and they really didn't match our new bedroom decor at all. I ripped out the beading - very easily by snipping one bead off and then un-threading the rest. Then I copied the pattern from an embroidered pillow from my bed and used a paint pen to lay it out on the newly plain lampshades. Finally, I repainted with acrylic silver metallic paint (it's not shiny, I promise!) until it looked solid and even. I'm fairly happy with the new look:

 

And one for school, which starts in less time than I'd like to think about! I was inspired by the Bright Ideas Blog Hop to get a wireless doorbell from Lowe's. While there, I picked up some paint samples (always, always get paint samples) with little windows in them and thought of two ideas immediately:

Okay, I cheated and wrote on tape, which you can see in my picture, but I want to create these with my kiddos, so I removed the tape after the pictures! Anyway, the idea above is to laminate these for each student. Then we can generate digits with dice, cards, dominoes, etc. and write them in the windows. Then, I thought we could draw the base ten blocks in the space above the windows, and finally, write the number in expanded form at the very top. Of course, we'll use dry erase, so we can use these little babies all year!

Next, I thought of how hard it was for my last class to identify word parts, so I made this vocabulary paint chip. I'm thinking we'll write each word part in the windows, the meaning above that, and the whole word, including any spelling changes, at the very top, or maybe on the back, which is blank, so I can have the kids flip their cards over to check their spelling.

I'm feeling pretty productive today, like maybe my TOTAL creative block is finally broken! Y'all can pray for that, 'cause we're getting a new roof at my school and no one can get in to to any prep work all. summer. long! Holy Moly, Guacamole! I always, always go in super early to get things ready, because our Meet the Teacher Night is the very first day after teachers report for our first day of professional development, and there's NO time to work in our rooms before kids and parents are there expecting to see it all pretty and put together. Yikes!

Hope your summer is going great, lasting long enough, is full of creativity and relaxation and is NOT boring!!!

XOXO,

Brooke