I am often frustrated by craft projects, because they never seem to come out as streamlined and sleek as they are in my head. BUT, I think sewing has given me some renewed vigor to give crafts a chance. I’ve also been inspired a lot by things I find on Pinterest, which is where I found this most recent project! I “repinned” a picture from someone of these adorable people cutouts covered with maps. It was actually a listing on a site called Folksy; you can order the people (with customized maps) for $30 plus shipping and handling. But I thought…I could do that! And this past weekend, that’s exactly what I did.

Here’s what I started with:

• My computer, to enlarge and print the picture of the people. (It came out really pixelated, but that didn't matter for my purposes.)
• A printout of the people shapes from my inspiration picture.
• The maps I planned on using, a Louisiana/Mississippi combo and an Alabama/Georgia combo that I picked up at the thrift store.
• An Exacto self-healing cutting mat, an Exacto knife, and scissors.
• Gel glue designed specifically for paper crafts and a paintbrush to spread it.
• Posterboard, to provide a stiff backing for the map.

First I traced the cutout onto my posterboard. I wanted to incorporate a heart in there somewhere, so I put it in between the people’s held hands. I cut the heart out of a scrap piece of paper I pulled out of the recycling bin.

Then I cut the people out. It was really tough using the Exacto blade around the curves, so I ended up using the scissors some, too. I wasn’t worried about the faint pencil lines left showing because I knew I’d be covering the whole thing with map.

Next I cut out the bits of map I wanted to use for each part. I centered Jackson, Mississippi (where I was born and grew up) near my heart and cut out the girl shape. I put Columbus, Mississippi on my head/brain to show where I went to high school. Unfortunately Birmingham, Alabama, where I went to college, was smack on the back of Atlanta, but I managed to salvage a small piece of it for my foot. Atlanta (where we live now) and its environs cover the heart, and A. (the boy shape, obviously) is covered with Starkville, Mississippi (where he went to college) on his head/brain and Huntsville, Alabama (where he grew up and where we first lived together) on the rest of his body. This part was pretty tedious, and I was terrified that things wouldn’t line up well or wouldn’t cover all the posterboard, but with some concentration it all worked out!

Finally, I squirted some glue gel on each part in turn and spread it into a thin layer with the paintbrush. I did the heart last so that any rogue pieces from either person would simply be covered by it.

Here’s the finished product!

I might think about covering it with some type of shellac or glaze to make it shiny, and I also need to put a heavy book or something on top of it to keep the edges from curling up as it dries. I didn’t buy a frame ahead of time because I wasn’t sure how large it would turn out in the end, but I think an 11x14 will work out well. Whew! I was worried it would need some really non-standard size frame!

I bought some glue dots to attach it to whatever I used as the background in the frame to give them the 3-dimensional feel of the Folksy inspiration, so I guess I need to get a shadowbox. We’ll see how that goes! But I’m very pleased with the results. Perhaps my crafter’s block has been conquered once and for all.

Since today is the first day of the month, the coupons are re-set and new ones are released on all the main internet coupon sites. There are some great ones right now! Here are my favorite sites for printables:

• coupons.com
• smartsource.com
• couponnetwork.com

I also use a site for e-coupons called SavingStar. It associates coupons with your various store loyalty cards (i.e. Kroger, CVS, etc.). You don’t actually see the money come off your bill; instead, it banks your savings in your account, and once you reach $5.00 you can redeem it in the form of several different cards. I’m planning to get Amazon cards and use them toward Kindle books!

I check Southern Savers and Money Saving Mom to find out about store match-ups and printable coupons that might be available through Facebook or individual manufacturers’ websites.

Happy couponing! 

Last week I went “shopping” in my mom’s fabric stash! I came out with some great pieces.

I’m planning to make napkins with the orange fabric on the left (originally a curtain) and a business card holder with the blue and green piece. Hopefully there’s enough of the Mississippi State fabric to eke out a snack bag for A. The white fabric is just muslin, which will be good for testing stitches on my machine and making a sampler if I ever feel like it, and the khaki and white fabric might be really cute as a skirt if I ever get my nerve up to try it. And as for the rest…well, I don’t feel like having fabric you like around can be bad for a beginning sewer!

Anyone remember the song from which I stole the title of this post? Seemed fitting for these musings from my mom on “back to school” (parenthetical comments by yours truly). Read on!

First day of School? Who cares?

For me in Stamford, Connecticut it was the day after Labor Day. School ran from then until a few weeks after Memorial Day, then two months of nothing-to-do vacation. Then it came again, the big day, the first day of school.

This is a monumental day and is preceded by days of preparation. When I was young we went to Miller’s Lilliputian shop to get new clothes and new shoes. What you wore that day seems so important. (I waste precious space in my brain remembering exactly what I wore on many monumental occasions like first days of school…why?) It was a fresh start. It was seeing who was in your class, who wasn’t what teacher you got, was the teacher nice. It meant everything. It was probably usually a disappointment. But it was SO SPECIAL! The school calendar was the real calendar. It consisted of 10 months of school in the middle of which was Christmas and New Year’s Day, and two months of no school. And it all began with THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

When I finally (after nine years of it) finished college, I realized that the first day of school no longer mattered to me. It felt strange not to have that delineator, that way to see the year, be relevant. I entertained the thought of becoming a teacher to keep up that schedule but didn’t care enough about the idea to do it. I just lived with the calendar calendar, from January through December, until darling daughter Laura was five. Then, to my delight, it started again. Only this time it was even better. I don’t think we bought so many school clothes (somehow that job seemed to fall to my dad. We often went on clothes shopping sprees to J. C. Penney at his urging.), but the list of supplies each year was awesome! And way too expensive to my mind. Schools asked for pencils and paper, that was okay. But paper towels? Hand sanitizer? Tissues? There seemed to be so much that was supplied by the parents. Made one realize the dire straits the schools were in. And ask me about graph paper. And new binders. Every year. (Except for the years where you convinced me to stop doodling on them, after which I used the same binders until I graduated from college. So there.)

Laura has finished school and moved away and the first day of school probably doesn’t mean so much to her any more now. But now I have a first day of school all for myself as I am back in college. I remember now (today, August 22 being my first day of school) the nervousness that comes along with the excitement. And today I had good reason to be nervous when what I thought was going to beginning printmaking turned out to be the advanced class. I was in the wrong class! This hadn’t happened to me since I was 5! (That year, the teacher sent me into the bathroom to help a child who had a nose bleed. Imaging sending a five year old to help a five year old! Did I already seem that much older than my years? When we came out, she told me I was in the wrong class and sent me where I was supposed to be. That and tasting raw pumpkin are my only memories of kindergarten.) It turns out that I was supposed to be registered for the advanced class so that I can get graduate credit. But the professor had told me to attend the beginning class and I had forgotten, in the delight of thinking that I had no evening classes. Turns out I have two evening classes a week. Darn.

So the first day of school does matter to me now, but only the first day of the school that I go to. I remain pretty ignorant of everyone else’s school schedule. This year I first heard on August 14th that school would start on the 15th. Suddenly I was well-informed. But, due to a windstorm that had knocked down trees and caused power outages on the 12th, THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL WAS CANCELLED! As was the second day. The most important day of the year: postponed. I heard a teacher say, “We’ve already had two snow days and we haven’t even started yet.” That’s a funny way to start the year.

And I have a big announcement. Today, coinciding nicely with this post, I am starting my new job! So despite not being in college anymore, I’m feeling those first-day-of-school, what-to-wear jitters. I hope I chose my outfit well, because I’m probably wearing it and being oriented RIGHT NOW, AS YOU READ. Though my calendar will be different, today sure feels like the first day of school.

Thanks to my mom, Deborah, for this guest post, and for all the thoughts and memories it inspired. What are your most vivid memories of the first day of school? How does your calendar relate to the school year?

we are the bless’d and a pilgrim people bound for the dreams of God! love our journey and love our homeland; love is the kingdom of God ~Troy Bronsink, adapted from lyrics by M. Haugen