Some projects from last year.

I've been meaning to post some of the projects that I did last year while we lived in L.A. all year long actually and just never got around to it. While organizing my photos on my computer today I saw these I thought I would put them up. :) Teacher Appreciation Week: I made this tree in the display case with Kendyl at Makenzie's elementary school. Every leaf has a different teacher or staff name on them. We just twisted up butcher paper and stapled it up. Angela got different kids to write thank you notes to the teachers and the PTA and she put them in there. I thought it was a great touch!

Here's a close up. :)

The Winter Luau: This first picture is of the volcano that we made for when you first walk in. I have a 5 light lamp that I put underneath. Then we put chairs around the lamp and covered the chairs and lamp in butcher paper. I taped different lava colored tissues to the top, put a fan underneath so it would be billowing the tissues, and draped orange lights around the volcano to look like lava pouring down.

This was how we decorated the front of the stage area where the dj was. Barb thought this one up! It looked so cool in the dark.

We drapped different colored blues and green crape paper ribbons twisting across the ceiling mixed with white twinkle lights so it would look like the ocean and light up the room. I made big palm trees for the front of the party and made huge 7 foot tiki god totum poles. Really I just drew tiki god faces on 4 foot wide butcher paper, cut out the eyes and mouths, put yellow and orange tissue paper behind it, and shone lights from behind to look like their eyes and mouths were glowing. I also hung these little asian parasols from the ceiling for fun. I hate to admit it, but I had a big stash of these because I found them for a $1.50 each in L.A. I always wanted them when I was a kid so that meant I needed to buy about 40! hahaha. I figure we'll find plenty of uses for them. Right now they are fun decorations in our girl's play room and I use them in my preschool class. :) In all it took way too long to decorate for this dance even with my committee of 10-12 people.

Halloween Dance: This was the entrance into the dance and inside we had a lights all over and a huge spider made from oversized garbage bags dangling from the ceiling. We used 50 feet long black table clothes cut into strips and attached to the spider draping out across the ceiling to the edges of the room to look like his long 8 legs.

Here's a picture of us cutting the rug at the dance. We had so much fun. We sure loved that school!

The Primary Bulletin Board At Church: Seth, Trista, and I made this for the Primary in our Los Angeles Ward. Trista found this great background paper and Seth and I sketched the people (mostly Seth). I outlined them, scanned them, colored them in photoshop, cut them out, laminated, and hung them up on the little brown path I made.

The theme this year is "I Will Follow Him In Faith" and so we pictured a bunch of kids on the path to Christ. :) At the end of the path is a painting of Christ and the Los Angeles Temple. It was so fun to work on. It was nice to not have to tear it down after a few hours like when the school parties were done and to see it every Sunday.

Running the Fall Fundraiser: This definitely took the longest time of any project. I ran the fall fundraiser and it was SUCH a headache I wont even go into details of how much work that was. Let's just say Seth was on 10-12 hour days and we worked about the same amount. :)

The reward was awesome though. Who ever sold at least 20 items won the limo ride lunch to Chuck E. Cheese. We raised over $37,000 total, which was about %40 more than any other year because of this incentive. There were 128 kids that sold over 20 items. One girl sold 144! I couldn't believe it. The kids were crazy! Because of school policy we could only fit 8-9 kids in a limo (depending on chaperones) so we did 16 limo trips! Of course Kenzie sold enough to go too. She picked out her own clothes so she could feel like a movie star. Her teacher kept teasing that she was going to Chuck E. Cheese that day to get married.

Kenzie's Classroom And Enchanted Eve: I spent every Monday playing the guitar for Kenzie's class and throughout a lot of the year I came in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to teach art. I loved these kids! (You can see me in the middle with the red hat on.)

For Enchanted Eve Heather Bradley and I pulled the kids a couple at a time and had them paint butterflies on a mail box and write letters about what they love about school. We put in a cd of Heathers that has the Cleo the Butterfly Song that she wrote and recorded.

Here is their little mailbox. We copied the letters and drawings and bound them and gave to their teacher Ms. Burns. It sold for quite a bit at the auction. It was so fun.

It's wonderful to be able to be involved in your kid's schools and lives. It doesn't have to be something huge. (You don't have to be quite as psycho as I am) :) You can spend an hour a week. Really that isn't much to sacrifice. Even if it's to help organize an event, grade papers in the classroom, serve on a site council, cut out pieces for an art project, be on a decorating committee, whatever. Just ask your child's teacher what you can help with. Let them know when you are available or join a PTA and actually go to the meetings and help in something. :) I know I'm on my soap box here, but I feel it so deeply! If more people were involved than 15 parents out of the whole school wouldn't be doing 100% if the work. I love being apart of my kids lives while they still want me apart of them and heaven knows the schools need us. :)