Bunnies

It is the Year of the Rabbit, and to celebrate and expose my students to the Chinese Lunar New Year, I thought it would be cute for my preschool classes to draw rabbits. My plan was to create an informative and interactive display with their adorable pictures. Unfortunately, school shut down last week and I missed the opportunity to display their work, but their pictures are too cute not to share.

Through directive drawing, (step-by-step instructions) we drew three bunnies, three different ways - from the front, the back and the profile. This exercise is great for my English language learners because they have to listen to instructions and it also illustrates important vocabulary. Did I mention the exposure to other cultures?

My students drew with markers - A REALLY big deal if you are 5 years old, pasted their papers on to red paper and placed a piece of Japanese paper with rabbits for decoration, ALL BY THEMSELVES!

I am so proud of them! It makes me all warm and fuzzy just looking at them.

Around the House

 Love is in the air!

So is the smell of chocolate chip cookies.

Snow Day #5

Unbelievable. What did I do today? Not much. So, I'm going to post on what I've done in the past few days.

Save It For Later

I started making my Valentines yesterday.

Pretty, pretty paper from here and here. 

Unrelated to Valentine making, but I woke up with this song in my head...

Blue Berry Day

Due to another day of school cancelled due to inclement weather, I finally got around to finishing my blue bag that I started last week.

I love the way it turned out!

The fabric is from an estate sale that I went to a few years ago. I'd been holding on to it for a while and wasn't sure what I was going to do with it. I love it as a bag.

I also really love this big white button and the honeycomb yellow fabric that lines the inside. It's so cheerful!

Sew... now that that's done, I turned my attention to baking and making use of what was in my fridge.

Blueberry Muffins!

I think this was the first time I had made blueberry muffins from scratch. I used a recipe from this book that I got for my birthday. The muffins were good, Jon liked them anyway, but that kind of doesn't count since he'll eat anything. The cinnamon and orange zest gave them a nice flavor. I don't know, I think I just have a super sweet tooth, but I thought they could use something more - like cream cheese icing. Just kidding... sort of. 

Finally around midnight it started snowing. After days of below freezing temperatures it FINALLY started to snow. I love the snow. It's so beautiful. I feel like a kid and never get tired of it. 

Since it was midnight, and no one was watching... 

One life's dream complete.

Happy New Year!

Today is the first day of the Chinese Lunar New Year! It's my year, the year of the Rabbit!

I made this card for some new friends last night:

The envelope is lined with cute little bunny paper from Paper Source. I stamped 2011 from my antique stamp set on the front of a folding card, and on the inside used the Double Happiness stamp from Paper Source. I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out.

We braved the cold and icy streets to go out and celebrate the Lunar New Year last night with some of Jon's colleagues. We didn't eat Chinese food, we ate tapas, because nothing says Happy Chinese New Year like Spanish tapas! It was a nice break from the last days off that we have had due to ice and freezing temperatures. More snow is expected tonight, I am hoping for a final day off tomorrow. I've had so much fun getting things done around the house.

Create

Create is one of my Daily Do's in 2011...

My example for tomorrow's lesson. There will be a substitute. I have jury duty.

Blog is another one of my Daily Do's.

Big & Small

The title refers to my Christmas gifts. Let's start with the first one I opened...

It was small, but beautifully wrapped. I especially liked the cute tag and slip knotted ribbons.

Surprise!

It was a Fun Meal!  A surprise within itself. I discovered these last month and fell hard for Fun Meals!

 You can get them here. I have two so far...

Mexican Night and Drive N' Go.

It's hard not to go out and buy them all at once, but I will wait until pay day. They're only $5, but it's about the surprise inside. 

Next, was a BIG gift! I love the fabric Jon used to wrap my gift - it's so soft and cozy, and it's gingham. 

It was a BIG wrapping job for a BIG gift! 

A BIG SPOON!

A friend and I saw these really large utensils at Pier 1 imports back in November. I loved them, as only I could. I was so surprised that he remembered, and we had fun taking silly pictures with it in front of the Christmas tree. 

My next gift was small, but also wrapped so wonderfully....

A stack of pink felt, held together with thick cotton string.

Jon had built a structure that held a tiny little box, and I had to open a series of felt flaps to get to the box.

This is what was inside...

Sterling silver scissors from here. 

I also got a gingham apron from Jon's mom, a book from my mom that I can't wait to read, and another BIG item from last year's list. Yay!

I've been on a creative kick lately. Lots of paper cutting in the past few days. I am sad, but excited that I go back to work tomorrow. Excited for a new year, but also sad - I want to keep making stuff. Perhaps I can do it all this year.... We'll see.

Happy New Year!

~xoxo

The First

I went to see a movie yesterday,

and ate my black eyed peas.

The last day of 2010...

Started with a mani/pedi...

Oops! Not in a skirt...

It's been a while since I've put color on my toes and finger tips. I wish I could handle some color, but I can't. I prefer to worry and watch other things besides the paint on my nails chip and flake away...
But if I were to choose, I suppose I would choose something dark and sparkly.

I love the idea of the possibilities, so I made a collage about it.

And this next photo belongs in the category of random...

What you have here is a photo of Merlin, who walks a tight rope on Belmont. We went on a bike ride yesterday and ran into Merlin. He invited us to try his tight rope and share a "few" words of wisdom.

I love the randomness of this event. I didn't wake up yesterday thinking, "I will balance on a tight rope today." 

Just another day in the life?