Valentine's Day Crafts

I'm a little sad this year because I don't get to do any Valentine's Day crafts with my students. So, I wanted to share some of favorite crafts that I done throughout the years as a teacher.

Of course, we always decorate shoe boxes for our Valentine mailboxes. I remember doing this as a little kid, so I want my students to get to do it, too! They love exchanging Valentines and taking them home to see all the treasures inside.

This a cute little mouse made out of Hershey kisses. Too cute! This can made with paper ears (instead of felt), a little pom pom nose, googly eyes, and ribbon for the tail. Just glue them together. You can use craft glue or if you are making them to give out you can use hot glue.

A love bug! You can also make a bug that is more of a ladybug with hearts. The ladybug's spots can be black hearts.

An easy bouquet of heart flowers. All you need for this: paper, markers, and pipe cleaners.

The kids love making a heart person. I love seeing how each child's personality shows in their art. For this, the body, eyes, nose, hands, and feet are hearts. The arms and legs are paper folded like an accordion.

Butterfly heart with a lollipop! Too sweet.

This idea is also great for Mother's Day. Plus, it doesn't have to be as elaborate as this. The flower pot can be made from cardboard or construction paper. Or you just make the flowers with the pot.

A simple heart wreath. This is great for cutting practice or for making patterns.

Making flowers out of hearts. Again, it doesn't have to be as elaborate as this picture. I just take these photos and use them for inspiration.

I love this simple flower. It can be used for any spring or summer craft.

Doily butterfly

Flowers with lollipop centers are such a cute idea for a handmade Valentine.

And I just had to include this picture. I think it would be simple to recreate!


*edit* I just figured out where this poster came from! Check it out (and they have a poster about blogging!): Made By Girl

(And I cannot remember where most of these crafts came from. I have had these saved on my computer for awhile. Here are just a few sites that I go to for inspiration: No Time For Flash Cards, Skip To My Lou, DLTK.)

I hope you have a fun time crafting! Happy Valentine's week!

Weekend Checklist

Snuggle with Fi=Done

See Dear John and CRY=Done

Go stalk the Blissdom conference at Opryland Hotel=Done
See Blog Stars=I tried, but only saw bloggers I didn't know. There were people with computers and cameras all over Opryland.

Enjoy one of my favorite places ever (Opryland Hotel)=Done

Get excited about pink and red flowers=Done :)


Aren't these beautiful?!



Dream about having a house that looks like this one day=Done

Love this.



Make Diet Coke Cupcakes (Fat free!) with Betty Crocker's Fluffy White Icing (Fat free!) for our "Superbowl party" (I got the idea from my bloggy friend Shannon.) = Done

Make Pioneer Woman's Restaurant Style Salsa for "Superbowl party" = Done and YUMMMMM

Have a "Superbowl party" (a pretend one, hence the quotation marks, that consists of just us so we can have salsa and cupcakes) and cheer for the New Orleans Saints (even though I don't like football and don't watch, but I LOVE New Orleans and the fleur de lis, so YAY!) = Done


Wish Monday didn't always come so soon = Done

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

Recipes can be found here at Piece of Cake Recipes.

Love These

I want one of these cupcake aprons so badly! Most are from Etsy and there are probably a million more that are just as cute on there. Which is your favorite?

Simple Pleasures

Kelly is sharing simple pleasures that just make life good. Here are a few of my simple pleasures:

an ice cold diet coke in a can

snow days

date nights

new shampoo

new make-up

new toothbrush

cozy pajamas

a good magazine

Gilmore Girls

when one of my students goes out of their way to say hi or give me a hug

snuggling with Fifi

my faux fur throw

the feeling I get after working out

reading a good book

baking

any day off from school

taking pictures

going out to eat

blogging!

What are your simple pleasures?

Ten Random and Boring Things About Me

Tomorrow is another snow day (#5 for the year). So, that means I have too much time on my hands to create boring, pointless posts. But I will, just because I can! :) So here we go, ten boring and random things about me:

1. I am strongly affected by commercials. They can make me feel very sad, happy, mad, emotional, depressed, etc. And I don't mean a sad commercial makes me feel sad. It can be anything. Like there is a Cadillac commercial that makes me feel so emotional. I strongly attach moments in my life to commercials (and music) and it can just be too much for me. And it doesn't have to be a sad moment that the commercial reminds me of. Like if I see a commercial that was on during Christmas time (a happy time), I get sad. I guess just because it's not that time anymore. I know I am crazy, but I am being honest! ha

2. I am obsessed with names. I always have been. When I was little, I made my mom take me to Walmart to get a baby name book that I had seen, so I could decide on the perfect first and middle names for my dolls. I flipped through that book so much, pages started falling out. Then I discovered baby name websites! Whoa! I constantly look at them. I just discovered one that I really love. It's called Nameberry. Oh, and to make you realize the obsession and OCD-ness of me, every night when I go to bed, I go through the alphabet in my head and see which names I like best for each letter. I have tons of girl names I LOVE, but not many boy names. Plus, since I am a teacher a lot of names get "ruined" by students. Just because I associate certain names to my students and can't picture my kid being named that.



3. I can be very sensitive and I hate it. If somebody says something to me that could be remotely un-nice or positive, I replay it in my head all day and think of things that I should/wish I said. I also prepare things in my head that I will say if somebody says something to me about certain situations. I never let on that I am sensitive, except to Trey. :) My motto with dealing with anyone other than family/friends, "Kill them with kindness." I act like everything is great and nothing bothers me. I am the ultimate people pleaser and it is exhausting!

4. I have major form anxiety. As in, filling out forms. It's like I forget everything about myself and I am afraid I will put the wrong thing. When I was applying to college, I asked Trey if I was Caucasian, just to make sure I was right. It's ridiculous. I also have anxiety about things like going to the bank, getting carded, going to get my driver's license, or any place similar to those. I am always afraid they will think that I am lying about who I am or what my age is or just about anything. My anxiety is based on many bad experiences that I have had at these places, so it's not completely ridiculous. However, it bothers me less and less as I get older.




5. I wish I could go back to college and do it all over. I loved it and it was one of the best times of my life, but I would change a couple of things.



6. I love watching food/cooking shows. When I was 2 or 3, I begged to watch the Frugal Gourmet.
7. I was "homeschooled" for eighth grade, went back to public school for ninth and then was "homeschooled" for tenth and eleventh and graduated early. Homeschool is in quotes because it wasn't done at home or by my mom. I went to private tutors. There was a place in Memphis that you could go to for each subject and have one on one lessons. I went there for all subjects, plus I took voice lessons as my music credit. Plus, the homeschool program was under an umbrella school. So, I still had report cards, took the TCAP (standardized test), had to meet at this school occasionally, was Valedictorian out of all the kids at the actual school and the homeschool program, and had a real graduation where I gave the Valedictorian speech. Sometimes I feel embarrassed by this, but I know I learned more than I would have at the public school I used to go to and I got to graduate a year early. Plus, if I hadn't been homeschooled I wouldn't have taken voice lessons, which means I never would have gone on the cruise where I met Trey. Oh, and for the record I had NO problems adjusting to college. I was only homeschooled for such a short time, so it did not affect my social skills in any way. As a teacher now, I have very particular wishes for how my kids will be educated. I want them to go to a Montessori school. It gives them that one-on-one time for lessons, like homeschooling had, plus the materials are developmentally appropriate and I want my kids to have that. If I can't find a Montessori school that I love, I would consider homeschooling them in a Montessori environment, only if I was sure they had plenty of social opportunities. But, one of my future goals is to open and run my own Montessori school, so that would solve all problems! Anyway, homeschooling is such a small part of my educational career. I went to school for preschool-8, 9th grade, and then four years of undergrad and a year and a half for my Masters. So, I shouldn't be embarrassed by it. Some people just act strangely about it, so I usually don't say anything about it.

My high school graduation in 2002.







8. I HATE olives and mustard.





9. I have to have my house like a igloo at night to sleep. The fan MUST be on when I sleep. But I'm usually cold during the day and have a blanket on or the heat.

10. It seems as if every makeup product that I love either gets changed or is deleted from their line as soon as I start to love it and need it! Case in point: Aveda is taking the SPF out of their products. The lady at Aveda told me she wasn't sure if they would still have my color and if they did she didn't know what the makeup will be like. :(

Well, if you made it this far, now you know ten useless, boring facts about moi!

Let it Snow, Let us Shop!

It has been snowing here in Nashville! And I love it because that means SNOW DAYS!

My mom came in town on Wednesday and we've been having non-stop fun! We didn't let the snow and ice slow us down from getting out and shopping!


We have done so much stuff in the past couple of days. It worked out great because Friday was a snow day, so we got a whole extra day to go do stuff.

Here is a little recap mainly for my memory. :)

Wednesday night we went to Opry Mills for dinner at Macaroni Grill and then stocked up on necessities at Kroger. We came home and watched American Idol. I had to work on Thursday, but as soon as I got off we were out! We went to eat at the Chophouse in Franklin. I've never been and it was great! Then we headed to Green Hills Mall and shopped, shopped, shopped. I got makeup, clothes, coats, a picture, and a purse! It was fun. While we were there, I got the message that school was canceled for Friday. Woohoo!

So, we shopped until late and then came home and watched Julie and Julia. I love that movie and I never get sick of it.

Friday, we were out and about again! We shopped and drove around Nashville. We stayed out all day.

This is what it looked like in Nashville around lunch time on Friday. It had only been snowing a couple of hours, but it was quite a bit already!



We drove around trying to find somewhere to eat dinner because a lot of places were closed. We ended up finding Nero's Grill. I am still new to Nashville, so I had never heard of it. We went in and it looked great, so we decided to try it. It was DELICIOUS! We made a good choice. When we went in the parking lot and streets only had slush and a little bit of snow. When we came out, it looked like this! And it was still coming down!



We stopped to get a chocolate glazed donut for the morning at the Donut Den. It was yummy.

See, the streets were getting covered. This was about 6:00 on Friday night.

Downtown Nashville

Our neighborhood. The streets downtown had been salted and plowed, so they didn't show how much had really fallen, but ours did!

At this point, it was still snow. See how Fiona's little feet were sinking in the snow.



My feet were sinking, too.

Look at her back leg. It is completely in the snow. She's looking at me like "Let me go in! It's freezing out here!" haha

We finished the night by watching Twilight (the 1,278th time for me ;) ).

This was what it looked like Saturday morning.

A layer of ice had formed on top of the snow.

You can't even tell there are two steps right there.

The snow is up to the bottom of the fence, which is high. We got about 5 or 6 inches.

Even though the streets were more icy on Saturday, we still went out. We went to The Dog for lunch! My mom had never been, so it was fun to take her. Then we ended up back at Green Hills mall. We shopped some more even though over half of the mall was closed due to the snow. Silly southerners (me included)! It was lots of fun though. We ended the night going to see It's Complicated. I really liked it! I like Meryl Streep and I loved her house and the bakery in the movie. We came back home and watched Bride Wars and Mama Mia on tv.


We seriously had way too much fun! I can't wait to do it again!

(keep your fingers crossed for me that I'll get another snow day on Monday!)

UPDATE*******Monday will be snow day number 4!!! Yay!