Monday Made It (on a Wednesday)

I had big plans to actually be punctual for once on a blogger link up. . .and then the laminator came into my life. That’s right ladies (and gents if there are any reading) I finally bought a laminating machine && it’s the best $30 I’ve ever spent. I’m head over heels in love with this little machine and have yet another reason to love Target (as if I needed another one).

It doesn’t laminate anything huge (sorry no posters), but it has super thick lamination film pockets and it seals perfectly on even my thicker card stock creations. As far as I’m concerned I have found the most perfect creation to ever land in a Target store. It’s been a few days now since I brought my better than sushi laminator home and I’ve managed to laminate almost everything that needs to be done before school starts. It feels good I tell ya!

 My OCD is also partially to blame for my tardiness to yet another party. While I was digging around in my closet for my Slice machine (for my M.M.I. project) I found an unfinished project && those are simply unacceptable to a caffeine pumped teacher in yoga pants (nope, I never made it to the gym). I used to take a lot of pictures of my kids throughout the school year before I got engaged, planned a wedding, got married, and caught a serious case of mush brain. I took all of those pictures and made scrapbooks that my kids could look through during rainy day recess or free time. Somewhere between moving back to first grade from second grade and Bridezilla disease I never finished the scrapbook I started for the 2010-2011 school year. I knew once the school year started I would never think twice about it so after I laminated all I could, I dove head first into finishing this scrapbook. It took me all of 5 minutes to realize why I abandoned the project. 1. It takes forever, 2. There is junk e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e, 3. The tape squares get stuck to furry little dogs, and 4. It’s a pain in the butt to get the tape squares off the furry little dogs.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that junk is everywhere…check out just a fourth of my junk (&& excuse my no make up face). 8 hours later…project complete. It's a ridiculously thick scrapbook...I still have to get expanders to make all of the pages fit inside without it looking like the hot stuffed mess that it is right now, but the hard work is done and for that...I'm relieved.

With my laminator turned off and taking a rest from my abuse && the scrapbook fiasco behind me I could finally focus on my Monday Made It Project. I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Fanatics && all of the other cutesy bloggers out there that have fabulous M.M.I. projects. My classroom has a tropical/beachy theme to it. It's full of tropical colors that I absolutely adore. I love my classroom (I think I've mentioned that before), but there's always something that I want to improve. My alphabet line is one of those things that has done it's job for a few years and is in desperate need of a make over. When I first whipped it up Slice machines weren't a thing that I knew about, Pinterest wasn't around, and my obsession with scrapbook paper hadn't begun yet. Now all 3 things are in my life, it's summer time, and my laminator was crying for more work to do. Right now my alphabet line is a pattern of fish (lime green), sand dollar (white...duh), sea star (yellow) and sea shells (hot pink). They're made from the giant die-cuts that our school has and are a little dated (ok a lot dated). I've wanted to give it a make over since the middle of last school year, but just couldn't put my finger on what I wanted to do (nor did I have the time). I know y'all have seen the cute pennant chains floating around on Pinterest. That was my pinspiration. I sat down and measured out a few patterns (while watching Kathy Lee and Hoda Woman), made a quick trip to Hobby Lobby for scrapbook paper, and started tracing/cutting out the pieces. After all of the pennant pieces were cut out, I hand wrote each letter (upper && lower case) onto a circle pattern that I made on Publisher...and cut them out by hand because they were much bigger than my circular punch. Then I used my Slice machine to cut out a circular background from scrapbook paper for the letter circles to sit on. I glued everything together, laminated it, and viola...my new alphabet line (well part of it).

I'm headed up to the school next week to hang the entire thing up onto the wall, but for now a picture of A-D is the best I can do. My fingers and toes are crossed that it has the look that I've dreamed it to have && that it stays.on.the.walls!!
Now that I've checked in and linked up I've got to tackle my ridiculously daunting to do list...am I the only one out there who spends their summer being their husband's secretary?? I love his guts, but seriously...me in a video game store? I'm sure I'll end up on some poor gamer nerd's blog because I have no clue what I'm doing. Until next time, live...love...and run some errands!