I'm super excited to be partnering with Michaels again for the Create2Educate back to school promotion. Let me loose in Michaels, and there's no telling what I'll create! You can check out last year's ideas here. Just like last year, I had a blast cruising the aisles and deciding what to create.

I immediately saw that burlap seems to be the "it" material this year! So I picked up an awesome burlap canvas frame and colored burlap swatches in a Mat Stack. I had an idea rolling around my head to make a birthday display so I headed over to the sticker section to get some glittery letters. On my way there I spied some great chalkboard circles and gorgeous blue silky flowers that are designed to be flip-flop embellishments (but of course I had other ideas...) and the idea became crystal clear.

I used the fantastic KG font A Little Swag as a pattern for the pennant. I cut quite a few of each color so I could play around with the arrangement and I ended up only using one of each swatch from the Mat Pack! I didn't take a picture of this part, but I lined up all the pennant pieces on a string and taped them from the back to temporarily hold them in place.

When I liked the arrangement, I put a dab of E-6000 glue behind each pennant piece to stick it to the burlap. Then I added the sparkly stickers to spell Happy Birthday!

I made a small slit in each corner of the burlap canvas and slipped the flip-flop flower in it and clipped it closed. Then I just stapled the green ribbon across the bottom of the frame and added the clothespin. 

To display students birthdays, I picked up 12 of the black chalkboard circles and some chalk markers. Now each month I'll just change out the circles! The best part is that those chalk markers erase right off with a damp cloth, so I can use them again next year!

Michaels would love to see what you can do to inspire your students this year! It's easy peasy to enter and you could win a $50 gift card!

Happy Crafting, my friends!

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Kids look forward to their birthdays with such excitement and expectation, that we really have to do something special to help them celebrate their special day. I've tried a few different ways to celebrate birthdays, in fact you can see some of them here.

I wanted to do something new this year, so I picked up one of those clear paint cans at Michaels when I was shopping for the Create2Educate Sweepstakes and turned it into a little birthday treat container!

See that little metal doojiggy thing hanging off the handle? DO NOT throw that away! That's how you open the can. I only found this out after standing in the aisle for about 10 minutes wondering how the heck you were supposed to get into this dang can! At one point I convinced myself that maybe you weren't supposed to be able to open it. After I worked up a sweat,  bent and broke a few nails, almost crushed the darn thing and said some not-so-nice words I actually read the tag. And calmly put the pretty little can in my basket and headed for the register. And some aspirin. So learn from my mistakes, people. You're welcome.

The "Let's Party" printable is just printed on regular paper and placed inside the can. I was going to tape it but it just kind of stuck there. There is surely some super cool scientific explanation why it stuck there because of static electricity and plastic particles molecularly attracting to the polymers or something, but I won't get all Sheldon Cooper on you. It stuck by itself. It was cool. Download the printable here if you want it.

I decorated the outside of the can with a strip of fancy rhinestone stickers. How cool are they? They peel right off in one piece and stick wherever you put them. They were a bit too long for the top of the can, so I just snipped the little glue strip right between two rhinestones to cut off the extra. A bow on top to finish it off and some ribbon to attach the all-important opener, and our birthday treat can is complete!

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to put inside. I have birthday brag tags but they might seem kind of lonely in that big can. I was planning on making some birthday coupons, but my to-do list is getting longer than my days left to do it all. If all else fails, I believe a bag of candy will do just fine...

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SunnyDays

Can you even believe that I missed my own baby's birthday? My blog turned one and the day just passed by like any other! How did I let that happen? This little blog of mine brings me such joy and happiness and I let its birthday pass by unnoticed. For shame.

To make up for it, I'm throwing a belated blog birthday party and you are invited! What's a party without favors, right? So I have some fun freebies to share with you. I have been eyeing up those Pixie Stick birthday balloons floating around Pinterest, but something inside of me is saying, "You're going to give your students a ginormous straw filled with sugar...are you INSANE!?!".  Until I resolve that disagreement with myself, I'm going in another direction. Although I've been known to change my mind so who knows what I'll actually do next August when I'm setting up the room again.

I have two alternate ideas, shown in the pic above. One does involve candy - but it feels a little less panic inducing than the jumbo sugar straw. This one is a birthday candy bar.  These would be pretty easy and relatively inexpensive if you buy the candy bars at Sam's or Costco.  You can just cut and wrap them all at the start of the year (and hide them from yourself during that time of the month) and you're ready for any birthday! There is a little poem on the back says A birthday treat is always fun, but it’s not over when the candy’s done!  Bring this wrapper back to class, because it doubles as a homework pass!

Click the pic to grab your copies!

The second one is a pencil flag. Kids love a new pencil, so you can quickly and easily dress one up for your birthday kid! Just cut the flags apart, pinch it in half horizontally and punch a hole to slide a new pencil through. Fun & super cheap easy on the budget.


So, we have a celebration, we have gifts, now we need guests! I'm throwing a little linky party so that you can all share your classroom birthday ideas! I'd love to see how you celebrate birthdays in your room. Feel free to share anything birthday related - birthday bulletin board ideas, parties, freebies (just not a paid product please). You can link up a new post or even a "vintage" post, but either way, please grab the image below and link back here to this page so that everyone knows how to get to the par-tay!

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SunnyDays