Back to School

I just can't get used to summer being over since it's still 110 degrees here in AZ, but since school is back in, I guess it's fallish now. It's kinda ridiculous how early the schools in AZ start, Brian's first week of school was actually last week but he played hooky for our trip to CO. So, anyways, summer or fall, hooky or not, today was Brian's first day of his last year of preschool. I don't want to think about how that means that next year he starts kindergarten, so I won't.

Our boy on his first day of preschool--year 1, 2, and 3

He has changed so much from the sweet little baby face on the left who could barely talk to the attitude-filled, non-stop talking boy on the right. It just goes by too fast. Brian's day went great, he had nothing negative to say except his standard "crafts are boring." Everytime he says that something inside me dies a little. But he liked his teachers and new friends and was excited about a few things like the inside playground (too hot to play outside right now) and getting to move his star with him when he changed play stations (not sure what this was but he was real excited about it)

His teachers each got a little first day of school bribe, er, gift from us. Nothing says "please love my son" like cheesy homemade crap! Our bribe, I mean gift, was a notepad with pen and a cute little apple candle I got on clearance last fall at Kohls.

I found the idea for the notepad on Pinterest. I used a 3.5 by 5 acrylic frame, post-it notes and a pen (all purchased at Frys Marketplace). I personalized the frame with Photoshop using the TomKat Studio's Back to School Collection party circles. And then wrapped it all up with a strip of coordinating fabric, although ribbon or twine or ric-rac would have worked too. The whole thing cost less than $3. His teachers already had thank you notes waiting for me when I picked him up, I think I'm going to like these ladies!

Another idea I saw on Pinterest was a vase made from colored pencils (also seen some made from no.2 pencils) and I knew I needed one for back-to-school home decor. Most of the tutorials I found online just used rubberbands to keep the pencils around the vase but I wanted something more permanent, so enter the hot glue gun and burned fingertips!

You'll need a round vase type object, a tin can will do, an old pasta sauce bottle too, I used a pint canning jar. It just needs to be straight up and down so when you glue the pencils on, they will stand up straight. I found a 50 pack of colored pencils (already sharpened!) on sale at Target for $5. My pint jar was about 10 inches around and I used 38 of the colored pencils.

I started by lining up the pencils in a color order that I liked...

...then glued them one at a time to the jar, applying the hot glue to the pencil, making sure the writing on the pencil was not visable. Do this all the way around and tie a ribbon/twine/ric-rac/whatever around the vase and wah-lah, you have a quick, cheap and cute little fall vase!

A note on Pinterest: It's the best new thing on the internet right now, I describe it as a way to organize the crafty ideas in my brain. You have to be invited to join and I have at least 7 invites left so let me know if you want to organize your crafty brain too!