Flying By

October is flying by...and September FLEW by! Good thing blogging is not my day job. I would be fired. Ha! 

September was such a great month, full of fun events. Including...my BIRTHDAY!!! This year I felt especially spoiled. My students greeted me with gifts galore! Starbucks coffee and scone, monogrammed tote, bracelet, necklace, earrings, gift cards...just to name a few. Oh my word...I have the BEST students (and not just because they gave me AWESOME birthday presents). Speaking of my students, every day it is a joy to spend time with them. They make me smile and laugh all. the. time. Love them! 

Here are a few pictures to recap my September. Enjoy!

the BFF

the nugget

This sums us up

Celebrating my birthday with one of my favorite people at SubZero

BEST.SUSHI.EVER.

Birthday Dinner

Relaxing night hanging out with the bests

Add caption

Birthday Treat= I have the BEST room moms!

Present from a student

Cute monogrammed tote from a student

Poor baby got sick from eating acorns

Birthday gifts from students. My desk is under there...somewhere

Winery for my birthday. Tradition.

So...I died my hair.

One more of the nugget. :)

Final picture: THE ULTIMATE BIRTHDAY PRESENT aka Louis Vuitton

So to sum it all up, September was pretty stinkin' great. Felt so spoiled by family, friends, and my students. Everyone of them is such a blessing to me. So thankful and grateful. PS-sorry for the picture overload, but next post will also be jam packed with even more. Get used to it! ;) 

Happy Reading!

Fall into the Weekend

I have a new found appreciation for the weekends since starting my career. Like I've said before, I LOVE my job, but I crave the weekends and sleeping in nonetheless. This weekend in St. Louis was FAB-U-LOUS! It rained (and I mean poured) Friday, but Saturday and Sunday were a perfect way to start fall. It was in the 70s and sunny. My heaven! Fall is my favorite season, so this girl was happy! Here are some pictures to recap my weekend:

Ok, so this was from last weekend, but how great is this view?!

 Saturday I ran errands, which included some shopping at TJ Maxx. I also stopped at Hobby Lobby to pick up some material for a new fall wreath. The night ended at the Clayton Art Fair, one of my favorite St. Louis events, didn't hurt that I got to spend time with my little buddy. ;)

TJ MAXX find

Milly guarding her new bone

Clayton Art Fair

What a nugget

Sunday night dinner, YUM!

This weekend was so fun and ended with a doggie playdate and making dinner. Feeling refreshed and ready for this next week of work. What did you do this weekend?

The Big Reveal

Hey y'all! Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. I sure enjoyed having an extra day off! This past week we had Back to School Night and the 6th graders led chapel, so needless to say the 6th grade teachers really deserved this long weekend (at least we think we did ;) Finally, I have uploaded the picture of my class room and am ready to share:

Before:

 The school I work for is a ministry of a local church and the school part is in the basement. Therefore...no windows. :( so...since I have no natural light coming in I decided to do bright colors and use a polka dot theme. I didn't do a ton of decorating but I am so pleased with how it turned out! 

After:

My desk

View of my desk/file cabinets

One of my bulletin boards that will eventually display student work/projects. Right now it just has a problem solver.

The main door to my classroom

Desks, rules and boards

My favorite part of the classroom: THE LIBRARY! I got cheap pillows and a bathroom rug from WalMart (college section) and then made the hanging flowers from tissue paper. DIY here. I altered mine a bit.

Classroom rules. I found this ADORABLE, FREE printable via Mrs. Heeren's Happenings. Check out her entire blog. It's awsome-sauce!

Name tags that are on the front of the desks

Love the way my classroom turned out, but already thinking of the changes I want to make for next year and things to add so it feels a little more filled and decorated.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I can't believe it has been exactly a month since my last post! Where has the time gone?? 

Well, y'all...I started my big girl job. I am a sixth grade teacher and am LOVING every second of it! Seriously, though. I. Love. My. Job. Like a lot! Ok...enough gushing. I promise to post pictures of my classroom later this week. I'm waiting to finish one more thing before the big reveal! :)

Before school started I wanted to do a few DIY projects. I am by no means "artistic" but I love to craft. I saw a monogram canvas on Pinterest and thought, "I need that!" But when I saw that it cost $40 I thought, "No, I don't..." So since my BFF's mom is a GREAT (and I do mean GREAT) painter, I begged and pleaded for her help. She was so helpful and made me be the perfectionist I usually am, even when I was so annoyed with the project. It took a long time to paint, but I love how it turned out. 

 First I drew a circle on my 12x12 canvas with pencil.

 Then I free-handed my monogram using the circle monogram font. I Googled the circle monogram font and drew it on trace-paper. Cathy helped me go back and make sure that everything was straight and in a perfect circle (Thanks Cathy!)

 Next, I painted the canvas green, except for the circle. That got painted white.

 Using tracing paper I transferred my monogram. Painted it a dark turquoise color. Then, wrote out the bible verse (Psalm 139:14) on trace paper and again transferred it along with tracing on the scallops around the circle.

 I traced the letters of the verse with paint and began on the scallops. I used the end of a small paintbrush to put the dots on the inside of the scallops.

 Here is the final product! Woo!! Love how it turned out! And I actually went back and lightened the turquoise color. It was too dark for my liking. (Please excuse the poor iPhone photos above, the last was taken with Instagram)

The two pics above where the color inspiration for the canvas. Hand towel from Target and the cross was a gift from my sweet friend, Marcy. I also added two blue Mason jars that currently hold my q-tips and cotton balls. It looks a little cluttered and messy, but I have very little space and storage to work with. :) Love how my bathroom feels more complete, it only took a year and a half!

Sorry for the long post. I promise to post pics of my class later this week! 

Have a good week! Oh and one last shout-out to Cathy...Thank you second momma! You're the best! :)