Memory book pages for Zander's preschool

Once again I signed myself up as the coordinator for the memory book...and once again, I procrastinated until the last second. Here's how my pages turned out. I had to reproduce these 18 times!!!

I made the "Teacher and me" page with Stampin up paper punches. (The pot are Sizzix die cuts). For the center of the flowers I used those little jewels you can get to add bling to your cell phone.

This is the cover for the albums. I cut out the owl and the tree free hand and then added googly eyes. The list has all the names from his class.

Preschool Teacher's Going Away Gift

Today I hopped out of my sweats and put on my "real" clothes so I could take my son to preschool. This was my first outing since the surgery... I didn't want to miss his teacher's last day. She just accepted another job teaching at a local Head Start program and will be greatly missed by the preschoolers and moms alike.

Before my surgery I bought this cute background paper by Karen Foster "preschool stripe." Then yesterday I ModgePodged it to a mini tin lunch pail. Inside we put a gift certificate to a local scrap book store she likes. (I hope the teacher that replaces her likes to scrapbook too!!!) LOL!

The inside of the card was made by Zander. He wrote "I will miss you" in his cute 4 year-old handwriting. Then on the hearts I wrote "a teacher takes a hand, opens a mind and touches a heart."


Here is Zander at preschool getting a big hug from his teacher.

Courageous Cub Keeper

At my daughter's elementary school, if you are given a "courageous cub" it means that you have been caught doing something good. It's their positive reinforcement system. They bring their courageous cub in to the office to show the principal and they get to pick out a special pencil. So far this year, Natalie has brought home 3 of them...and well you know I just can't throw them away!!! That would just be wrong. So I decided to create a little book for her to paste them into. Since the school mascot is a tiger cub, I designed the cover to look like a tiger.


The inside is made up of blank pages so she can add her courageous cubs as needed. As I was cutting and pasting the cover, my 4 year old Zander, was watching and asking me all about it. "Will you make one for me too?" he kept asking. I told him this was a special book for his sister, but when is old enough to go to 1st grade, I would make him one too. He really, really wanted to make one, but I didn't have time to sit down with him, so I just cut out an orange head shape and told him he could just draw the rest with his crayons.

With that I went outside to get some yard work done and after a while, Zander came out and showed me this:
It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen (you know the kind of cute only a mom can see!) It took my breath away because all this time I was out in the yard, he was in the house just working away on his tiger, using the left over scraps from my project. I could have cried!!!... I was so proud of him.

Lunchbox Notes

Well, I kind of went MIA this week as my 2 older kids both started back to school on Tuesday...and it's been a little bit of an adjustment. For starters my daughter is gone all day, which means she eats lunch at school. I have been enjoying packing her lunch, but want to try and make it fun for her too (in hopes that she will want to bring her lunch more.) For now, we are allowing her to get school lunches once a week, but it's $1.75 and for the most part she just wants the pizza...not the best choice, but she's 6, right?

So now that she's learning to read I have been sending notes in her lunchbox (see her cute princess lunchbox!!!). This was a great way to use up all those scraps I seem to have. Just can't seem to throw those scraps away because...say it with me: "I could use that someday!" Well, someday was today. Using scraps from my monster scrap bin, I created some little lunchbox notes for the upcoming weeks:

Retired Stampin' Up! "Fairy Nice." The images are water colored and embellished with prima flowers.

Stampin' Up's "Cute as a Bug." I made a bookmark too...for when she is reading a bit more. The leaves on the bookmark were made using the 5 petal flower punch and cutting the petals apart. I also used the scalloped circle punch, which I just love. Sayings inside the cards include "Bugs and Kisses" and "Cute as a Bug."

These were created from Stampin' Up's "Unfrogettable" set. I water colored them and added dazzling diamonds glitter.

These were fun to make, but if you don't have time to create your own notes, you can print some out from the following websites:
Lunchbox Notes 1
Lunchbox Notes 2

Last Day of Preschool

I found this idea from 2 peas several years ago and have been waiting to use it ever since. For some reason I didn't feel compelled to put this all together for Natalie's preschool teachers (although we did give them something else). I just loved Zander's teachers so much this year and knew exactly what I wanted to give them on the last day of school. Here is what the tag says:

You helped me grow from September to June
Our summer begins this afternoon,
When you see your flowers in this little pot,
Think of me and Forget-me-Not.

Although now that I read this again, I am feeling like a dork, cause it's still May, not June...oh, well. It's a cute sentiment anyway!

His teachers both like their gifts.

Here he is receiving his memory book (what a relief to have that completed!) I ended up making the covers too. I'm kind of a control freak sometimes and want to do things myself, but it turned out great. Each mom was responsible for completing 2 pages (for every kid in the class, plus the 2 teachers)...I did 4 pages (three plus the cover...times 12) It was a lot of work, but so worth it.

I'm finally done!!!

Last Friday I ended my scrapbooking marathon and turned in all my pages. Boy was that a huge weight off my shoulders! I am such a last minute person. I could have started months ago, but did I? No, I waited until the week before they were due and spent every waking minute cutting and gluing paper and pictures for my son's preschool memory book. I used up 4 glue sticks in the process. I normally don't use glue sticks for scrapbooking, but my dotto tape refills are about $5 a piece, compared to .88 per glue stick. Anyway, I will be putting the books together on Tuesday. I can't wait to see what all the other moms came up with for their pages. Wish me luck!