DIY Flower Girl Proposal

One of the reasons I couldn't wait for my baby niece to be born was so I could officially ask her to be our flower girl! I made my own proposal gifts for my bridesmaids, so of course I had to do one for the baby, too. I scrolled through Pinterest over and over, but there were very few ideas for babies and none of them really hit me. Then I started thinking of things babies would actually use, and it came to me... socks! I had seen these sock bouquets around for baby showers, but I thought it would be absolutely perfect to make for a flower girl proposal. The best part? The whole thing cost me less than $20.

Supplies:

• Baby socks (color of your choice, I chose this pack with different shades of pink)
• Popsicle sticks
• Fake flowers
• Tissue paper
• Small vase
• Ribbon
• Scrapbook paper
• Marker

Steps:

1. Make your sock flowers by laying the sock flat, rolling the sock from the toe up, and folding one side of the opening over the rest of the sock. Check out this tutorial for pictures. 
2. Stick the popsicle into the bottom of the sock (like the stem of the flower). 
3. Stuff the vase with tissue paper (this helps the popsicle stocks stay in place).
4. Arrange the sock flowers in the vase.
5. Fill in any empty spots with fake flowers.
6. Design your card on a small piece of scrapbook paper, and tie it on with a bow.

DIY Calming Glitter Jar

I always see cool crafty project for school counselors on Pinterest, but they're usually geared more towards elementary school students. My high schoolers would probably roll their eyes at me if I brought in a fun little board game about managing emotions. Recently, I've come across several tutorials for these calming glitter jars, and I think my students would actually like to use this one!

A lot of times students will come in upset or worked up about something small. Sometimes I don't even really need to talk to them, they just need a few minutes away from everyone and everything to pull themselves together. I'm hoping this glitter jar will help them focus on the here and now, at least for a few minutes. I also like it because it serves as a timer - some students will sit in my office forever when they really need to be in class, so now I can just have them shake up the jar and once it settles, that will be their cue to wrap things up.

I read a bunch of tutorials on how to make these, and I kind of combined them. I ended up sticking to this one the most.

Here's what I used:

• Mason Jar (I got the clear ones from the Target dollar section)
• Clear Glue
• Food Coloring (I used neon blue)
• Glitter (I used three different sizes of glitter to add some visual interest)

Here's what I did:

1. Heat up some water in a pot on the stove. I just warmed mine up a little, not bringing it to boiling.
2. Put a drop of food coloring in the bottom of the jar.
3. Fill the jar up about halfway with the warm water.
4. Add in the glue. You can use however much you want depending on how fast you want your jar to settle. I used a whole bottle, and mine takes about 3 minutes. Use a fork to stir in the glue until dissolved. The warm water helps the glue dissolve smoothly.
5. Now add the glitter! I was going to attempt to measure mine, but I just kept pouring until it looked right. Stir it with the fork to see how it looks and how long it takes to settle, then decide if you want more. I used maybe half of the light blue glitter from the picture above, and a few shakes of each silver.
6. Top it off with more warm water if needed.
7. Put the top on tight. Give it a shake and watch and relax! You can still go back and add more glitter at this point if you want to.

Let me know what you think if you decide to make one!

DIY Chalkboard Cabinet

One of the weird little quirks in our new house was this random cabinet. Don't get me wrong, I would never complain about having extra cabinet space, but this one just looked so out of place since it wasn't really connected to anything else.

I debated removing the door so it was just open shelves, but then I realized I wouldn't be able to hide any clutter. If you know me at all, you know I hate clutter. Inspired by one of my fellow DIY-loving friends, I decided to keep the cabinet in tact and turn the door into a chalkboard!

This project was incredibly easy and cheap, coming in at a grand total of $6.98! I bought this chalkboard wall sticker from Amazon, and it came with colored chalk so that was all I needed.

Sidetone: Anyone else completely obsessed with Amazon Prime? Not sure how my poor, impatient soul ever lived without it.

All I had to do was measure the cabinet, cut the sticker to size, and stick it on! I started at the top and only peeled off a small area of the backing at a time as I worked my way down. This method was surprisingly easy, and I was able to smooth out the very few bubbles that came up as I applied it. The whole process took less than ten minutes to complete; it took me way longer to decorate it!

...and now I'm spending the remainder of my day looking up chalkboard ideas on Pinterest.

P.S. Today marks exactly one year until our wedding! Now that I'm off for the summer, planning is in full force. Sorry, bank account!

Graduation Gift: College Survival Kit

I'm pretty sure gift basket giving is my love language. Instead of one big gift, I love picking up a bunch of little things to go together into a themed basket. With some inspiration from Pinterest, see here and here (are we following each other?), this is what I came up with to give my cousin for her graduation!

First of all, the basket is actually a storage container that she can use in her dorm room. The goodies inside include some tried and true college essentials: a white board, index cards, post-it notes, a water bottle, thumbtacks, pencils, highlighters, a loofah, an air freshener, easy mac and ramen noodles (Jonathan's contribution). I tried to stick with purple and yellow things since she's going to JMU! Also, I found all of these items at either Wal-Mart or Dollar General, and they were almost all under $3 a piece! After arranging everything in the container, I put it in a large clear bag, which I found as a two pack for $1 at Dollar General, and tied it with a bow and a note card with some inspiration.