Staff Christmas Party Gear!

This year, our staff Christmas party had an ugly sweater contest! Those who know me know that I take contests pretty seriously. I have to go all out, even if I lose ... which was the case this year ... because my ugly outfit was too cute. *sigh* I tried.

So instead of just an ugly Christmas sweater, I made an ugly Christmas outfit complete with shoes, a DIY skirt, headband and leggings.

The shoes were messy but oh so fun to paint! I started with red fabric spray paint, like this one from Tulip, and let them dry for a couple of hours. I know the background looks like wood, but it's my handy dandy spray paint box! No sense in throwing away trash bags or risking grass in my shoes when I can have this bad boy at the ready!

Next were the cute but tacky additions. We've been making all the wintery crafts in class, so the amount of googly eyes and jingle bells I have right now is ridiculous. Naturally, they needed to be added to the shoes! And what are some tacky shoes without glitter and tinsel? A dollop of glitter paint for Rudolph's bright red blinker and some tinsel hot glued around the entire opening of these babies and I'm in business!

Now for the skirt. For whatever reason, I just occurred to me this year that a tree skirt and an actual skirt are basically the same thing, right? Right! So that's the route I took! This little tree skirt came from The Dollar Tree, and did not really need much modification. The biggest update was trying to figure out where to put some adhesive velcro to make sure nothing was too high up in the back, leggings or not.

And there you have it! Now, did I remember to take a pictures in my get up, including the Dollar Tree sweater I added an obscene about of tinsel to? No. I think a parent did, so I'll come back and update if I ever find the photo.

Happy crafting!

Rowlett Tornado

Today's post is a bit of a somber one. 2 days ago, December 26, my hometown of Rowlett, TX was hit with a tornado that destroyed (as of now) 148 homes completely and left over 854 homes with some kind of damage. Thankfully, my families houses and neighborhoods were not hit and remain completely undamaged, but there are a lot of families who have lost everything and have been displaced. 

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone! Last week I made some dyed eggs and I've been dye-ing to post the pics! I already think my deviled eggs are the most delicious eggs I've ever had (not that I'm bias or anything), but dying them made them super cute!

Happy Kwanzaa!

I know it's early, but Happy Kwanzaa! This week in class we're talking about Kwanzaa! And to go along with our Kwanzaa unit, I whipped up some kinara and candle clip art that I'm putting up as a freebie in my TpT store!

Happy Hanukkah!

It's almost Hanukkah! Each year when we come back from Thanksgiving break, we spend a week talking about Hanukkah, a week talking about Kwanzaa, and our last week before break talking about Christmas. I like for the kid to learn about some of the other winter holidays people celebrate.

Currently December

Ahhhhhhh!!!!!! December already!?! It seems like this year has shot by so fast! I'm linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy Fourth Grade for this month's Currently Link Up! These are addicting! The good kind ... like coffee ice cream. :)

Pumpkin Pie in a Bag

The week of Thanksgiving is alwasy one of the longest weeks ... even though it's only 2 days long! We spend a lot of time finishing work, playing in centers, playing games and doing little Thanksgiving crafts. The day before Thanksgiving break, about half of our grade level has a Thanksgiving dinner in their classroom. Since I know it's that time of year when money gets tight, we skip the classroom dinner. This year, however, I decided to make pumpkin pie in a bag after seeing it on a couple different blogs. It went over so well with the kiddos!

Homemade Applesauce!

This week in class we are talking about Hanukkah, which starts Sunday. Every year we make latkes in class as we talk about this 8 day long holiday. And every year, I give the kids store bought applesauce to go with our latkes. Well, THIS year, since we have so many apples on our share table that can't leave the building, I decided we should make homemade applesauce! We gathered our apples and the kids help me wash, core and cut the apples before we put them into our crock pot to cook.

Ingredients:

16 apples

2 cups water

1 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Devilicious Eggs

One of the dishes I'm responsible for during the holidays is deviled eggs. I usually make a dozen and a half and that never seems to be enough! The good thing about deviled eggs is they don't take too long and they aren't hard to do. Here's my recipe for my Devilicious Eggs!