Monday Made It: End of Year Gifts

My blogging track record definitely isn't what it used to be, but I'm ok with that.  I'm making time to be with family and working hard with the hubby to get the house organized! We've working slowly but surely on getting rid of old stuff that we don't use anymore and better utilizing the space we do have. Here are a couple more photos of small spaces I've been working on.

I do however love me some Monday Made It summer time linky party fun with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics!

So I have to fess up and say that I am guilty of starting tons of "projects" that will be "easy and take very little time" Then I get started and then I realize how in over my head I am.  Refer to last week's post to see what I mean!  This week is no different, but I continue with my "projects" as they are known in my house.

 I've been pretty rotten with student gifts this year and I decided that I wanted to make up for that here at the end of the year.  I saw all of these cute pictures floating around of wordles for each student.

Bright Concepts 4 Teachers

So about 2 weeks ago, I made my little form with each student's name on it and a line next to the name.  We had a discussion as a class about kind adjectives and I let them loose!  Some students were more creative than others. I thought I was doing pretty well starting this project 2 weeks before school got out.

Now here comes the part that no one tells you about... you ready... then you have to compile all of those adjectives for each student!!!  I had to flip through my 25 papers 25 times get all of the adjectives for each student! For those of you doing the math, which of course I did, that 625 page flips! I typed them all into a word document so then I could just copy and paste the set into Tagxedo.com. (love this site, btw) Seriously took way longer than I would have liked!  Then I had to format the word clouds with the right colors, layout, and orientation.  The first one took forever, but it did get a little easier after that!  I saved all the images and then put them in a power point presentation so I could easily move things around.  The only thing is that Tagxedo puts this frame around its clouds that looked silly for my kids, so I had to crop each picture!!!  Talk about biting off more than I can chew! I finally finished them all last night.

Pre-picture added

I really love how the words repeat themselves and they fill the shape. I put their picture in one corner and then 4th grade and the year on the opposite corner.  I'm taking them to be laminated today as I have several students who won't be here through the end of the week.

 My next MMI is very similar in time frame nature.  I bought this awesome coffee table at a local second hand store for $30!  

My plans for this little baby include painting it white, making a seating cushion for it, and adding baskets for storage underneath.  It will no longer be a coffee table, but instead a way cool bench for underneath my family room window.

The painting has been more difficult than I first thought.  I bought the 2 in 1 paint and primer spray paint and it's not going on how I had hoped.  I'm going to go an invest in some chalk paint tomorrow and give that a go!  I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.

So yesterday I decided that I might as well make my cushion!  Here is how it turned out!

I bought the fabric at Hancock's and it was on sale for 40% off!  I love the way it looks and can't wait til the whole thing is finished and put together!

I have several more projects in the works that hopefully will get finished once I get through this last week with kids!

Don't forget to head over to see what other made it's are at Tara's blog!