The Back to School Shirt

Hello Readers. It is "Back-to-School" time in most of the U.S. Do other countries start the school year in late August or early September? I'm not sure.....but I have a fun project for you! This is a great shirt with a school theme. It's perfect for teachers, school kids, homeschoolers, parents really excited about school... and no sewing is required.

 

You need any white cotton t-shirt. The thicker the fabric, the easier this project will be. 

(I learned this the hard way.) You also need a blue and pink fabric markers. Regular markers will not work well for this project.

 

 I put something inside of the shirt in case the marker went through to the back of the shirt. I tried to draw straight horizontal blue lines across the front of the shirt. My shirt was very thin and stretchy. The shirt stretched when I wrote on it. It would have been better if the shirt was not stretchy, it would have been easier to draw my lines. It's OK, it doesn't need to be perfect. This project is supposed to be fun. Don't stress about it. The mistakes are all part of the fun.

 

I drew one pink vertical line on the left. I let the lines dry over night. The next day I searched around for something round and found this bottle. I wanted to make the 3 holes on the left that notebook paper has. I painted the top of the bottle and used it as a giant stamp. 

 

I made 3 big gray dots and let that dry over night too. I kept something inside the shirt so the paint wouldn't go through to the back. Newspaper or cardboard will work for this. 

 

You can wear this shirt to school. Or to shop for school supplies. Or to meet the teacher. Or at home while you homeschool your kids. Or anywhere! 

 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End update-  This shirt was so useful. It was part of a "Rock, Paper, Scissors" costume at Halloween. I wore white jeans with it and my costume was ready.

The Pencil Dress

 Hello Readers. School is starting in the US. Sort of. If you have kids than you know it is a crazy situation right now. Some kids are going to the school building. Some kids are doing school on-line. And from what I hear, a lot of families are going to try homeschooling. I am going to homeschool my 5 year old this year for Kindergarten. I homeschooled my older kids so this isn't a new idea for me. I want it to be fun for my little guy so I have been organizing, decorating, preparing and generally trying to hype him up. That includes school clothes.

I decided to paint pencils all over this dress. It was kind of an old comfy dress. It will be perfect for being comfy at home doing school but also fun. I tried stamping pencil shapes on the dress. I had to paint over them several times to make them bright enough. It would have been easier to do this project on white or a light color.

 

 I added pink eraser shapes to the pencils.

 

 I added pencil leads and another coat of paint.

 

 A touch of gold paint between the pencil and eraser and my pencils were done. I added a little yellow trim to the neck line of the dress for a touch of color. This yellow rick-rack has been sitting in the sewing stash for a long time. Let's use it.

 

 My first day of school outfit was ready. I am wishing all you other parents and students a good school year as well.

 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.  

And have a good day at school.

Kids Chalkboard Top Table

 Hello Readers. I like to make things fun for my kids when I can. Even school and study things. When I came across this decorator table, I thought it could be a fun kids table. Let me show you. 

Fun kids table!

A neighbor of mine was moving out and she left some items for us to to have if we wanted. I saw this decorator table. I know they usually have a long table cloth over them. You usually never see the actual table. But what if I did some decorating and I actually did show the table?

I got out the acrylic paint (Similar here.) I had on hand and started mixing to make enough of a fun shade to paint the table. I wanted a color my youngest child would like. This table is going in the study/school room. Let's make it fun. 

I wanted a slate blue color. This was as close as I could get with the acrylic paint I had on hand. I wanted to paint the lower part of the table with this. I put out some newspapers and got to work.

I had a little helper that helped me paint all these shelves and the outside of the table too. 

 

 I was on hand to supervise and go over all of the paint and make sure it was all evenly covered and smooth. 

 

 I even painted the underside of the table with this slate blue paint. I wanted to cover all the plywood. The plywood wasn't cute or fun. I pained everything and let this paint dry over night. 

 

I wanted to make the top of the table a little different. I used this chalkboard paint (Similar here.) for the top of the table. It was gray but the color wasn't the important part. Any color chalkboard paint would be fine. I wanted my son to be able to write and draw with chalk on top of the table. 

 

My young helper painted the table top with the chalkboard paint. I went over this paint to make sure it covered the table evenly and let it dry overnight again.

 

 The next day the paint was dry and we could draw or...

Write on the top of the table. Summer is here and school is out for a few months but this table is perfect!

This table is great for our study. It is holding our globe next to the little desk. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. 

***Year End Update***-This is a fun kid table. 5 stars. Would recommend.

 

 

 

 

Using Bins to Organize Bookshelves

 Hello Readers. I wanted to make these bookshelves easier to use for my child. I wanted to encourage reading and also encourage keeping the books neat so we could find the books we wanted. Could I make the books organized, neat and easy to grab and read? I could. Let me show you. 

Before and after bookcase 1.

Before and after bookcase 2.

 

The books always seem to end up in piles and it is hard to see what we have. These thin little paper back books are the worst. They never seem to stay stay standing up.
 

I started by removing all the books. I needed to get them all out of the way. It was a great time to sort and remove any books were had outgrown and did not want to keep.

The shelves needed to be dusted. This was the perfect time to really clean the shelves.

I found these bins at Dollar Tree. They are not fancy but this is the book library of a 7 year old so I wanted something easy to clean. I measured my shelf and made sure I bought bins that fit well. I could fit 2-3 bins on each shelf depending how I positioned them. Measuring your shelves before buying bins is the best way to get bins that work for your particular shelves.

Small books could fit in the bins like this. The bin will keep the books from falling over on each other and making a mess. Positioning the books like this lets the child see the covers of the books. They can recognize the book and pull it out.

I could also turn the bins sideways for larger and wider books. I decided to give each bin a theme and write the theme on the bin. These labels will help us stay organized. I just picked general categories and topics. If we had a lot of a certain subject, I put all those books together.

It is easy to flip through the books like files in a filing cabinet. The books do not fall down or get unmanageable. It is easy to take one out and put it back without knocking any other books down.

This bookcase looks so much neater. I didn't use the top shelf because it is so hard for the child to reach all the way up there. 

This bookcase looks a lot better too. It is less cluttered and less chaotic. I am counting that as a win for me. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End Update- This was a good idea for me. It helps us keep track of all the kid books. I use the main character as the guide for where to file the book. Dogs, animals, vehicles, Star Wars, fairy tales,,, that is how we keep track of all the picture books.

The Old World Direction Sign

Hello. Today is a gorgeous day to be outside, but if you have time, I have a"classroom" project for you. It is a direction sign or marker. I saw something similar on Pinterest. (What did we do before Pinterest? Seriously, I can't ever go back.) I wanted this to appear to be from a thousand years ago, but still cute. I also wanted to make note of the places we would read about or "visit" in Literature and History that year in school. 

 I started with some shims I took from the garage. I am not sure why we had these, hubby doesn't do a ton of carpentry work. They are just plain, thin pieces of wood about the size and weight of a ruler. They are not sanded, but the rough look is perfect for this project. (Watch out for splinters!)

Next, I got out all my acrylic paints. Any colors will work, but I used muted slightly faded colors and added water to a couple to fade them out even more.I wanted the sign to look old and weathered. I spread out some newspaper and painted away.

The paint dries very quickly. I used this black paint to write out the names of the places on each piece. It has a very narrow tip, making it easy to write with. I also used a brown Sharpee marker on a few for variety. You can use whatever you have handy.

Here you see writing as it dries. (Zzzzzzz...) This took an hour or so.

This picture came out so much worse than I thought.(Flash? Where are you??) You can see how I attached the wood pieces to a tall stick with 8" lengths of yarn. You could use any twine or string. Just wrap it around the sign and the stick a couple times and tie in a knot. They are uneven and out of balance, that is great for this sign.

Here we are on my front porch. It isn't sturdy enough to take much weather. It wouldn't survive in the garden for long. It was in my homeschool room last year for student inspiration. I'm not sure it did that. I am thinking of painting over the city names and using different national capitals and how far away they are. Paris, Moscow, Berlin ... But you could put grandma's house, 37 miles. Or Disney World, 768 miles. You get the idea.

 I am sure I enjoyed this more than my student did. But it would be great in a classroom. And as always, thanks for reading.