Be Creative

My son Hunter (graciously modeling above) and I wanted to give his 6th grade teacher a nice end-of-year gift that meant something to her, so we made a wordle for her and a "candy bouquet" with a Restaurant.com gift card attached. The wordle featured her best characteristics and interests and we placed the end result in a nice frame that she could hang in her classroom.

The candy bouquet included fun sized Reese's Cups, Kit Kats, Twix Bars, and Snickers.  I attached each fun sized bar to a thin wooden skewer and taped them in place. Then I put a cone-shaped Styrofoam piece into a thick, silver and blue gift wrap sheet and placed the wrapped Styrofoam into a small glass jar. The Styrofoam allowed me to keep the skewers upright in the jar so it looked like a full bouquet. I varied the skewer sizes to they fanned out nicely.  I finished the bouquet with her name painted on the jar so she could use it for treats, supplies, etc in her classroom.
Hunter was so excited to give it to her. Mrs. Craven was surprised and delighted and couldn't wait to place it on her wall.   It turned out so well that I may have to make myself one too! :)

Mrs. Craven and Hunter

Holiday cupcakes for the students (and teachers!)

When I was thinking about what to do for the students for Christmas, I looked online for ideas. I found a cute cupcake idea at Bakerella.com that I tweeked a bit to work for my students.

Luckily, I saw some of these spherical bottles at a local store for a really great price. NPS, which has lots of cheap items (some food is past the expiration date, hence the low costs), had cases of this fruit punch sports drink in the shape of a baseball.

They were about 6 months passed the expiration date but they weren't for drinking so it was perfect. And at only $.33 each, I wasn't going to go broke. :)

I followed the same steps to make the globe and "snow" in it, but I used Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix and Pillsbury whipped vanilla frosting for the snow that the characters "sit" on.





I also knew I didn't have enough time or money to make fondant polar bears for 40 cupcakes so I went to Target and the dollar store for ideas. Lo and behold I saw the perfect thing!

I found a pack of 5 Christmas character ring pops at the dollar store. I bought 9 packs (back-ups or treats for my kids if back-ups aren't needed!) and I was ready to go.

These rings are from two cupcakes that fell at school. I totally forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes while I was making them so I'm using these "causalities" for the post.

They actually turned out pretty well and didn't take a lot of money or time(except the cutting of the bottles; that part was kind of a bummer).

The students thought they were "so awesome" and couldn't believe I made all of those for everyone. I think they are starting to understand how much I care about them! :)

Thanks to one of my fabulous 6th grade teachers (and friend), Mrs. Swingley for modeling with her personal cupcake.

Classroom website is active!

My new class website is up and running and I am VERY excited about it!

I know I am super busy with teaching, working on my Masters, keeping up on my entertainment company, and raising three wonderfully amazing children, but I wanted to make sure my awesome students and their parents can access assignments and announcements easily even when they aren't in school.

I understand the meaning of busy and hope the website will help those busy students to keep up on their work and make them successful.
Stop by and let me know what you think.
http://edutainer.weebly.com/
Happy surfing!