Teacher Bulletin Boards with the Cricut and Gypsy

I said a small prayer while I connected my Gypsy to the Cricut because I had tons of stuff to cut for school; in fact, I had 8 12x24 mats worth of stuff!  Just in the first go around!  I have an bug and/or insect theme in my classroom this year, so I had a blast using the Cricut to make cute bulletin boards!  Here are photos of what I did! 

This is on the outside (facing out of my open) classroom door.  It says "Buggy About 1st Grade."  I replaced the letter B's with butterflies and customized their wings to have the circles in the right spots to make it look like B's.  I cut all the letters at 6".  I used my ATG gun to stick them to the window and I LOVE how quick and easy it was!  I think the font is Jubilee.

Above my bookcases is the saying "Buzz Worthy Books."  I think  the font is Opposites Attract.  You see, I was creating and cutting really, really late at night and my mind was a little mushy and I can't remember what I used for sure!  These letters are cut at 6 inches as well.

 I made two cute Create a Critter bumblebees to accent the title.  :)  Love them!

Horrible picture because the lamination is reflecting, but this is my CAFE wall from the Daily 5 book.  If you are a teacher and don't know about Daily 5, go find the book!  It's wonderful! But, do first graders know what a cafe is?  Probably not, so I rearranged it to spell FACE, as in "The FACE of reading."  (Each letter stands for a reading skill:  F-fluency, A-accuracy, C-comprehension, E-expanding vocabulary.  When I teach a strategy for any of these, it is listed under the correct category for the kids to refer to, thus the columns!

Here's part of my library, with the heading and then the empty focus wall.  The items reflecting are the labels for my focus wall.

Whew!  We just adopted Bridges, and here is a picture of the Number Corner for first grade (ie. the calendar).  Luckily I found these small pocket charts at Target to help organize the area!

Lastly, I did "Great Work Spotted!" and hung it up on my windows.  I wish you could see the colors, but the shadow is black and the actual letter is red.  They are cut at 6" and are Gypsy Wanderings font.  I added two Create a Critter ladybugs as well.  I will post kids work underneath on the windows.

Hope you enjoy!

Thankful Thursday Design Team Post--Wall Hanging

Welcome to Thankful Thursday! Here is the current project for the Design Team and I am ultra excited!  The challenge this week was to create a wall hanging!  Here is the project that I made with my daughter Maddie.  We had a blast coordinating colors, cutting with the Cricut and chatting while we made this!

 Here's the completed June calendar in a frame.  This was a wonderful project that will sit up on the dresser in our master bedroom so we can see the major events as they come.  The neat thing is that all I am "out" at the end of the month, is the paper, the rest is reusable.  Plus, I am thinking of putting each one in a scrapbook to show the day to day life of our family at this time in our lives.

First, I had this great Dad paper that has been sitting in my stash for YEARS!  If you follow my blog, you know I am in a major "use-it-up" phase, so I based my entire design on the paper.  The paper says Dad, Daddy, Pops, Papa, etc, diagonally across it.  Unfortunately it wasn't a true 12x12 and I only had 1 sheet, so I never used it.  I decided to use it as my title block background.  I then used an orange patterned paper to go under the "calendar" portion.  I found the Dad paper to be too busy to use behind the dates.  I then cut the orange/dad paper to be 11 1/2 x 11 1/2.  I matted this on a solid blue cardstock and then on another patterned orange paper.  All the orange patterned papers are from a Me and My Big Ideas Value Paper pack.  This helped get the paper back to 12x12 size.    

Next, I used my new (Thanks Mom!) Color Box Cat Eye's (cerulean) to stamp the numbers onto the paper.  I used rubber stamps from All Night Media "Stamp Squares Swirls" to make the numbers.  This was honestly the hardest part because I couldn't see how the grid would lay over it and stamp at the same time.  Finally I made tiny hatch marks in pencil at the left edge and bottom to create a "grid" that I could follow.  Of course, I didn't think of that until I had stamped the top row, so they are slightly off.  As my daughter watched me juggle 10 number stamps, she calmly said, "Mom, just stamp all the 1's in the teens, and then go back and put the one's place in."  That worked much easier than juggling the stamps for each number!  (Great thinking Maddie!)

Then I used some old letter stickers to spell June for the title.  I inked the edges with the same blue ink pad.  I also used my gypsy to create the two other decorations for the top.  The Super Dad is a direct "steal/copy/scraplift" from the Father's Day cart that I don't  own!  I used Indie Art to make the shield and hid the layers and the lions that accompanied it.  I then used Jubilee to write Super Dad.  Whenever I "make" my own cut, I make the whole thing large, link it altogether and weld it and then resize it to the size I actually need.  This is much easier on my eyes and I get less frustrated with the tiny details.  I also cut the ribbon from Locker Talk and used a white gel pen to add little pen marks.  I removed the center and stamped the 1 using the same stamps as above.  I mounted both on white paper and fussy cut them both so they pop a little more from the heading.  

Here's a blurry picture of the blank calendar grid.  It is a clear plastic calendar grid that fits a 12x12 frame so you can put anything you want behind it and reuse it over and over again!  I found this at my local craft store.

I also bought a 12x12 piece of sheet metal to go behind the paper and calendar grid to make the entire thing magnetic.  It is really thin and not heavy at all.

Here is the order of everything getting ready to go in the frame.  The calendar overlay, then the paper, then the sheet metal and that creates a magnetic calendar that fits inside a 12x12 frame.  

Lastly, I used Felt Shapes (Harvest from Fancy Pants Design) to make little magnetic embellishments to move around the calendar as I want.  (These were a steal!  My LSS had a garage sale and the MSRP was $17.00 for 4 12x12 sheets of precut felt pieces and I purchased them for $4.00!)  I used Glue Dots to stick the felt shapes to bar magnets.  They magnetize through the plastic calendar grid, the paper and all the way to the sheet metal behind!  It also adds some cute dimension to the calendar.

We have an awesome prize this month, it's a Post-it prize pack!! Don't forget to head over to Crazy About Cricuthttp://crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com%20and/  and enter your family project!

Also, be sure to check out the other Design Team member's project for some more inspiration!  They are a talented group of ladies!

Jenny @ crazyaboutcricut.blogspot.com

Cheryl @ cardsbycg.blogspot.com

Christel @ onescrappinsista.blogspot.com

Erika @ cricutlove1.blogspot.com

Sharon @ simplysweetbysharon.blogspot.com

Tanya @ www.scrappinkymomma.blogspot.com

Bobbi @ rockgirlcustomdesigns.blogspot.com

Angie@http://sitrestdownplay.blogspot.com

Paula @www.owlbescrappin.com

Jen   http://mccalleyhouse.blogspot.com/  (This is me!!!)

Sandra @ http://sweetpeascards.blogspot.com/

Brynn @ http://www.flaiandfrillscreativity.blogspot.com/

Lola @ http://purplepeepstechniques.blogspot.com/

Ruby @ http://paper-junkie.blogspot.com/

Leah@ http://www.leahscarddesigns.com/