Monday Made It - A little late!

I cannot help but think of my high school literature teacher explaining the adage from Of Mice and Men, that best laid plans often go astray. Well, that would pretty much sum up my attempt to posting Monday Made It. I had the best intentions, great plans, and then "wack," life, reality, and computer woes smacked me in the face. 
Nothing tragic, nothing major, just a reminder that one can only do so much and that trying to do too many things at once will always result in a back fire!  
So I am late to the party. 
I was excited about having something planned out. I was excited about trying something new and being able to share it. I wasn't excited that the kids stood in my way of being able to concentrate and complete my tasks. 
But, then it made me stop and think, was I being fair to them? Afterall I spent a load of time on the computer, telling them, in a  minute. 
My son kindly informed me that my version of a minute is extremely inaccurate, and it really means an hour. He was little right. 
After honestly pausing to think about it, I realized I had to stop and give them the attention they desired otherwise it would be a bigger disaster and all of us would be frustrated. Yes, as I said before, having kids means you learn new lessons all of the time! 
I might be late, but I am still joining the party! 

I have been itching to sew something for myself. I have a complicated project I started and never finished, but did not have the time or attention to finish it. My wheels were spinning and I decided to give a try at something new using some of the fabric I had collecting dust. 
I also really wanted a maxi skirt. I saw this great post on do it yourself Divas, for a maxi skirt with a yoga waistband. Sounded perfect and I had just enough knit fabric to give it a try. 

My lessons learned:

• Not all fabric is equal. The fabric I had on hand was a knit, but was  more of an athletic polyester, does not fit as well as a knit fabric, it is too baggy in the waist. 
• When trying to do a zig-zag on the fabric it kept getting caught in my machine. Making a straight stitch and then adding the zig-zag made it easier and made the seams stronger. 
• Be honest with your measurements. I am not a 28 inch waist girl like the original blogger and need to accept that without feeling bad about myself. 
• Don't give wiggle room in the waist measurement of this skirt with this fabric, it will not fit right. The skirt hangs in a weird way. 
• I either need to give this away or add an elastic band to the waist so I can feel comfortable and not worry about losing my skirt! 
• Maxi skirts may not be for me, even thought I love the way they look on everyone else.
• Don't sew when your kids are full of energy!  

The directions are easy to follow, so if you have some knit fabric on hand or want to try your hand at making your own maxi skirt, give it a try. 

While shopping for notebooks at Wal-Mart last week, I picked up some of the empty boxes on the shelf. They are a perfect fit to hold the notebooks, and I think will make a great place for me to collect my daily writing notebooks from my students. 
They were ugly the way they were, so I added some cute craft paper to make them cuter. 

Notice my photobomber?

All I did was cut the paper to fit the sides, spray some adhesive and voila you have prettier boxes! It took 3 sheets per box so that the patterns lined up. 

The craft paper was only $5 at Wal-Mart for 30 sheets. The papers are really cute. 

I love zucchini and summer is perfect for grilling zucchini. I also love zucchini chips but don't love the extra calories of fried chips. I baked them instead. They were delicious and even my sons enjoyed them, that is a huge feat!
Step 1 - Slice the zucchini and coat in olive oil (I poured some oil in the baking dish and tossed them in that pan - the pan should be greased when you cook them - tossing them in the pan before coating them saves on using extra oil and having a dish to wash.)

Step 2 - Mix bread crumbs, italian herbs, salt, and garlic powder in a bag. 

 Step 3 - Toss the oil coated sliced zucchini in the bread crumbs. Then spread out in a single layer in the baking dish - I stood the extras along the sides and that worked well!

Step 4 - Bake for 15-25 minutes in an oven at 400 degrees. 

My favorite step: Enjoy!

Because I have only 2 weeks left before summer ends, I am in crunch mode. Time to plan out some decor for the classroom. I of course could have planned out units of instructions, but making banners is more fun!
I love banners, but don't love to cut them out, so I was determined to find a way to use my Silhouette to cut them out for me. Is that because I am resourceful or lazy? 

Want the homework banners? Lucky for you I made a whole set and posted them for free on my TPT. 

I plan to use the teal ones in my room but really enjoyed playing around with combinations of digital papers, and made a bunch of different color banners. 

I am not a "pink" girl, but I love the colors in this watermelon set by Collaboration Cuties.  
I converted the teal homework banner to a file using Silhouette. If you have a Silhouette and like the teal homework banner, click here for the link to the file. 
If you prefer the melon and lime banner, click here for the file. 
If you use the Silhouette files, all you have to do is print it from the Silhouette program, then line up your paper on the board and send it to be cut. When I cut it the black borders were sometimes trimmed off, but that was a small price to pay for straight lines! 
I tried to cut out a laminated set, but ones the banner pieces were cut they got caught up under the bar. If you know how some tips for cutting out laminated pages please share. 
If you really like the melon colored set, I made a packet with the same patterns. Check it out here, it is also free. 

I hit some bumps in the road {kids!} trying to finish out a similar teal packet, but that is coming soon. 

I am really hoping to figure out how to get the Silhouette to cut the months out for me. Don't forget to check out Tara's blog for the other awesome links. She made some really cute speech bubbles, that are worth checking out and my friend Alison made some cute flowers! 
Thanks for forgiving me for being tardy! 
Cheers-